/lit/ - Literature

[Anonymous No.11142935]

The Gaddis fan is immunized against all dangers: one may call him a pseud, fraud, dilettante., it all runs off him like water off a raincoat. Ask him to explain the merit and significance of his work and you will be astonished at how he recoils, how injured he is, how he suddenly shrinks back: “I’ve been found out.”

[Anonymous No.11142945]

>>11142935

[Anonymous No.11142957]

>>11142945
So, why is Gaddis' work significant and meritable in itself?

[Anonymous No.11142995]

>>11142957
I wouldn't think too hard about it anon. Thinking makes your head hurt. Just go to sleep...

[Anonymous No.11143019]

>>11142995
lmao. I "get" Gaddis, it's just that what he is saying and writing definitely does not make him a great 20th century author. nice deflection tactic though.

[Anonymous No.11143025]

gaddis is a pleb

[Anonymous No.11143040]

>>11143019
>he thinks trying to change the subject is deflecting, not dodging

[Anonymous No.11143049]

>>11143025
no u

[Anonymous No.11143078]

>>11143040
it's both. it's dodging the question for the sake of deflecting it to whether I understand Gaddis.

[Anonymous No.11143083]

I do not believe anyone here has actually read Recognitions. Every post here about it just descends
>Explain what it means
>No u
>I get it u explain it
>No u
>No u
>No u
>No u
>No u
>No u
>Thread gets archived

[Anonymous No.11143096]

>>11142935
To be fair, this is excellent stuff as far as shitposting goes

[Anonymous No.11143097]

I really like The Recognitions but it really shows that it's his first novel. Most of my criticism of comes down to it being too bloated and esoteric at times. It would have benefited from more judicious editing, and you can tell that Gaddis had a lot of shit he wanted to say and a lot of references he wanted to cram him. I'm not sure why exactly.
J R is arguably better because his writing is more reigned in, and i enjoy that it's mostly dialogue.

[Anonymous No.11143116]

>>11143083
i've read it

[Anonymous No.11143130]

>>11143116
Same it was more difficult than most books but a lot of parts were highly enjoyable

[Anonymous No.11143141]

>>11143097
This is what Gaddis fans think. They don't even understand his use of allusion and such, but because of The Recognitions' seeming complexity, they believe they are on the verge of uncovering a grand idea connecting all the dots to justify their liking the book.

[Anonymous No.11143182]

>>11143097
Agreed. He is most in his element during the Otto sections, and that is when his themes of the affected set vs. the dubious essential self shines through strongest. But that second chapter where Wyatt is in this foreign nation is just an incoherent whirlwind of bullshit referentiality.

[Anonymous No.11143255]

>>11143116
>>11143130
>>11143141
lol what the fuck was the grand idea of this book then

It really is the same thing, every single thread
>woah the recognitions is so complex it's so profound it's such an important book

But never, is there any substantial analysis. No one can ever go into ANY detail as to Why. You gaddiscucks fucking kill me. "Oh it's such a difficult book but uhhhhh, I can't tell you whats good about it you'll have to do that yourself lol"

[Anonymous No.11143259]

gaddis is a pleb

[Anonymous No.11143266]

>>11143255
>>/lit/thread/S10510797
this. abandoned and left to archive.

[Anonymous No.11143273]

>>11143266
Okay so once again, you fags fail to come up with a single independent thought. Anyone can defer to that one lad's paper I've seen it here before, but that you have nothing to say for yourself should in the least be embarrassing.

[Anonymous No.11143279]

>>11143273
i am the OP and i actually wrote that post. what I am saying is that Gaddis may have some merit, but nothing on the level that gaddiscucks praise him for. i completely agree with
>But never, is there any substantial analysis. No one can ever go into ANY detail as to Why. You gaddiscucks fucking kill me. "Oh it's such a difficult book but uhhhhh, I can't tell you whats good about it you'll have to do that yourself lol"
I don't really hate gaddis, just the gaddiscucks like you talked about.

[Anonymous No.11143284]

>>11143273
also, it's not a paper. as far as i know The Recognitions is barely taught.

[Anonymous No.11143298]

>>11143279
>>11143273
You guys wanna talk about how funny the Otto sections were?

[Anonymous No.11143302]

>>11143255
lol you just didnt get it I guess it was just too complicated for you

[Anonymous No.11143308]

>>11142935
Explain the merit and significance of one(1) author acceptably and I'll stop shilling Gaddis, swear on my mother.

[Anonymous No.11143313]

>>11143298
I didn't find the hotel lobby scene as funny as other people, but i really liked otto as a character. what did you like about otto?

[Anonymous No.11143316]

>>11143308

[Anonymous No.11143327]

>>11143279
Haha if that really is you I'll have to genuinely commend you. It's a compelling take and one that not many people have the time to put together in such a polished fashion. That being said too, I actually really appreciate gaddis. I've only ever read R, but I read it twice, felt big-brained as hell especially during the earlier parts of the aesthetics of sincerity/authenticity etc,. in modernity. And I especially find my opinion aligning with >>11143097 in that it was an ambitious book, surely never lacking thematically or in fervence. It could've been great. Perhaps if only Gaddis held on to the manuscript ever perfecting his passion project as he moved through his own maturity it could've easily become Canon. Maybe it was to sprawling, maybe there was simply too much; pr maybe I'm a brainlet and to be fair, you have to have a very high IQ to understand the Recognitions. I feel it's that the weight of each topic fails under the strength of young G's narrative capacities, to the point where you can pick out and identify parts, but putting together the whole becomes too monumentus a task when doubts of fake-profundity begin to trickle in, idk

[Anonymous No.11143420]

>>11143327
I don't think Gaddis was too ambitious, because he actually did succeed in pulling off something pretty good... I think it's not canonized because without being told that the novel is subtly a really strong anti-novel, no one would be able to make sense of it. When making sense of this novel there are too many factors to consider... I kept going with the common-sense idea that it was somehow an ode to myth and i needed to put it all together to make sense of it until I read Jung. The novel makes sense in an anti-sense way, and it kind of feels like a cheap gag, but at the same time it is very unique... but I still think it's too long for it's own good.
>putting together the whole becomes too monumentus a task when doubts of fake-profundity begin to trickle in
maybe that's what Gaddis wants...
>Perhaps if only Gaddis held on to the manuscript ever perfecting his passion project as he moved through his own maturity it could've easily become Canon.
Probably... what do you think he could've done to improve it? For the message he was going for, all I can say is that it would be better if he found some way to just shorten it... but maybe then it would lose some of its anti-novel aspects.

[Anonymous No.11143430]

>>11143313
The stuff that tickled me most was the stuff at the party where he kept trying to awe everyone with his worldly persona and nobody gave a shit. Something about a failed affectation just makes for amazing comedy. Like the fake sling and how he kept trying to work his canned speech about his travels into conversation but people kept interrupting or simply ignoring him. Good stuff.

[Anonymous No.11143499]

>>11143430
i forgot about the sling. seems like something i would do.

[Anonymous No.11143599]

Ok there's some sperg rambling on about how Gaddis fans can't explain what's good about this book, or what it's point is. I'll try to summarize my interpretation of it.

Primarily, I believe Gaddis was concerned with exploring authenticity, both in the more literal sense of authentic art, as well as the more existential type of individual authenticity of being. The most obvious level of this is the career of the main character Wyatt, who counterfeits famous paintings, hired by a Mephistophelian black-market art dealer guy who is all about the money, where as Wyatt is all about the work and the spirit of the art. Even though he's bullshitting and making forgeries, he still pours his life into his work, and he pays obsessive detail to the varied nuances of art forgeries, all the methods to make it properly look damaged or aged so to elude the scientific processes that are used to verify paintings.

Anyways, it's important to note that Wyatt was born with a different name, which he gets back at the end of the novel when he assumes a new identity. As he has basically a crisis of faith he slowly goes insane and sort of disappears into the narrative (it's noticable how Gaddis uses Wyatt's name less and less to show when he shows up in scenes as the novel progesses, one of the great but difficult things in his work is really paying attention to character details so you can tell when people are around or who's speaking).

As for all of the bullshit with the religious references, Wyatt's father is a pastor figures out that early Christianity is in some parts a huge rip off and a hodge podge of an old Mithras cult, among other near-eastern mythologies and stories and stuff. This character and setting is used by Gaddis for his critiquing religious authenticity in Christianity, especially Protestants.

[Anonymous No.11143607]

>>11143599
As for the conflict of personal authenticity, this is best represented I think in the character of Otto, who honestly is just a shitty second-hand, wanna-be version of the main character Wyatt. Although in a different discipline than Wyatt, Otto is a similar young artist (dramatist) with daddy issues. He is weirdly enamored with Wyatt whenever he meets him, and quotes his musings and sayings for use in his own play, some pretentious work that always sounds like purpley bullshit. Like Wyatt, Otto is shown trying to reconcile himself with his estranged father, although his efforts end up hilariously mangled and confused. The best part of all is that he also fucks Wyatt's estranged wife.

[Anonymous No.11143612]

>>11143599
>anon makes an actual attempt
>fails miserably
The part about Gaddis's critique of christianity is particularly bad.

[Anonymous No.11143616]

>>11142935
It has personal significance

[Anonymous No.11143617]

>>11143612
I haven't read it in a long time and it's like a 1000+ page book with a lot of characters and a lot of scenes. Let's see your attempt

[Anonymous No.11143622]

>>11143616
And then he told me...of the significance

[Anonymous No.11143626]

>>11143612
It's really difficult to work out what Gaddis's conclusions or intentions are. He hides behind a lot of very dry irony and let's the absurdity or foolishness of his characters and situations speak for themselves. After one reading, I can grasp the essence of what he was trying to communicate but it's a lot to articulate

[Anonymous No.11143637]

>>11143617
>how about instead of criticisng me you do better
Underage.

I wanna bullshit you with something like 'doing a summary that tries to encompass a whole work is like doing a forgery bruh the whole point of the work is you can't do it', but the truth is I just don't wanna.
Main criticsim of your stuff:
>a random priest randomly incorporates whatever he wants into his belief because it was never actually based on anything other than make belief and pretending is a criticism of fideism and 'cultural christianity', not of religion
>been a while since I read the Recognitions, but can you even do a forgery in dramaturgy? How would that actually work?
>other than that your whole post is 'the author analyses this' and you don't come to any conclusions

[Anonymous No.11143639]

>>11143327
i agree with you

i think that Gaddis had a very intense and well-developed inner vision (it basically seems like he thinks that capitalism and consumerism are really really bad for the purity or authenticty of art and human experiences) but that he couldn't quite nail down how to express his vision, and sought to do so with an overabundance of detail. however the novel, it's excessive erudition sort of aligns itself with his idea of artistic pretension. it's such an overabundant, self-indulgent artefact, the deeper meanings get lost, or may not exist

[Anonymous No.11143644]

>>11143639
>doing critique assuming that the author failed to do what he wanted
Please stop.

[Anonymous No.11143650]

>>11143637
lmao have you even read the book? your criticisms make no sense

[Anonymous No.11143827]

>>11143279
To me the book captures the postmodern condition perfectly through a Hegelian historical dialectic (Art, and Religion which thereby produce a (pomo) Philosophy).

So for art, Gaddis contemplates authenticity and forgery for most of the novel (which is self-evident). You know, Wyatt makes forgeries, Stephen writes something which seems like its plagiarized, etc, etc. But, what Gaddis does uniquely, and what sets him apart from other meta-authors before him is that he doesn't just question the authenticity of the work of art, but also the authenticity of the act of consuming that art. Whereas other authors which have meta-text often do so with a degree of irony being like "look at how this text is constructed," Gaddis goes one step further and says "look at how this text is constructed, but wait, look at how your reaction to this text as constructed is also constructed." So the specter of the critic is one of the predominant forces that drive the narrative: whether it be how Wyatt is first introduced by a businessman who offers to write good reviews for his work or when, in a scene where the book references the book itself, and describes how critics reviewing the book haven't actually read the book because its too long.

The main support for this in the last line which says: He was the only person caught in the collapse, and afterward, most of his work was recovered too, and it is still spoken of, when it is noted, with high regard, though seldom played.

There's more on the religious reading of it, but I think that's a good start for now. Ultimately, the novel, for me, produces a philosophy of Misrecognition--both in Spirit and in Beauty.