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itsthunderkid's review
adventurous
challenging
funny
informative
inspiring
mysterious
reflective
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
4.75
piccoline's review
5.0
Gaddis brilliantly mines the central metaphor of forgery and fraud to explore the diverse worlds of capitalism, art, religion, and the ways we are in the world. Vast, exhausting, formally inventive and daring, the book yet touches the heart as it invades the brain.
Perhaps not the place to start with Gaddis (for that I'd recommend _A Frolic of His Own_) but an unmatched joy of a novel.
Perhaps not the place to start with Gaddis (for that I'd recommend _A Frolic of His Own_) but an unmatched joy of a novel.
elizabethebright's review
4.0
Finished it! The front and back covers ripped off! It was lovely, but also very long and at times I didn’t understand what was happening. I heeded Gass’ advice in the introduction and just forged ahead. If you like crazy wordsmithery and are interested in fraud and forgery in all its forms, this story is for you. I recommend reading it with a group of cool pals so you have some moral support.
darwin8u's review
5.0
My first impulse was to just copy some old, obscure review of 'the Recognitions' and claim it as my own. Alas, even the reviewers, academics, and cult worshipers of the God of PoMo all seem at once thunderstruck AND intimidated by Gaddis' opus.
What I understood was brilliant, what I didn't understand is most likely obscene. This is not a novel for the casual beach read, although as I write this, I am on a beach...washing sand out of my ebbs and salt off my flow, so never mind.
What I understood was brilliant, what I didn't understand is most likely obscene. This is not a novel for the casual beach read, although as I write this, I am on a beach...washing sand out of my ebbs and salt off my flow, so never mind.
matthewmansell's review
3.0
There’s an episode of Daria called Art Burn where Jane gets a job and paints fakes of masterpieces to make money and even paints a Van Gogh upside down but then faces the conundrum of that now she is finally making money painting she doesn’t have any time to paint her work expect if she is making money from painting fakes and is now a professional painter the fakes are her work and yeah that’s the plot to this novel isn’t it? At least for now I’ve convinced myself it is - maybe I’ll re-read it next Quarantine.
dmaude's review
5.0
". . . and it is still spoken of, when it is noted, with high regard, though seldom played."
A prequel of a sort to Gravity’s Rainbow.
A prequel of a sort to Gravity’s Rainbow.
spjuver's review
5.0
I thought that more time had passed since I finished this book, so I was planning to write how it was still in my head even though it was a while ago that I read it. But it has not even been a year. Even so, since I did not write a review back when it was supposed to be done I feel like I should at least get a few thoughts down and see how I feel about this after I have read 'The Recognitions' a second time.
There is something about the way in which Gaddis dives in and out of the different characters in this book. How he manages to tell their stories and show how they change on the inside and their relationship to the outside world (or lack of it). To say that I felt like I got to know Wyatt, Otto, Esme and Stanley is not enough. There was something about the way Gaddis writes them into the world that made them very real to me, and their realities truly became some kind of concept in my mind.
From what I remember, it was not as hard to get into this book as I thought it would be. It sure had some twists and turns but everything sank into place soon enough and everything made perfect sense. I will surely revisit The Recognitions some time soon.
There is something about the way in which Gaddis dives in and out of the different characters in this book. How he manages to tell their stories and show how they change on the inside and their relationship to the outside world (or lack of it). To say that I felt like I got to know Wyatt, Otto, Esme and Stanley is not enough. There was something about the way Gaddis writes them into the world that made them very real to me, and their realities truly became some kind of concept in my mind.
From what I remember, it was not as hard to get into this book as I thought it would be. It sure had some twists and turns but everything sank into place soon enough and everything made perfect sense. I will surely revisit The Recognitions some time soon.
wvunderink's review
5.0
The recognitions:
P. 22: "It was in the Depot Tavern that he received condolences, accepted funerary offers of drink, and, when these recognitions were exhausted, he sank into the habit of talking familiarly about persons and places unknown to his cronies, so that several of them suspected him of reading."
91: "--Yes but, when I saw it, it was one of those moments of reality, of near-recognition of reality."
92: "When I saw it all of a sudden everything was freed into one recognition, really freed into reality that we never see, you never see it."
123: "He pause for a moment, tapping his lip with the pencil; then, Grdn: Orignlty not inventn bt snse of recall, recgntion, pttrns alrdy thr, q."
152: "Images surround us; cavorting broadcast in the minds of others, we wear the motley tailored by their bad digestions, the shame and failure, plague pandemics and private indecencies, unpaid bills, and animal ecstasies remembered in hospital beds, our worst deeds and best intentions will not stay still, scolding, mocking, or merely chattering they assail each other, shocked at recognition."
250: "No, it's... the recognitions go much deeper, much further back, and I... this... the X-ray tests, and ultra-violet and infra-red, the experts with their photomicography and... macrophotography, do you think that's all there is to it?"
285: "But everything was in order, silently waiting to affirm him, holding there the sense of the half-known waiting for eventual discovery in a final recognition of himself."
322: "Those were the men whose work he admired beyond all else in this life, for they had touched the origins of design with recognition."
332: "--My name Boyma... he managed, summoning himself for the challenge of recognition."
335: "--No I, it's just, listen, criticism? It's the most important art now, it's the one we need most now. Criticism is the art we need most today. But not, don't you see? not the 'if I'd done it myself...' Yes, a, a disciplined nostalgia, disciplined recognitions but not, no, listen, what is the favor? Why did you come here?"
343/373: "The what? The Recognitions? No, it's Clement of Rome. Mostly talk, talk, talk. 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. It's been referred to as the first Christian novel."
414: "--Science, science has a fool theory about recognition. Half the forepart of the brain receives an impression, they say, an instant before the other half. When it reaches the second half the brain recognizes it! A lot of bosh, of course, he paused a step to confide, --but it gives these fool scientists something to do, keeps them from meddling in important matters that don't concern them."
453: "--To... to work, Stanley said, as Anselm turned to look across the street, where a tall man hunched in a green wool shirt gave a nod of recognition slight enough to be disavowed if it were not returned."
(472: "To recognize, not to establish but to intervene. A remarkable illusion?")
477: "...And he broke of, watching Otto's approach without recognition."
501: "The Reformation Symphony made him nervous, as all such music (called 'classical') did, as the word Harvard did; but sometimes he was struck with a bar of 'classical' music, a series of chords such as these which poured forth now, a sense of loneliness and confirmation together, a sense of something lost, and a sense of recognition which he did not understand."
507: "The man signaled the bartender, raising a hand which caught Otto with the gold flash of a signet ring, an affirmation, a summons which drew taut the muscles in his legs, ready to stand and deliver, do homage, receive from that hand the clasp of recognition, pledge fealty, inherit the signet and the kingdom its seal perpetuated."
508: "There was still time to destroy the muffler before it sprang the trap which he had laid himself, before Procrustes appeared to fetter him, with no more than a shock of recognition, to the bed of reality, stretch him or cut him down to fit, release him then, and publish him abroad."
516: "She glanced up at the two of them without recognition or interest."
535: "Everybody has that feeling when they look at a work of art and it's right, that sudden familiarity, a sort of... recognition, as though they were creating it themselves, as though it were being created through them while they look at it or listen to it and, it shouldn't be sinful to want to have created beauty?"
543: "Why, we have movement and surprise, movement and surprise and recognition, over and over again but... who knows what happened?"
552: "They all found her upturned face instantly, caught her dark eyes, one with a smile, one grinned an intimate recognition, until seeking escape she found herself looking into eyes familiar from a minute before, eyes not drawn to her by this instant of leveling, but still fixed on her, eyes which made no response at all."
552: "But that lack of response held her, that lack of recognition no more sanctuary than the opened eyes of a dead man, that negation no asylum for shame but the trap from which it cried out for the right to its living identity."
562-3: "He picked up the paper, and his eyes followed automatically the feature story account of the little Spanish girl soon to be canonized, while his mind rummaged its rich embarrassment of glories and defeats no longer news, for recognition."
564: "His eyes closed slowly; and when he thought, he fastened his hand on his extravasated heart, glad if only of recognition and familiarity, proof against Reason, and the cries of the mendicant Past."
767: "...but Father Martin passed, looking him straight in the face, without a word, without a shade of recognition, the medieval lines of his face standing out livid as though he had seen a ghost."
771: "He looked eager, but nonetheless surprised, even shocked at her invitation, even her recognition, which she withdrew from him, and returned to the children, the bread, cheese, and fish."
P. 22: "It was in the Depot Tavern that he received condolences, accepted funerary offers of drink, and, when these recognitions were exhausted, he sank into the habit of talking familiarly about persons and places unknown to his cronies, so that several of them suspected him of reading."
91: "--Yes but, when I saw it, it was one of those moments of reality, of near-recognition of reality."
92: "When I saw it all of a sudden everything was freed into one recognition, really freed into reality that we never see, you never see it."
123: "He pause for a moment, tapping his lip with the pencil; then, Grdn: Orignlty not inventn bt snse of recall, recgntion, pttrns alrdy thr, q."
152: "Images surround us; cavorting broadcast in the minds of others, we wear the motley tailored by their bad digestions, the shame and failure, plague pandemics and private indecencies, unpaid bills, and animal ecstasies remembered in hospital beds, our worst deeds and best intentions will not stay still, scolding, mocking, or merely chattering they assail each other, shocked at recognition."
250: "No, it's... the recognitions go much deeper, much further back, and I... this... the X-ray tests, and ultra-violet and infra-red, the experts with their photomicography and... macrophotography, do you think that's all there is to it?"
285: "But everything was in order, silently waiting to affirm him, holding there the sense of the half-known waiting for eventual discovery in a final recognition of himself."
322: "Those were the men whose work he admired beyond all else in this life, for they had touched the origins of design with recognition."
332: "--My name Boyma... he managed, summoning himself for the challenge of recognition."
335: "--No I, it's just, listen, criticism? It's the most important art now, it's the one we need most now. Criticism is the art we need most today. But not, don't you see? not the 'if I'd done it myself...' Yes, a, a disciplined nostalgia, disciplined recognitions but not, no, listen, what is the favor? Why did you come here?"
343/373: "The what? The Recognitions? No, it's Clement of Rome. Mostly talk, talk, talk. 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. It's been referred to as the first Christian novel."
414: "--Science, science has a fool theory about recognition. Half the forepart of the brain receives an impression, they say, an instant before the other half. When it reaches the second half the brain recognizes it! A lot of bosh, of course, he paused a step to confide, --but it gives these fool scientists something to do, keeps them from meddling in important matters that don't concern them."
453: "--To... to work, Stanley said, as Anselm turned to look across the street, where a tall man hunched in a green wool shirt gave a nod of recognition slight enough to be disavowed if it were not returned."
(472: "To recognize, not to establish but to intervene. A remarkable illusion?")
477: "...And he broke of, watching Otto's approach without recognition."
501: "The Reformation Symphony made him nervous, as all such music (called 'classical') did, as the word Harvard did; but sometimes he was struck with a bar of 'classical' music, a series of chords such as these which poured forth now, a sense of loneliness and confirmation together, a sense of something lost, and a sense of recognition which he did not understand."
507: "The man signaled the bartender, raising a hand which caught Otto with the gold flash of a signet ring, an affirmation, a summons which drew taut the muscles in his legs, ready to stand and deliver, do homage, receive from that hand the clasp of recognition, pledge fealty, inherit the signet and the kingdom its seal perpetuated."
508: "There was still time to destroy the muffler before it sprang the trap which he had laid himself, before Procrustes appeared to fetter him, with no more than a shock of recognition, to the bed of reality, stretch him or cut him down to fit, release him then, and publish him abroad."
516: "She glanced up at the two of them without recognition or interest."
535: "Everybody has that feeling when they look at a work of art and it's right, that sudden familiarity, a sort of... recognition, as though they were creating it themselves, as though it were being created through them while they look at it or listen to it and, it shouldn't be sinful to want to have created beauty?"
543: "Why, we have movement and surprise, movement and surprise and recognition, over and over again but... who knows what happened?"
552: "They all found her upturned face instantly, caught her dark eyes, one with a smile, one grinned an intimate recognition, until seeking escape she found herself looking into eyes familiar from a minute before, eyes not drawn to her by this instant of leveling, but still fixed on her, eyes which made no response at all."
552: "But that lack of response held her, that lack of recognition no more sanctuary than the opened eyes of a dead man, that negation no asylum for shame but the trap from which it cried out for the right to its living identity."
562-3: "He picked up the paper, and his eyes followed automatically the feature story account of the little Spanish girl soon to be canonized, while his mind rummaged its rich embarrassment of glories and defeats no longer news, for recognition."
564: "His eyes closed slowly; and when he thought, he fastened his hand on his extravasated heart, glad if only of recognition and familiarity, proof against Reason, and the cries of the mendicant Past."
767: "...but Father Martin passed, looking him straight in the face, without a word, without a shade of recognition, the medieval lines of his face standing out livid as though he had seen a ghost."
771: "He looked eager, but nonetheless surprised, even shocked at her invitation, even her recognition, which she withdrew from him, and returned to the children, the bread, cheese, and fish."
jeremiah's review
The novel without a main character or hero. Best I've ever read. Thank God there's still gold to forge.
"But for us, it was there from the start, and possible all the time, to go on knowing it's possible and pretend to avoid it? Or...or to have lived it through, and live it through, and deliberately go on living it through."
"But for us, it was there from the start, and possible all the time, to go on knowing it's possible and pretend to avoid it? Or...or to have lived it through, and live it through, and deliberately go on living it through."