Recognizing The Recognitions

[Erik T. Burns]

yes, laugh --

"--He said, It makes the present. He said, it must be shared, and being so,
makes the present. Laughter."

(p380)

This is one of my favorite quotes from _The Recognitions_ and I think
central (pivotal!) to Gaddis' concerns. To reduce it to a twitter-sized
soundbite: The past is very serious, the future is very serious. In the
present, all you can do is laugh.





On Tue, Mar 22, 2011 at 12:12 PM, Mark Kohut <markekohut at yahoo.com> wrote:

>  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]
>> [edit]
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>
>
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