Recognizing The Recognitions

[Mark Kohut]

Analytic 'spoiler"..(let's get some of this labeling out of the way, I say): 

To play a big joke on modernism is one of the ways postmodernism is born?   

Therefore, pivot [The Recognitions is a pivotal book?] and laugh? 



________________________________
From: Erik T. Burns <eburns at gmail.com>
To: pynchon -l <pynchon-l at waste.org>
Sent: Tue, March 22, 2011 7:37:20 AM
Subject: Re: Recognizing The Recognitions


"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]
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