Recog ch 2

[Michael Bailey]

Mark Kohut wrote:
> Yeah, what is it about that "vanishing point", so built up to?
>

what's nifty is how Wyatt segues from that vanishing point into
his own vanishing act

> To discover a basic technique of the artist 600 years old is
> to 'recognize' that basic truth?
>

actually, without overt hostility, and maybe (we might be supposed to
think) without even really knowing it himself (like he also "doesn't
know" about his plan all summer as it hatches) he's giving the old man
his own back in spades - the sort of rambling on unhelpfully about
arcana Gwyon delights in...

> "studies in perspective"? another internal metaphor---Wyatt
> strives for perspective, most others in the book don't [have perspective]?
> Esp. his dad, who, in this scene Wyatt trembles in front of and turns
> his eyes from, as if this scene is some kind of way of defining himself
> against his dad, in fear and trembling and on the next page we learn
> that Gwyon gets a letter and remarks on 'the vanishing point' and so
> this might be another metaphor for the son vanishing.....from the
> guilt-ridden, narrow perspective of the father?
>

what I didn't catch at all, but was mentioned in the Readers Guide
(Reader's Guide? Readers' Guide?) was that right after this he
purloins the expensive work of art (sold later, sez the Guide) and
substitutes the fake one

> And, if Wyatt is unfinished this early is Wyatt like the [best; real] art that
> is unfinished?

well, isn't that part the classic intergenerational career conflict
that drives a lot of stories?  which is funny, in a way, because
Gwyon's own calling is so lukewarm that you would think he'd welcome
any kind of deviation in Wyatt, especially after Aunt May's death...
which he probably would if he thought of it, but Wyatt for whatever
reason doesn't possess the power to arrest his father's thought - or
Gwyon has such a store of cultural trivia that for anything Wyatt
does, he's got a readymade response that doesn't involve any feeling
or sympathy on his part