/lit/ - Literature

books where dogs are brutally murdered and chopped up into pieces with kitchen knives. I'll start with a classic, and yes the dog deserved it sar.

It's on my to-read list still so I can't explain why but it definitely would be a popular choice and since you didn't mention it I figured I'd post it...

How hard is this to read exactly? I’ve read and enjoyed Gravity’s Rainbow, is this significantly more difficult? Or is that not even a decent comparison point

This is the vaguest shit I've ever read lol

So we can all agree this is the treaty novel of all time? James Joyce can suck a shit out of an asshole, he ain't got shit on Gaddis.

Remember to unlock the hidden boss when you finish.

Why didn't you tell me this was one of the funniest books of all time? Max and his backwards art. Esme kissing the statue. Wyatt going home. Holy shit.

How do I enjoy another book as much as this one?

what to read beforehand in order to "get" the majority of the book?

What was this book about? Why is it so highly praised?

Will this board ever escape the entry level top 100 list reading that plagues it so?

What was the moral of the story?

Weeew lad. hipsters, art fags and writers BTFO. How will they ever recover? Did gaddis take a time machine, browse /lit/, go home and write the character Otto in /lit/'s image? Otto is literally all of you who have ever put a pen to paper.

Please tell me that no one actually thinks that this book is advocating for a "return to mythology" and "return to the greats".

Why doens't lit ever talk about this book and his author? It seems like it would be a natural fit:
>overly long, complex and intellectual
>treats religion very seriously
>makes fun of hipsters while simultaneously being one
>does pomo better than most postmodernists, decades before
>contains racism and racial slurs unapologetically

I've been thinking a lot about The Recognitions so I'm gonna drop some thoughts.

With all these allusions in the book, one is tempted to link them all together in a supermyth, like what T.S. Eliot called The Mythical Method, "the continuous parallel between contemporary and antiquity that enables people to give significance to the immense panorama of futility and anarchy that is the contemporary world. Gaddis absolutely does not do this... he does not juxtapose many myths to reveal an unconditioned ground of meaning or being, but he juxtaposes them in order to show how there is no warrant for belief in anything claiming to be an unconditioned ground of meaning or being, and recognitions involves seeing that these myths are counterfeit.

Gaddis extends myth to mean science, institutional religion, art, because they all claim to contain this special understanding.

In the novel there are three conflicting mythic systems: Christianity, the alchemical (lots of references to alchemy) art of Wyatt, and technology/science. It seems that Gaddis raises alchemical art to be the victor over all these other mythic systems, but this is wrong. Jung says that in alchemy, the goal is not turning lead into gold but reconciling opposites. Alchemy is not about the esoteric purpose (profit, fame), but about the esoteric purpose of the transformation of sinful to spiritual. This can be likened to the spiritual transformation that occurs so often in many different mythic systems. This connection is made clear by Paracelsus, that named the catalyst that led a person to achieve heavenly unity or to unleash destructive powers as "archeus". For Paracelsus, the "archeus" was the active principle and vector of life, that was connected with the rational and the universal soul. I think the archeus can be likened to the imagination.

We can now see how Wyatt's artistic imagination bridges the gap between low and high, and how that in the mythic system of alchemy, the self is both in need of the redemption and the redeemer, unlike Christianity where the redemption is conducted by a divine agent. Wyatt is obsessed with the purity of his material. The esoteric gold of truth is hidden behind the base values of a contemporary society that embraces the exoteric science and religion. There is definitely a hierarchy of myth though, Wyatt's esoteric art surpasses both science and religion in the search for meaning.

I think I get it

honestly, can someone please explain this book to me.

How come esme never says anything to otto about how he raped her?

>>10453796
F U C K
WHAT DOES ANYTHING WYATT SAYS MEAN
Trying to unravel his stream of consciousness when he returned home felt like trying to pilot an aircraft while blackout drunk.

How come everyone has a different interpretation of this book? No one can ever come to a general consensus on the plot, characters or even meaning of the novel.

So what exactly did the bull mean? The motif kept repeating for like 50 pages, then just vanished.

Also, is Otto and Esme the most depressing case of oneitis in literature?