recognize us all, everywhere

– a review of the recognitions by william gaddis

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*all photos are from Pexels and are free to use. all page numbers refer to the all black NYRB edition.

come along with me.

art is the way, by which we recognize the human condition, and it is through our recognition that we see all is a mirror, even the nature of which the art consists . . . art is the epoch of understanding that will never end, the lost casualty of the human condition that hides the very things it purports to express, in effect a contradiction, which is what this book is.

the epigraph: Nihil cavum neque sine signo apud Deum. —Irenaeus, from Adversus haereses

“In God, nothing is empty of sense.” this epigraph, upon completion of the novel, encapsulates the greatest theme, which is that of recognition of reality’s fallibility without a fallback to our humanity.

i tabbed every instance of the word recognition as i read, which was an interesting task, and one that yielded results of drawing me into the intentionality of Gaddis’ language. where he chooses to use the word, and in what contexts, and when I expected the word to pop up, and when it didn't . . .

by reading this review, you are feeding the desire of understanding that we all crave, you are viscerally visualizing my heart as I read this novel, and all that it caught within me as it washed over me. because I've truly never had a reading experience like this book. it was a masterpiece. but am I rushing to reread it, even as I was with Gravity’s Rainbow? no. it's singular in its experience yet polyphonic in its form and content.

Jonathan Franzen said this was the most difficult book he ever voluntarily read, and Gaddis himself says he asks a lot of the reader, but not too much. I suppose my review can nudge you one way or the other, but you will need to read it yourself in order to see if any of the criticism is warranted . . .

review

<< Wyatt Gwyon is the main character, who has entered into the business of forging famous works of art and is courted by two businessmen, Basil Valentine and Recktall (rectal, yes) Brown. among this storyline of Wyatt’s life and affairs, there are other minor characters yet they take up arguably a larger section of the novel, which is part of why this book is so difficult to pinpoint in its exact content. these others are often depicted at parties or in the background of other scenes, where they are given to the environment that the primary story happens in. there are changing identities, religious acts of sacrifice, and political, religious, and societal ideologies that permeate every inch of the novel. just as with novels of this genre, scope, and size, the referentiality is absolutely unreal. and I mean like nothing I have ever even heard of, with seriously obscure references on every page. >>

I cannot (and did not) adequately describe this novel, and anyone who says they can is full of shit. this is a microcosm of human life, while carefully inundating and frustrating the reader just as one is while living. this then, is perhaps the second greatest takeaway, that the feeling of uncertainty and frustration is meant to either catalyze one to solve the issue themselves or give up and fall away . . .

Gaddis frustrates you with uncertain perspective and narration, often going entire sections or pages without mentioning a single name, yet it is understood that upwards of five people are present. to me, this was problematic but in some sections, added to the visualization of the scene playing out. the feeling of following along as if one is watching a movie is a unique experience, free from narration at times, led by the traits, actions, and qualities that are attributed to various characters throughout the book.

the biggest frustration I had was with the lack of context at times, that made me feel as if I was truly lost—add to this the tsunami of semi-necessary allusions it felt like sometimes I hadn’t read anything up to that point. I think that was the point sometimes, but nevertheless, Gaddis’ writing is quite often truly beautiful.

why do I think this novel is a masterpiece?, especially if I was frustrated with it?

because reading hard things is good, and it’s a book that will never reveal everything the author meant for it. it took Gaddis seven years to write this, so one read (or five, for that matter) will never be enough. I suppose writing this review is warming me up more to the idea of rereading it, but I digress . . .

another unique point of the novel is Gaddis’ use of other languages than only English. he uses Latin, French, Spanish, and even Hungarian to give the reader a side task of figuring out how these relate to the plot (or the syntax) of the rest of the work.

moving on:

Wyatt’s name disappears in the first 150 pages of the book, metaphorically and literally—his identity is gone, as he has found himself only in the artworks of others, and to the reader, we see him truly only in relation to the others around him. are we only mirrors for people and things around us?, and if so, what are we but edges of other people? what what what but the cutout that is only filled in with something formless, a cookie dough that must be molded by some other . . .

this novel was not well received upon its release and I can see why. it is a work that requires work, to be sure, but that work is time, and time is the work of God to allow the slow drip of the intravenous fluid that is language and the shape of a story to seep into our soul.

keep scrolling for my thoughts on some of the most important themes and some quotes that go along with each.

themes

art

the importance of art in this novel cannot be overstated. seriously, the references to different artists, musicians, composers, and artworks are often confounding but serve a purpose of showing the messages that these things can give to the reader, the idea of art as something transcendent, as the novel says: “nothing is self-sufficient, even art, and when art isn’t an expression of something higher, when it isn’t invested you might even say, it breaks up into fragments that don’t have any meaning and don’t have any . . .” (601).

the problem comes when people try to emulate God in their artwork, as Wyatt’s deeply Christian aunt says: “Our Lord is the only true creator, and only sinful people try to emulate Him . . . Do you remember Lucifer?” (38). how are artists supposed to find the line between creation for the sake of a higher good, an expression of it, and creation as capital C creation? the deeply rooted religious background of Gaddis and his understanding of the Catholic/Christian faiths are clearly shown here and all throughout. despite this, he says in the middle of the book that no matter, no matter—”something always remains, something of you” (330) referring to Wyatt’s (unnamed by this point) forgeries.

out of everything, perhaps the most important reference is to Clement’s early Recognitions, what inspired Gaddis’ novel, which was originally intended to be a brief retelling of Faust. is this not the goal of Mr. Wyatt Gwyon over the course of the book?: “The young man’s deepest concern is for the immortality of his soul, he goes to Egypt to find the magicians and learn their secrets.” (366).

I think the point of art is described beautifully toward the end of Part I: “. . . my dear fellow, no one knows what you’re thinking. And that is why people read novels, to identify projections of their own unconscious. The hero has to be fearfully real, to convince them of their own reality, which they rather doubt.” (243)

ideology/morality

Agnus Deigh is one character of many that represent a certain type of ideology—not exactly archetypal but somewhere close. ideology is found in society everywhere, hidden or otherwise, and to be able to pinpoint something of importance is a skill that is proving more and more difficult in the world today. hers is one of social ambition, or the extroversion of a socialite, who is inserted into every facet of society so to what? potentially prove her reality to herself?

there is an interesting concept of admiration vs. envy: “Do you remember envy when it called itself admiration?” (743). couple this with the idea that we must, morally, consider other people as real beings in the world—are we admiring their existence? or are we envious that they are aware of it themselves? where do we get beyond viewing ourselves as a pawn on a game board, our actions and others’ actions as moves to reach some end? I think it’s a deeply moral question. is it all self-preservation and not anything else?, no blame to be assigned for what we merely perceive as condemnation? as it says on page 730: “What I get a kick out of is these serious writers who write a book where they say money gives a false significance to art, and then they raise hell when their book doesn’t make any money.”

I think a main theme is that of other systems (e.g., religion, business, social circles) being unable to bring people together for a common thought, an overarching outstretching of our hands to the omnipotent’s amidst the noise, and that with a moral obligation to this, art is the way to cross “these gulfs everywhere between everything and everybody.” (615).

love

what is true love? is it expressed through a divine relationship only achievable through art? there is a barrier between romantic love as an idea and in reality: “The most difficult challenge to the ideal is its transformation into reality, and few ideals survive. Marriage demands of romantic love that it become a reality and when an ideal becomes a reality it ceases to be an ideal.” (155).

if love is simply to know people, and to share things with them, then that is to share our suffering, because “if you can’t share it, you can’t understand it in others, and if you can’t understand it, you can’t respect it, . . . and if you can’t respect it, if you can’t respect suffering . . .” (117). the character trails off, but how would they finish that sentence? if we can’t respect the suffering of others, then what? we can’t ever truly love them, platonically or otherwise? it’s one of the most profound definitions of what loving someone else means I’ve ever gathered from a novel.

we must reach through art to express love for something higher, a truer form of love than the things of this world, that leads to freedom, because that’s where art (and we) are ever free (615-616).

religion/faith

“We belong to our souls, not our souls to us.” (455). this is a profound quote that I think shifts the perspective from mind—>soul—>body to soul—>mind—>body; in other words, we use the latter two to fulfill the purposes our soul has destined for it. obviously not full on deterministic governance but free will can allow us to not fulfill these purposes, to express the higher calling that we are meant for, and that means our soul has not been freed from its shell, it isn’t being “looked at by God” (672), for isn’t that what we all want? acknowledgement that we are here for a reason?

there is a section in the book where Wyatt’s father—previously a Christian preacher—has shifted drastically to Mithraism, a belief system that centers around the god Mithras and Abraxas, the sun and the moon, talking of sacrifices and things that would deign to be in the mind of anyone following the principles Wyatt grew up learning, so this change, or more specifically this fall from faith—a collapse of is preconceived omnipotence/presence, even if not as strong as his family, it’s something still there for him since he was a child— is significant and a catalyst for him moving forward.

this is in sharp contrast to Fuller’s (servant of Recktall Brown) blind faith that God is there, real, and something he should serve—I think a more classic ideal of the lowly becoming exalted before the Father where the doubtful, the un-childlike, will be left behind.

and so we glimpse ourselves, as Wyatt does, in the end, in the mirror, “having, or about to have, or at the very least valiantly fighting off, a religious experience.” (877). it seems like that sometimes, doesn’t it?, that we fight off what we think will bring us to the gates of heaven because we can’t let the possibility of this world, of our fallibility to novelty, the sin of the world, out of our grasp?

fraudulence/mirroring

truly then, is there merely this “fallacy of originality, of self-sufficiency” (615) in the world as we know it? like there’s not anything we can be truly and meaningfully original in doing? I suppose that’s a bit depressing, and I don’t know if it’s true.

continuing: “The sea, romantic in books, or dreams or conversation, symbol in poetry, the mother, last lover, and here it was, none of those things before him. Romantic? this heaving, senseless actuality? alive? evil? symbolical? shifting its surfaces in imitation of life over depths the whole fabric of darkness, of blind life and death. Boundlessly neither yes or no, good nor evil, hope nor fear, pretending to all these things in the eyes that first beheld it, but unchanged since then, still its own color, heaving with the indifferent hunger of all actuality.” (824). just a beautiful passage about the ocean as a representation of everything, yet none of it simultaneously.

I think the layers of the word “recognition” become apparent in this context: there is the idea that “it is only through sin that we can know one another, and she our human frailty? . . . And by doing that, we come to know ourselves . . .” (513). so is is only (again) that we are mirroring everyone around us? that there is nothing truly individual but an amalgamation of consciousness?

Otto’s play, Stanley’s music, Wyatt’s art—all instances of fraudulence in a way, but closer to mirroring, to expressing something deeper about the world through art, but all unoriginal nonetheless.

finally, there is also the concept, though only mentioned in passing, of art as a literal mirror in which one can lose themselves (268). I think this is true not only with art but with human beings, and I think this is a major recurring theme throughout the book, expanded from this small idea.

consciousness

Wyatt loses his name literally and metaphorically in the story, and this mirrors Slothrop’s consciousness’s scattering in the final part of Gravity’s Rainbow. perhaps Pynchon took inspiration from this? “I knew he wasn’t with you, she said . . . and yet, by now sometimes I just don’t know, I don’t even know whether he’s here with me or not.” (124).

“He did stare . . . in that waking suspension of time when co-ordination is impossible, when every fragment of reality intrudes on its own terms, separately, clattering in and the mind tries to grasp each one as it passes, sensing that these things could be understood one by one and unrelated, if the stream could be stopped before it grows into a torrent, and the mind is engulfed in the totality of consciousness.” (396). is this engulfing only what is mentioned earlier?, that “that’s the only way anything can have its own form and its own character, and . . . and shape and smell, being looked at by God”? (247).

Esme began talking in 3rd person after some event that occurred to her—no spoilers though and this is a point that may be spoiled for some readers. (471) I think the idea of switching points of view fits well within this concept of consciousness, nonetheless.

final thoughts

I can never possibly discuss everything in this book, and as I said at the beginning of this review, I am sure I did an inadequate job. however, I am satisfied with my experience reading this, while difficult—it was rewarding and this review allowed me to form some coherence with some things. see some more quotes below.

more quotes

As his writings showed, he found his duty to his fellow man in proselytizing for those virtues which bound his fellow man’s better selves together, favoring none over another among the systems of worship he saw round him, honoring all, advancing in the name of some amorphous, and highly reasonable, Good, in the true eclectic tradition of his country, a confederate of virtue wherever he found it, and a go-between for the postures it assumed, explaining, not man to himself, but men to each other.

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The haze settled on the city in the early morning conveyed that remarkable cold which they say will kill a man and not blow out a candle, motionless cold which seems to come from inside, and be diffused through the body from the very marrow of the bones.

—

And when he raised his eyes, looking east toward the hospital, he was alone in the street. The wind had gone down, and the still cold was unbearable. He stood numb, surrounded by ice, among the frozen giants of buildings, as though to dare a step would send him head over heels in a night with neither hope of morning to come nor heaven’s betrayal of its triumphal presence, in the stars.

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—Do you know what happens to people in cities? I’ll tell you what happens to people in cities. They lose the seasons, that’s what happens. They lose the extremes, the winter and summer. They lose the means, the spring and the fall. They lose the beginning and the end of the day, and nothing grows but their bank accounts. Life in the city is just all middle, nothing is born and nothing dies. Things appear, and things are killed, but nothing begins and nothing ends.

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Each minute and each cubic inch was hurled against that which would follow, measured in terms of it, dictating a future as inevitable as the past, coined upon eight million counterfeits who moved with the plumbing weight of lead coated with the frenzied hope of quicksilver, protecting at every pass the cherished falsity of their milled edges against the threat of hardness in their neighbors as they were rung together, fallen from the Hand they feared but could no longer name, upon the pitiless table stretching all about them, tumbling there in all the desperate variety of which counterfeit is capable, from the perfect alloy recast under weight to the thudding heaviness of lead, and the thinly coated brittle terror of glass.