Judge Learned Hand once enjoined Oliver Wendell Holmes to “Do justice, sir, do justice!” Holmes replied, “That is not my job. It is my job to apply the law.” One of the many lawyers in William Gaddis’s new novel, A Frolic of His Own, says pretty much the same thing in the book’s opening line: “Justice?—You get justice in the next world, in this world you have the law.”
The very real distinctions between the concrete—if consistently malleable—American legal system and the abstract quality of justice is one of the uncomfortable jokes in Gaddis’s wonderfully funny and pointed novel. As The Recognitions (1955) was “about” forgery and JR (1975) was “about” business, A Frolic of His Own is “about” the law, but as the plot expands and blossoms, the practice of the law becomes a paradigm for the culture at large in all its mad buffoonery.
The action, such as it is (entropy would be a fitter word), centers on several legal cases.
The action, such as it is (entropy would be a fitter word), centers on several legal cases. Oscar Crease, a middle-aged history teacher at Lotusville Community College, has met with an accident. While he was hot-wiring his car, the vehicle (a Japanese Sosumi model) jumped from Park into Drive and ran him over. He is suing the manufacturers—or is it the insurance company? In fact, he’s suing himself, but even Oscar can’t keep it straight: “No I’m suing his, I mean my,
