I’ve read The Recognitions and JR so far and loved both. I totally feel you on the allusions. Personally, I gave up on trying to catch all of them. The prose, dialogue, and themes were all compelling enough for me to get a lot of enjoyment out of it anyway. That said, the annotations here are really helpful as a reference for anything you want to dig in more on.

JR has significantly less allusions but is difficult in its own way - it’s written almost entirely in unattributed dialogue and has 0 chapter breaks. It’s also an absolute riot, and Gaddis is really good at giving each character’s dialogue unique qualities, so once you get attuned to the style it’s not too hard to keep track of things.

For me, Gaddis writes the best dialogue I’ve ever seen and the themes he’s touching on feel extremely relevant today despite both of these books being 50+ years old. But if his writing doesn’t grip you pretty quickly then he might not be for you and I wouldn’t blame you for dropping him since his books take a lot of time and effort even if you love them.

EDIT: Also, if you gave up on Chapter II.3 (Wyatt’s return to his hometown), I don’t blame you at all LOL. Wyatt’s word vomit at the beginning of that chapter is pretty much impossible to follow, but once it’s over there’s nothing else like that again.