SOURCE: "Plagiarism as the Metaphor for a Litigious Era," in The New York Times, January 4, 1994, p. C20.

[In the mixed review below, Kakutani relates the plot, themes, and narrative structure of A Frolic of His Own, concluding that "Gaddis's provocative vision of modern society is purchased at a price, the price of hard work and frequent weariness on the part of the reader."]

In The Recognitions, his monumental first novel published nearly 40 years ago, William Gaddis used the story of a would-be priest turned master forger to explore the loss of authenticity in the modern world, and the shifting relationships between life and art, art and faith. Those same themes—so pertinent in this post-modern era of recyclings and regurgitations—lie at the core of his long-winded, sometimes uproarious and often exhausting new novel A Frolic of His Own. This time, however, plagiarism, not counterfeiting, serves as the...