The Recognitions and Big Books

[RICHARD ROMEO]

With a nod to the teachers on this list-serve, I being a humble student 
perpetual of literature-i would propose the following when reading The 
Recognitions (I am proudly one of those "three thousand who have finished 
it"-but how many twice? something I am in the process of doing during my 
hiatus from the hum-drum working stiff life (a librarian by trade) the 
last few weeks.  My suggestion-rip the damn thing into pieces of let's 
say 300 pages each-I took my copy and now have three parts-easier reading 
on the train, easier handling especially with Mr.  Steven Moore's 
annotations (not only is the damn book unnoticed, try finding the 
annotations-many of the bookstores here in NYC went recognize what?) 
firmly planted below one's rocking lap-but the best of all is the lack of 
intimidation in reading 300 pages and feeling the bulk of 600 or so more 
staring you down.
With all the discussion of proper reading material and such, I have 
always approached books with a snobbish attitude-change my life-I don't 
want entertainment, I don't want scandals or even poetry-I want 
literature to open my eyes-The Recognitions is one such book; GR being 
another;  Ulysses being another (not bad for someone reading Steven King 
in college or writing a paper in my aesthetics class on Genesis' Suppers 
Ready (oh boy)-whoever made the comment about reading outside of school 
or away from the academia or whatever I wholeheartly agree-this stuff is 
for us damn it.  Anyway, these are all Big Books and to find one to fall 
into is surely as blissful as finding Beatrice with no underwear (sic).
BTW This week's NYT Book Review had a clever article about Big Book 
Biographies-anybody read it?
So to leave off Gaddis is not God, Pynchon is not God, Joyce ain't God 
but they sure approximate some sense of what i like to call angel width 
despair (laughing of course)
Will attempt The Tunnel next-anybody into this yet?

rich
nyc


rich
nyc.