One of the greatest novels of the second part of the 20th. Century is "J.R." by William Gaddis. Gaddis is somehow a tragic figure. He is probably one of the greatest American Authors - at least his colleagues think so, but he never got the wide public attention he deserved. J.R. is a masterpiece, a piece of fiction as much as a piece of art. The novel is written in dialogue only (except for some short sentences that glue some geographical shifting). But you will not get your usual: "He said-she said"-stuff. Actually you will not get any names at all unless they are spoken in the dialogue. All you read is all you would hear: the different voices. At first it is hard to follow who is talking (although, you get hints and understand through the context) but after a couple of pages (maybe up to 50 at worst) you begin to 'dig' how the book works and you want to start all over again and enjoy the ride. And what a ride it is! People are constantly talking at each other, over each other, interrupting each other. You start paying attention to the different rhythms, idiosyncrasies, talking habits,etc... - those voices easily let you imagine the person behind it, what makes this novel so great. Reading this book is the closest way of how to listen to a musical piece, like reading musical notes instead of english language prose. The novel has three main characters: There is a young man, composer, who wants to write his major work, but gets stuck, is shy, and has permanently to deal with things and people he would rather avoid if he only could. Then there is a writer working as a school-teacher, a man in his 40's, instead of writing his next book, he is stuck in his life and became a sad, exhausted person. He teaches the class Thermodynamics/Entropy and while he tries to tell them what this energy-losing, black-hole-like cosmos is all about the chalk breaks, the words stuck, the world leaks, turning all things into a mass...- somehow one major 'theme' of the book. And then there is J.R., a little schoolboy, who is the misfit in his class. The kind of classmate nobody really wants to spend time with. After an excursion to a big wall-street company the class comes back with one share of the company the class bought as a souvenir- and JR starts to become more interested in the brochures he brought back, than about his baseball-cards or pornmags. He starts to call people up on the phone, putting a handkerchief over the phonespeaker, so he would sound more mature. He starts to trade over the phone and soon becomes a big-time entrepreneur, while truckloads of stuff start to be delivered to his school. The book is hilariously funny, but that would not be enough. It delivers also a critical view to capitalism and our babbling society. Amazingly this book came out in 1974 when nobody new how the economy would boost one day, so the novel was way ahead of its time. Also the book talks about arts and how hard it is to be an artist in a society that does not care about artists. There are lots of sad and melancholic, even some tragic moments, but the humour in the book lets you swallow it and leaves you actually with a lot of thoughts. The characters in the book will follow you for months because they are so lively. In short: if you want to read only one book a year, go for this one! If you want to learn more, I encourage you to go to williamgaddis.org or just google/wiki your way through...