The Recognitions (New York Review Books Classics)

Product Information

The Recognitions by William Gaddis, which is being republished by New York Review of Books. New York Review of Books The number of printed interviews with Gaddis can be counted on one hand: he wondered why anyone should expect an author to be at all interesting, after having very likely projected the best of themselves in their work. He has been frequently compared with Joyce, Nabokov, and especially Pynchon. Unlike Esme, Stanley does not believe that man, by himself, can find the truth. He thinks that God works through prayer and ritual to make man forget the limited and look for the infinite. His efforts to convert others to Catholicism show his belief in the power of faith. Since he composes a piece of music good enough “to offend the creator of perfection by emulating his grand design,” he justifies his belief.

Gaddis has blurred the line between reality and fantasy, and we are never really certain of precisely what is taking place. There is more going on here than is initially apparent to the reader, and this is a constant feature of Gaddis’s writing. If you happen to dislike Faulkner for his obfuscatory style, you will find Gaddis infuriating. Each new chapter is an exercise in reasoning and deduction: it is not unusual for main characters in a scene not to be named and for dialogue to be unattributed, with the expectation that the reader should be able to infer the necessary detail from clues in the context, and from the distinct personality and voice that Gaddis has imbued each character. This presupposes that the reader has been paying very close attention, and is able to fill in the gaps without exposition. Much of what occurs in this book, then, occurs between the lines. Take this wonderful description of Mr. Pivner, in a rush: Most forgeries last only a few generations, because they’re so carefully done in the taste of the period, a forged Rembrandt, for instance, confirms everything that that period sees in Rembrandt. Taste and style change, and the forgery is painfully obvious, dated, because the new period has discovered Rembrandt all over again, and of course discovered him to be quite different. That is the curse that any genuine article must endure.”And there are so many quotable passages - if God did not relax for an instant in the Flemish paintings, neither did Gaddis in his descriptions. A character's suit is given a paragraph, Wyatt, of all the pretenders, changes to become a truth seeker. Most of the other characters loiter at the right bars, attend fashionable parties, and go sightseeing at the correct places. They gossip, drink, develop their images, and, whenever they can, because they have nothing better to do, antagonize and distract the moral characters. Hannah tells Anselm to “shut up,” “go home,” and “take a nap” when he and Stanley discuss religion. Don Bildow asks Stanley for methyltestosterone (“I’m with this girl, see”) and later “the Italian word for contraceptive” when Stanley frantically pursues Esme. William Gaddis was the author of five novels. He was born in New York December 29, 1922. The circumstances why he left Harvard in his senior year are mysterious. He worked for The New Yorker for a spell in the 1950s, and absorbed experiences at the bohemian parties and happenings, to be later used as material in The Recognitions. Travel provided further resources of experience in Mexico, in Costa Rica, in Spain and Africa and, perhaps strangest to imagine of him, he was employed for a few years in public relations for a pharmaceutical corporation.

The personage Wyatt was in part based on the real life infamous art forger Han van Meegeren. His paintings are at best competent, and without mystery or depth. See if you agree from this sample. Copying masterpieces is now an industry in Southern China, "the world’s leading center for mass-produced works of art. One village of artists exports about five million paintings every year — most of them copies of famous masterpieces. The fastest workers can paint up to 30 paintings a day." The word 'recognition' has a lot of associations for me," says Church. "I remember when I first came to New York City and fell in love with Aleksa; I told her I felt like I 'recognized' her. Then of course there was the recognitions implied by the breakup, and the unravelling of a story we've been telling each other for 12 years. And I'm also really interested in Gnostic-type mystical practice, which centers on a kind of 'amanuensis’ or unforgetting of true reality." There is music- In this Flamenco music [there is] this same arrogance of suffering, listen. The strength of it's what's so overpowering, the self-sufficiency that's so delicate and tender without an instant of sentimentality. With infinite pity but refusing pity, it's a precision of suffering. I listened.Wyatt, I think, was a better painter than all these, starting with his copy of Bosch's table painting. He carried its themes in his head too, the ever watching eye of God and The Seven Deadly Sins. Take this description of Madrid’s Retiro Park, seen through the eyes of Reverend Gwyon, early in the novel: As I made my progress through the novel, I decided to make a Glossary of Key Words, almost all of which were Abstractions.

The what? The Recognitions ? No, it's Clement of Rome. Mostly talk, talk, talk. The young man's deepest concern is for the immortality of his soul, he goes to Egypt to find the magicians and learn their secrets. It's been referred to as the first Christian novel. What? Yes, it's really the beginning of the whole Faust legend…What can drive anyone to write novel...?The love I have from others is not love of me, but where they try to find themselves, loving me. I dream and I wake up, and then at that moment you are somewhere ring real to other people; and they are part of your reality; and I am not.. But you are the only person I am real with..” Furthermore, I’m very sympathetic to Gaddis’ overarching point about falsity, about the counterfeit nature of the world from which it’s nearly impossible to escape into a life of integrity-fueled deliberateness, particularly given the excessive materialism/ advertising/ bullshitting that goes on. Very sympathetic to this. In fact, I love the theme. But it becomes repetitive and occasionally over-obvious: some of the absurd dialogue, which can be very funny, often devolves into a game of point-and-laugh at the idiot that eventually makes you and the author feel like the only genuine, intelligent, and well-meaning people in the world. I.e. you get your ego stroked, but well past the moment of climax until it becomes uncomfortable and even painful. You are conditioned to see fakers, forgers, and counterfeiters everywhere—and you will—but you begin to realize that the book doesn’t have much else to say. And though it does take us on an interesting journey to another time and other places, very little is suggested for avoiding the ever-present trappings of a bullshit life. The book is a painstaking investigation of all possible types of falsehood – in history, in art, in love, in religion, in human beings. And it is an authentic tour de force without any hints at dishonesty. Bosch's painting is also used to introduce the theme of existential meaning and purpose. Its watchful eye of God raises a question: does anything mean anything at all, if it is not looked at by God? Wyatt says,