The WreckIgnitions Read. Toning up Or I remember Wolftone

[Erik T. Burns]

the tone problem, I think, is that Gaddis is incredibly serious, po-faced,
and yet is satirizing people who take everything so seriously. this tension,
in my opinion, is hilarious.

the key character in The Recognitions on this point is Otto, a desperately
serious, inexorably vain writer unhorsed by the fact that everyone thinks
his writing is plagiarized, because "familiar." Otto0ss gimmick of the
sling, his made-up story about revolutions in South America, his stated
plans to go to "Bolivia and Southern Peru" -- the man is a walking joke.

It is hard not to see Gaddis poking fun at himself through Otto, and
certainly their biographies "overlap". But WG tells us not to make that
mistake and so I won't.

On Wed, Apr 6, 2011 at 9:09 PM, Mark Kohut <markekohut at yahoo.com> wrote:

> So, Bill Gass sez the early readers could not get the book's tone. Nice to
> know
> I'm not all alone so,....WTF?
>
> All that scary as shit---the horror, the horror, I'm not kidding---
> stuff---in
> history, in society,
> between human beings in this section yet.............
>
> Lots presented as over-the-top melodramatic, i.e., comic?
>
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