The Recognitions (Penguin Classics) (Paperback)

by William Gaddis (Author), William H. Gass (Introduction) "Even Camilla had enjoyed masquerades, of the safe sort where the mask may be dropped at that critical moment it presumes itself as reality..." (more)
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Editorial Reviews

Product Description
Wyatt Gwyon's desire to forge is not driven by larceny but from love. Exactingly faithful to the spirit and letter of the Flemish masters, he produces uncannily accurate 'originals' - pictures the painters themselves might have envied. In an age of counterfeit emotion and taste, the real and fake have become indistinguishable; yet Gwyon's forgeries reflect a truth that others cannot touch - cannot even recognize. Contemporary life collapses the distinction between the 'real' and the 'virtual' world, and Gaddis' novel pre-empts our common obsessions by almost half a century. This novel tackles the blurring of perceptual boundaries, The Matrix and Bladerunner pale in comparison to this epic novel. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

About the Author
WILLIAM GADDIS (1922-98) was one of the greatest writers in twentieth-century America. He wrote five novels and won two National Book Awards, for JR (1976) and for A Frolic of His Own (1995). His other landmark novels include: The Recognitions (1955) and Carpenter's Gothic (1985). Agapc Agape was published by Atlantic in 2002. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Product Details

• Paperback: 976 pages
• Publisher: Penguin Classics (May 1, 1993)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0140187081
• ISBN-13: 978-0140187083
• Product Dimensions: 8.4 x 5.4 x 1.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.6 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars See all reviews (41 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #135,337 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

68 of 71 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Beautiful and Bitter, May 30, 2000

By	Scott Snyder (Northern California) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

The Recognitions is the extreme terminus of "The Catcher in the Rye." Both are concerned with exposing the phony, the counterfeit. Gaddis' work is far more mature, wide ranging and dispairing. His erudition is breathtaking. The work attacks the fake and counterfeit in society, art, Christianity, personal morality and business. My favorite bits are Gaddis' thrashing of Dale Carnegie's "How to Win Friends and Influence People", and the weird flashes into the pagan underpinning of Christianity. Many questions are raised and left unresolved, indeed are unresolvable. The narrative is left in fragments that bleed in all directions, blurring the line between narrative and non-narrative, the conscious and the unconscious. It is a beautiful if bitter book.

PS In my opinion The Recognitions and Gravity's Rainbow are very different and not derivative one from the other. The Recognitions is about fakes, its style jagged fragmentation, highly realistic. GR is paranoid, fragmented like an opium dream or acid trip, and it comes off like a big practical joke or comic book. Read both! Don't think if you've read one, you've got the other.

23 of 24 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars not for the impatient, August 22, 2001

By	"dgillz" (Sussex, New Jersey United States) - See all my reviews

Gaddis' Recognitions is a stunningly huge book, and if you have any appreciation at all for the likes of Thomas Pychon (ditto David Wallace and Kurt Vonnegut), you definitely should check this one out. It kicked off the whole mess. It's a postmodern headscratcher supreme.

The main character of the book, Wyatt Gwyon, drops out of the priesthood and eventually becomes an art forger, a practice that seems at odds with the pious life. But by the time the book is done, using the forgery of art as a symbol for all the world's forgeries and half-truths, the concepts of authorship, originality, faith, and reality itself all come into question.

The second plot, concerning a playwright named Otto, focuses on the act of artistic creation, the corruption of the publishing world, the parties and thoughts of so-called "intellectuals," and the basic moral poverty in America today.

In still another plot line, Stanley, the organ player, religious as any saint in the Bible (a slightly shorter book) is used to challenge notions of faith in every context - political, social, and religious.

Weaving these far-flung plots together is a difficult job, but Gaddis pulls it off with an effort that threatens to break through the pages. At times labored and over-dense, the book still comes off as a success. While balancing such a full plate research finds its way in, research on our collective past: Flemish art, Mithraism, early Catholicism, philosophy, protestantism, myth and folklore, stigmatics, ad absurdum, but it's also absolutely mind-boggling to behold.

This book is difficult, as complicated as any I've ever read, but the effort, though it requires an extraordinary one sometimes, pays off. If you read to rest your eyes don't let the sun set on you here; if not, challenge yourself!

21 of 23 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The Recognitions, October 30, 2004

By	Clare Nathan (MI) - See all my reviews

Not many people even attempt to write like Gaddis anymore. His work, while some would argue, seems to lack much in the way of editing, aspires to something grander than the perfectly edited mediocrity of today's novels. "The Recognitions" is Joycean in its thematic and narrative breadth, and it's aesthetic/philosophic questions go beyond the often trite and angsty work of the later beatnik writers. In spite of highminded digressions on authenticity and Flemish art, the book remains totally engaging through a series of hilarious social parodies and sometimes tragic human dramas.