TRTR, Pt 2, C 2 "does there exist such a thing as mermaids, sar?"

[Richard Ryan]

Right - and these qualities that Wyatt has, of being set apart from
and against the people who surround him, and of his strangeness being
defined by his contact with "the numinous" - these are the
characteristics that link him distinctively to the spiritually
tortured heroes of Dostoevsky.


On Thu, Jul 28, 2011 at 9:05 AM, David Morris <fqmorris at gmail.com> wrote:
> Yes, I was agreeing.  And (like your point to mark re. Gaddis/Elliot)
> I think one of the main points of the book is the degradation of
> humanity by modern culture (which is what links him to Pynchon).  So
> many of the characters in the NYC scenes of TR are so much like
> Pynchon's Whole Sick Crew in V.  The ones that contrast with them
> (Wyatt) have a deeply spiritual side, and have brushes with the
> numinous.
>
> David Morris
>
> On Wed, Jul 27, 2011 at 5:59 PM, Richard Ryan <himself at richardryan.com> wrote:
>> I *think* David may be agreeing with me (I think).   That sympathy is
>> precisely why I wouldn't (at this point in my journey into The
>> Recognitions) want to describe Gaddis as a "non-believer."   Aware
>> agnostic?  Romantic skeptic?
>>
>>
>>
>> On Wed, Jul 27, 2011 at 5:50 PM, David Morris <fqmorris at gmail.com> wrote:
>>> It's not only that Gaddis WROTE those supernatural sections into TR,
>>> it's that he seems sympathetic to those sections, to their having
>>> "really" happened in the world of this novel.
>>>
>>> On Wed, Jul 27, 2011 at 4:32 PM, Paul Mackin <mackin.paul at verizon.net> wrote:
>>>> On 7/27/2011 4:45 PM, Richard Ryan wrote:.
>>>>>
>>>>> If we think that Gaddis is an atheist and a materialist, how do we
>>>>> account for mystical/magical events in The Recognitions?  I.e, Wyatt
>>>>> seeing his mother's ghost on her death; Wyatt's recuperation after the
>>>>> sacrifice of the Barbary Ape; the supernaturally evil power that Brown
>>>>> has over Wyatt, etc.?
>>>>
>>>> Also there's no inconsistency in an author's writing about supernatural
>>>> goings-on and also not believing they could happen?
>>>>
>>>> Also the reverse is true.
>>>
>>>
>>
>>
>>