NP - new editions of Gaddis' JR, The Recognitions

[Robert Mahnke]

$19.93 for the 1993 paperback edition, or $12.16 for the 2012
paperback edition, both on Half.com:

http://search.half.ebay.com/The-Recognitions_W0QQmZbooks

On Wed, Jan 25, 2012 at 7:30 AM, Charles Albert <cfalbert at gmail.com> wrote:
> Unless you already have a copy, there's, like, 60 reasons to do so.....I had
> a hard time finding a used copy of Recognitions for less than $75 bucks....
>
> love,
> cfa
>
>
> On Wed, Jan 25, 2012 at 9:44 AM, rich <richard.romeo at gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>> I've been through a few copies myself. no reason not to buy new ones
>>
>> the awesome Steven Moore is editing a collection of selected letters of
>> William Gaddis (which I'm sure you know all about)
>>
>> Gaddis' interview published in the Paris Review is also wonderful reading:
>>
>>
>> http://www.theparisreview.org/interviews/2577/the-art-of-fiction-no-101-william-gaddis
>>
>> "Even though I should have known from The Recognitions that the world was
>> not waiting breathlessly for my message, that it already knew, and was quite
>> happy to live with all these false values, I’d always been intrigued by the
>> charade of the so-called free market, so-called free enterprise system, the
>> stock market conceived of as what was called a “people’s capitalism” where
>> you “owned a part of the company” and so forth. All of which is true; you
>> own shares in a company, so you literally do own part of the assets. But if
>> you own a hundred shares out of six or sixty or six hundred million, you’re
>> not going to influence things very much. Also, the fact that people buy
>> securities—the very word in this context is comic—not because they are
>> excited by the product—often you don’t know what the company makes—but
>> simply for profit: The stock looks good and you buy it. The moment it looks
>> bad you sell it. What had actually happened in the company is not your
>> concern. In many ways I thought . . . the childishness of all this. Because
>> JR himself, which is why he is eleven years old, is motivated only by
>> good-natured greed. JR was, in other words, to be a commentary on this free
>> enterprise system running out of control. Looking around us now with a
>> two-trillion-dollar federal deficit and billions of private debt and the
>> banks, the farms, basic industry all in serious trouble, it seems to have
>> been rather prophetic."
>>
>> he said this in 1986. how ever so true it is even today.
>>
>> and more on fire the bastards:
>> http://www.theparisreview.org/blog/2012/01/24/mistaken-identity/
>>
>> rich
>>
>>
>> On Wed, Jan 25, 2012 at 8:10 AM, <rbollinger at austin.rr.com> wrote:
>>>
>>>
>>> Got an e-mail on this the other day - per Amazon it releases February 7:
>>>
>>>
>>> http://www.amazon.com/J-R-William-Gaddis/dp/1564784339/ref=ntt_at_ep_dpt_2
>>>
>>> J R
>>>
>>> A great masterpiece by William Gaddis, with a new introduction by Rick
>>> Moody.
>>>
>>> "Winner of the 1976 National Book Award, J R is a biting satire about the
>>> many ways in which capitalism twists the American spirit into something
>>> dangerous, yet pervasive and unassailable. At the center of the novel is a
>>> hilarious eleven year old—J R—who with boyish enthusiasm turns a few basic
>>> lessons in capitalist principles, coupled with a young boy’s lack of
>>> conscience, into a massive and exploitative paper empire. The result is one
>>> of the funniest and most disturbing stories ever told about the corruption
>>> of the American Dream"
>>>
>>> Also saw a new edition of The Recognitions in my local indie store last
>>> Saturday night, although Amazon says it doesn't release until February 20
>>> ....
>>>
>>>
>>> Rob Bollinger
>>> "I don't live in Texas - I live in Austin" - Molly Ivins
>>
>>
>