Recognizing The Recognitions

[Erik T. Burns]

"The novel began as a much shorter work"
Don't they all? ;-)

I would like to argue that the "amazing erudition" of _The Recognitions_ is
in large part a very big joke by WG on modernism, on the Eliotic need to
shore fragments against one's ruins, this being the most evident in Gwyon's
gusher in Chap 3 where there are pages and pages of references, an attempt
to assemble a modern mithraism out of his broad and eccentric reading. What
gets me is that Gwyon knows this is mostly mumbo jumbo, to ensure that the
priesthood retains mystery, and to ensure that the majority remains "outside
the mysteries."

As impressive and enlightening and fun as scrabbling through these deep
piles of references can, as with TRP that should not be the main point of
the exercise.

I expect we will eventually get into an argument about whether Gaddis is
able to create characters that are not flat, in contrast to the typical
critique of TRP. I find the characters in The Recognitions to be wonderful,
yet often deeply etched stereotypes as Gaddis works his allegory -- but
then, as is so often mentioned, The Recognitions is a roman à clef, and many
of the characters are real people Gaddis knew (incl Ernest Hemingway and of
course Sheri Martinelli;
http://www.williamgaddis.org/recognitions/martinelli/smartinellismoore.shtml),
so it cuts both ways.

I am currently listening to the extraordinary audiobook of _The
Recognitions_. Nick Simpson proves that the characters are anything but
flat.

etb







On Tue, Mar 22, 2011 at 11:13 AM, Mark Kohut <markekohut at yahoo.com> wrote:

> Gaddis spent seven years writing The Recognitions. The novel began as a
> much
> shorter work and as an explicit parody of Goethe’s Faust. During the period
> in
> which Gaddis was writing the novel, he travelled to Mexico, Central America
> and
> Europe.
> Gaddis also found the title for the novel in The Golden Bough as Frazer
> noted
> how Goethe’s Faust originally came from the Clementine Recognitions, a
> third-century theological tract (See Clementine literature). It was from
> this
> point on that Gaddis began to expand the novel. The novel was completed in
> 1949.[3]
> [edit]
>
>
>
>
>
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