Wreck Cogs ch 2

[Michael Bailey]

 Edward A Moore wrote:
> also this sounds like a big novel of guilt . . .what with the seven
> deadly sins listed in beginning. . .
>
> Will Wyatt dick around like Pynchon's sloth nyt essay?
>
> Movie "Se7en" was just on cable btw. . .
>
> anyone?
>

I sort of liked Se7en, but didn't the last one sort of not fit the pattern?
He was inciting the wrath of the cop, but unlike the other murders,
the cop's wrath wasn't going to be punished by him -- unless the wrath
he's trying to punish is his own wrath which led him to do all those
murders ---
It's like a fairly simple algorithm till you get to the 7th one...then
you have to make up some epicycles...


I don't think TR is an allegory of deadly sins - rather, in TR, a
catalogue of sins is another bauble, or item for the collection, like
the tables and pictures and snippets of poems and scripture, another
thing to have around the house...of course they all have meaning of
some sort...

so if it isn't a religious allegory, what is it?

"what's his motivation?" he doesn't go the preacher route, but hitches
his wagon to art, right?  but why?


if the original Recognitions detailed how Clement's earnest desire to
survive death led him to the Christian movement, is there a parallel
drive in this Recognitions?  something easy to state?


Amid bits and pieces of theological and poetic impressions that
Reverend Gwyon carried home to the nest like a magpie, and stimulated
by the delights nature provides to the alert, like the sight of a
rabbit... young Wyatt in holding them up to delight in them is
constantly interrupted by the anti-pleasure Aunt May

(not that all her negativity is unfounded, but still she's a little
hard to take...)

because of these little epiphanies, he's moved to try art, but
something always kicks in to stymie his original attempts (or the
impulse isn't strong enough in the first place to complete the effort)
- whereas his copying is more successful

so, like old Clement moved to where the Christian action was...
young Wyatt moves to the center of the art world, that is to say a
place where people have formulated criteria for art that make it
imitable

and like Clement's recognitions were popular because they struck a
chord - many people found something of themselves in the quest to
survive death...

so maybe Gaddis expected that Wyatt's prime mover would spark
recognition among many people today - you get enough original
impressions to want to say something original, but the feedback you
get makes you simulate the works that have been decided already to be
good?

Joyce for instance rejecting religion to forge in the smithy of his
soul the conscience of his race, which he built from the little
shinings-through that he called epiphanies...
but another good name for them might be recognitions
--- those little inimitable perceptions you get sometimes

 but certainly Gaddis was aware that just being original isn't
necessarily good, and there's an interplay between attempt and
rejection and trying again...
Joyce himself wasn't always pleased with his own attempts -
"the ivy whines upon the wall
it twines and whines upon the wall" for instance...

so, although I'm trying to approach the kernel, or "gyzm" of the book,
I haven't really stated it

maybe it's part of the parody, that Clement's motivation is so easily
stated and understood (although, actually, why does he want to survive
death? for the good times, I guess...), while Wyatt's motivation is
murky, psychological, individualistic...

(although it does seem to have something to do with wanting to
preserve those moments, impressions, recognitions, that make life
vivid, real, worth living...)