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William Gaddis A Frolic of His Own

Award: National Book Award for Fiction

Born in 1922, Gaddis is an American novelist.

For further information on his life and works, see CLC, Volumes 1, 3, 6, 8, 10, 19, and 43.

INTRODUCTION

Emphasizing litigiousness and greed as characteristics of contemporary American society, A Frolic of His Own (1994) focuses on Oliver Crease, his family, his friends, and the various lawsuits in which they are all enmeshed. Employing elements of humor and farce, Gaddis exhaustively details the absurdities of his characters' suits and subsequent countersuits. For example, Oliver is plaintiff in a plagiarism case he has brought against Constantine Kiester, a top Hollywood producer whose real name is Jonathan Livingston Siegal. Oliver is also, paradoxically, plaintiff and defendant in a suit concerning a hit-and-run accident in which he was hit by his own car—a Sosumi ("so sue me"). Taking its title from a British legal phrase used to describe an employee's actions which, though they resulted in on-the-job injuries, do not entitle the employee to compensation, A Frolic of His Own is largely noted for its satire of justice and law in contemporary American society and for its unusual narrative structure. Except for the inclusion of excerpts from Oliver's writings, legal documents, and trial transcripts, the novel is told primarily through dialogue that is unattributed and only lightly punctuated. Critics have praised Gaddis's realistic depiction of everyday speech—complete with pauses, interruptions, and unfinished thoughts—and stressed the difficulty such a narrative technique, reminiscent of stream-of-consciousness writing, places on readers. Steven Moore observed: "A Frolic of His Own is both cutting-edge, state-of-the-art fiction and a throwback to the great moral novels of Tolstoy and Dickens. That it can be both is just one of the many balancing acts it performs: It is bleak and pessimistic while howlingly funny; it is a deeply serious exploration of such lofty themes as justice and morality but is paced like a screwball comedy; it is avant-garde in its fictional techniques but traditional in conception and in the reading pleasures it offers; it is a damning indictment of the United States, Christianity and the legal system, but also a playful frolic of Gaddis's own."

1. Introduction
2. Principal Works
3. Criticism
   1. Michiko Kakutani (review date 4 January 1994)
   2. Robert Towers (review date 9 January 1994)
   3. Malcolm Jones, Jr. (review date 17 January 1994)
   4. Mark Kamine (review date 17-31 January 1994)
   5. Michael Dirda (review date 23 January 1994)
   6. Sven Birkerts (review date 7 February 1994)
   7. Jonathan Raban (review date 17 February 1994)
   8. Gary Amdahl (review date Spring 1994)
   9. Steven Moore (review date 25 April 1994)
   10. Michael Wood (review date 12 May 1994)
   11. Zachary Leader (review date 3 June 1994)
4. Further Reading
5. Copyright