William Gass, Middle C. Alfred A. Knopf, 2013. 416pp.
Source: audiobook from Audible, purchased in a special 3-month discount for $0.99/month

Midway through my first William Gass, I came up with this folk mnemonic to help me sort my obscure, lyrical American postmodern novelists:

If the William be Gass, a monadic mass;
If the William be Gaddis, a polyphonous lattice

I've read and listened to Gaddis. The audiobook of JR performed by Nick Sullivan is a tour de force. The epitome of Bakhtin's concept of полифония ("a plurality of independent and unmerged voices and consciousnesses, a genuine polyphony of fully valid voices"), an example even better than his own of Dostoevsky.

Middle C is funny but one note. (LOL.) It sends up the American immigrant experience. (Ha!) It roasts academic bureaucracy and collegiate mores. (Ha.) It lampoons Midwest piety. (Heh.) It lauds the ingenious wit who plunges through life as a mediocrity. (Hmm.) It is too clever by half and still not nearly as clever as it thinks it is.

The whole erudite, shambling mess sticks the landing with a parody of the folk rhyme "Here We Go Round the Mulberry Bush" about academic committee life.

If this sort of thing made you laugh, then you should read more of the book. But if you can also see yourself finding this sort of thing tiring, then maybe you have enjoyed just about enough of this William Gass novel.

It's a monadic mass: let some air in. I'm a Gaddis guy.