The Recognitions

Characters in novels usually stand out, and a considerable amount of time is spent defining and characterizing them so as to pull readers into the story – to captivate them, to make them lose their situational awareness and embed themselves in the theme of the novel, which may in fact be multi-faceted and difficult to decipher.This novel is different in that regard, for its characters, with only a few exceptions, are almost like unstable elementary particles that are perturbed from the vacuum and have a rapid decay time. They are overwhelmed by the delta functions of literary brilliance that also are only short-lived but occur often enough to perturb the reader from ever reaching the equilibrium of boredom.Camille is one of these few exceptions who is conjoined with the first sentence of the story, which forms a theme of the book, namely of the issue of differentiating the real from the unreal, the genuine from the ersatz, and who is aware of the tremendous risk in not being able to, and indeed that this differentiation is a matter of choice and self-reflection.That is not to say that a masquerade of social interactions cannot be amusing at times, as a kind of game that never seems to converge to its Nash equilibrium, as a kind of comical display that is characterized by sustained creativity and concentrated efforts to raise the temperature of life to ensure that it is always liquid, and never condenses into the solid of conformity and tradition.To be pressured to commit fraud, not just in the realm of art, but in any area of human endeavor, is viewed by some as an anathema, and others as “realistic” or “wise”. The latter mistakenly believes that the use of deception is necessary to get along in life, and it is “naïve” or “idealistic” to think otherwise. The journeys taken, and the statements expressed by the characters of this novel reflect the tensions in both of these attitudes, and because of this, and in spite of the massive length of this book, it is worth the time and effort for its perusal.English is of course the predominant mode of expression within the pages of this delectable story, but Hungarian, Spanish, and French make their appearance too, as well as Latin. All serve to make the novel more enjoyable, and thanks to online translators do not suppress the reader’s ability to enjoy the story, its complexity making it both refreshing and challenging, and requiring focused concentration from the reader. Religious and familial pressures find their place on the pages also, as can be expected from a story with fraud as one of its themes.Readers with a background in Western philosophy will be able to appreciate the story more than those who are lacking in this area, but the author interjects the likes of Roger Bacon, Plato, Arthur Schopenhauer and others in a manner in which the uninitiated reader can still appreciate the themes of the book.That is not to say that this book is Literature Lite. It is a book to study, and any drifting from readers will force them to backtrack and attempt once again the absorption of fine literary detail. Whatever neurons in the brain are active during reading, there is plenty of work for them in this regard, and readers may find themselves deploying strategies for the understanding of this book that they have never used before. After completing it, different readers may of course make different conclusions on its impact. Such a phenomenon gives reading its value and its catharsis.

I struggled through this the first time back in the 1970s. I had to force myself to finish it. I was fine with the religion/Golden Bough stuff because that was already familiar territory for me in my twenties. But once the scene shifted to Paris and the endless, decadent NYC parties, I found it nearly unbearable. I wondered if he was doing a parody of Ayn Rand in the Paris episode. I recently read it a second time. My reaction on re-reading it was pretty much the same - I struggled. However, I'm a fan of Gaddis' novel JR, which I've also read twice, and intend to read again. Not that it's an easy read; just better. So I'd recommend reading JR instead. (By the way, the best descriptions of NYC parties I've seen are to be found in the late Alice Denham's memoir "Sleeping With Bad Boys." Presumably these were some of the same parties since, according to her account, she and Gaddis were not unacquainted. And Alice even names names.)

I note that some reviewers take M. Gaddis to task for his erudition, his inclusion of people speaking foreign languages, his inclusion of esoteric learning, his difficulty, and, perhaps inevitably, his prententiousness. These same reviewers are perhaps unaware that all artists in all fields are, by very nature, pretentious. Joyce and Proust and Faulkner could be poster boys for it. When people write that it bothers them that an author employs words from other languages, it smacks of chauvinism and provincialism. Thomas Mann hurls French about in "The Magic Mountain" with gleeful (if Mann can ever be called such) abandon. Is Melville showing off his learning by writing interminable chapters on whaling - it is all so much blubber. Gaddis also has the unmitigated gall to be difficult. Hey guys, so is life - and this novel is brimming with life in all its many guises, its many joys, its many sorrows. This book is a masterpiece - able to stand tall next to any novel published in any language in its century. The prose is elegant and vulgar by turns - Gaddis' ear for dialogue, his eye for the telling detail that can describe a person in a beautifully turned phrase, his sardonic wit, his encyclopedic knowledge are here on display serving universal themes (I will not mention them here as one can find them in many of the other reviews), issues that are as relevant today (if not more so) than they were in '55. As for criticism of its length - that it has "too many pages" - it may well be true. It is then in good company indeed as it is also true of "Ulysses," "In Search of Lost Time," "Bleak House," "Middlemarch," and "Brothers Karamazov" to name but a few. The books here named also have their moments of tedium, points at which the reader is tempted to skip a few pages (with Proust this can amount to fifteen or so at a time). These novels, like "The Recognitions" rise above their flaws. Looking for a flawless novel? You may as well look for a unicorn. Poems might be flawless, plays might be structured perfectly - but novels? They, more than plays and poems convey life at its messiest, its most ridiculous. I love Henry James, but when he railed against "loose, baggy monsters" his critical acumen obviously deserted him. Gaddis risked quite a lot in publishing this text. The flaws therin do not take away from its being a masterpiece of ingenuity. The party scenes alone demonstrate his ability to get inside disparate heads and hearts, to see the sublime as well as the absurd, the spiritual as well as the carnal. Flaubert himself would envy Gaddis' ability to come up with the right word in the right place. In the 19th century readers loved that the novels were thick "triple deckers," it is a sad state of affairs when a novel can be slighted merely because of its length. Oh and it is one of the funniest books it has ever been my pleasure to read. For those of you unsure whether the book is worth the time and effort required - it most definitely is!!!!

I love Gaddis — I read this ages ago, then saw a new print was available. The same folks behind Bottom’s Dream! BUY BOW... and then I cracked the fu€£ing thing open...I bought the newest JR from the same people at the same time... JR has I don’t know 1/4 inch empty space on the left & right of text, 1/2 inch empty space on the top & bottom of text... but RECOGNITIONS has I don’t know 5/4 inches empty space on the top & bottom of text, 3/4 inch empty space on the left & right of text...I don’t know anything about publishing, but it seems they intentionally made this edition humongous. It’s gigantic. It’d be fine of the pages were absolutely loaded with text, I’d make it work, but this always feels ridiculous — I hate how wasteful it felt, and I hate how often I had to turn pages... PRICE GOUGING.

great book

After reading about one third of this some fifty years ago, and promising myself that I would some day return to it, I ordered it about a year ago. It took time to get back into the flow, but I persevered. Gaddis is undoubtedly a genius - certainly beyond my level - and this book displays it frequently. It probably won't make the best seller list, but, if you have time, it provides an interesting alternative to current pop literature. I'm glad I read it, but I certainly won't re-read it, either.

Considero Gaddis o melhor escritor de língua inglesa do século XX, seguido de Stein e (num um tanto distante terceiro lugar) Joyce.Valeria muito a pena traduzir The Recognitions aqui no Brasil, o que seria uma tarefa do nível dum Paulo Henriques Brito, dum Caetano Galindo etc.

A book to read and re-read until you die. Few American writers in the last 200 years are as worthy of your time

Libro veramente grosso e pesante, non da leggere quando si va a letto. ''il più grande scrittore fra gli autori non conosciuti'' cit