Discussion - Week One - The Recognitions - Part I, Chap. 1, 2, & 3

[Jim]

This discussion covers Part I, Chapter 1, 2 & 3.


Part I, Chapter 1

MEPHISTOPHELES (leiser): Was gibt es den?
WAGNER (leiser): Es wird ein Mensch gemacht.

[MEPHISTOPHELES (lower): What is that?
WAGNER (lower): It is man made.]

- Goethe, Faust II

Gwyon and Camilla take an ocean voyage to Spain, but Camilla’s stomach pains turn out to be acute appendicitis and the ship’s surgeon turns out to be a not so cute counterfeiter. Camilla is interred in a Spanish Catholic tomb, Gwyon loses his sanity among some Franciscans and a Gibraltar monkey finds a new home in a New England barn. Aunt May and Reverend Gwyon take turns twisting and warping young Wyatt’s mind ‘til they drive him to his near-death bed.



Part I, Chapter 2

Très curieux, vos maîtres anciens. Seulement les plus beaux, ce sont les faux.

[Very curious, your old masters. Only the most beautiful, are counterfeit.]

- Paul Eudel, Trucs et truqueurs


We pop over to the continent for a bit of field study of ugly Americans abroad in 1930’s Paris. Young Wyatt has managed to escape his divinity studies and is preparing for his first art show when he meets the reality of the art world in the form of Monsieur Crémer. We then bookend our way out of Paris with a few “au revoirs” to the ugly Americans.



Part I, Chapter 3

First of all, then, he is evil, in the judgment of God, who will not inquire what is advantageous to himself. For how can anyone not love another, if he does not love himself? … In order, therefore, that there might be a distinction between those who choose good and those who choose evil, God has concealed that which is profitable to men.
- Peter, in the Clementine Recognitions


Now in New York, Wyatt marries Esther and her vagina dentata. He never seems to communicate until Otto shows up. A nip and a tuck later and Wyatt is out, Otto is in. Until, Ellery shows up…

Meanwhile, Recktall Brown arrives to show Wyatt the light. It turns out that money and value are the same thing.

Gaddis makes ample use of his young characters’ search for meaning to expound his own ideas about art, parasites, and other mushy ideas.


To avoid spoilers, please restrict your comments to Part I, Chapter 1, 2, & 3.

[Aloha]

I am really enjoying this book. I'm getting why this book is postmodern. The way he lays out and reveals the characters through dialogue that is real life dialogue, sometimes unclear, often unfinished, that makes it experiential. A single person can have varying moods, sometimes funny, sometimes intense, and sometimes droll. Like in real life, these people are complex. This is unlike traditional writing, where characters are clearly defined so people can immediately mentally link with them and not have to do any further thinking, but just merely enjoy the story, hanging on to the same style, plot and type of characters like a security blanket, not wanting the challenge.

This is expressed at Wyatt's impassioned outburst to Esther about how people like to read on the surface, wanting the comfort of knowing the same thing, instead of being surprised, experiencing things, and allowing things to unfold before them. I agree with that. I get tired of reading books that I feel becomes a fill in the blank. I know what's going to happen, the style and flow is the same, and the resolution is the same. To me, it's mind numbing. To most people, it's the enjoyment in the security of the familiar. I think that's why I am really enjoying postmodern writing. I'm starting to get bored with predicting the same format, characters and style.

[Aloha]

I cannot stand Esther. I'm ready to bash her on her dense head. I can understand that Wyatt can be hard to take, but Esther is so dense. Unfortunately, that is how it is with a lot of people. LOL.

[Aloha]

It's interesting the pairing of Esther and Wyatt, two very different people in their sensitivity, Wyatt being able to see at a deeper level than Esther, Esther so dense as if she's missing a sensory perception. Then there's Otto, who has the ability to understand at a deeper level, but is not there at this point in his life. Otto is like a bridge between the two.

[Jim]

Aloha wrote: "It's interesting the pairing of Esther and Wyatt, two very different people in their sensitivity, Wyatt being able to see at a deeper level than Esther, Esther so dense as if she's missing a sensor..."

On page 136 of the Dalkey Archive edition is this passage:

"-With his ability and your ambition, she said taking Otto's arm, and looking away too soon to see the expression she brought to his face, - I'd have quite a remarkable man."

Esther is in pursuit of her ambition and her idea of a great artist to call her husband. As she rightly notes, a man who combined Wyatt's and Otto's respective strengths would indeed be a formidable partner for Esther.

What do you think of Gaddis referring to her as vagina dentata and the tarantula's silk-lined burrow and a resentment of men for the success of their casual fortunes?

Seems a bit 1950's misogyny. But maybe this perception is based on observing women artists forced to compete with men in what was clearly a boy's club at the time. Artists like Lee Krasner and Jay DeFeo trying to squeeze their way into the clubhouse.

[Aloha]

I think you're correct in your assessment, Jim, regarding the misogyny in those days when women artists were trying to break into the men's club, based on what I've read of art history. The common view among the male artists would be that these women were hangers on of inferior background, intellect and abilities, who probably got in by their intimate association with male artists, such as Lee Krasner with Jackson Pollock. However, Lee Krasner was a top student of Hans Hoffman before she even linked up with Pollock. The truth is that her art career and potential was probably suppressed by the male club and by having a famous partner. There were other notable women, like Gertrude Stein, who was an intellectual powerhouse not reliant on personal association with men and who was one of the early experimenters of various styles of writing, such as stream of consciousness writing. It's funny that men were dominant in the creative world, yet still find women threatening.

In the context of the book, though, Esther was portrayed as a dense ambitious woman, who lacks the depth perception as far as aesthetics is concerned, but ironically and unhappily wants the glow from those who have it. Because of her nature, as much as she admires Wyatt's ability to see, she suppresses, minimalizes and ridicules his sensibilities. I guess Otto would be perfect for her ambition, since he loves her, is in between living and being comfortable in her world, but appreciates and understands Wyatt's world. He can steal Wyatt's sensibilities to communicate with the masses. Wyatt is somewhat of a tragic figure in that he is a man who can perceive things much more deeply than most, to the point that he is cut off from others, and is bound to live within the confines set up by others.

[Jim]

Aloha wrote: "I think you're correct in your assessment, Jim, regarding the misogyny in those days when women artists were trying to break into the men's club, based on what I've read of art history. The common..."

Why do you think she's dense? She seems bright and ambitious and cares for Wyatt's mental state. She asks quite sincerely for something approaching love or at least attention from Wyatt who is very remote and emotionally opaque. She is concerned for his health and well-being. She is writing her own novel. Can you cite anything in the text that shows her as dense?

[Christine]

I'm only at page 122 (just after Esther and Otto have dinner), but I can safely say I'm hooked. I read mostly on the train to and from work, which is generally distracting, and it definitely took its toll for the first chapter, but I'm uncomfortably loving the exchanges between Esther and Wyatt. Almost missed my stop today.

Esther is frustrated, and rightfully so. She wants more from her husband, which may come across as annoying, but she's very real and so are her concerns. Even when she talks to others about him, it makes sense; I don't blame here. I can't wait to see where this goes, but I hope she sticks around. I like her observations; she's no Betty Draper (yet?).

One of my favorite passages so far is about the arrogance of suffering. (Oh, that Wyatt!) That scene starts with Esther calling out Wyatt about the way he hit his heels on the floor with his head up. It starts on page 111, and blew me away. I'll quote my favorite part. Here is Wyatt schooling Esther about Flamenco:

"That's what it is, this arrogance, in this flamenco music this same arrogance of suffering, listen. The strength of it's what's so overpowering, the self-sufficiency that's so delicate and tender without an instant of sentimentality. With infinite pity, but refusing pity. It's a precision of suffering, he went on, abruptly working his hand in the air as though to shape it there, --the tremendous tension of violence all enclosed in a framework...in a pattern that doesn't pretend to any other level but its own, do you know what I mean? He barely glanced at her to see if she did.--It's the privacy, the exquisite sense of privacy about it, he said speaking more rapidly, --it's the sense of privacy that most popular expressions of suffering don't have, don't dare have, that's what makes it arrogant."

Esther's reaction is hilarious.

[Ellen]

I am having a little trouble with Gaddis' depiction of women-not so much in any one case (Esther is funny & sad to me) but in the aggregate. Not that he seems to be a big fan of humanity in general but with women he ties in their failings directly to their gender.

That notwithstanding, I'm really enjoying this book. He does some excellent mockery of the Catholic rites which I understood better than the protestant takes (I understand very little about Protestant culture, if one can lump all the different protestant churches into one group which I'm sure one can't).

Interestingly, Wyatt himself at this moment seems particularly blank to me (I'm in the middle of chapter 2).

[Aloha]

Jim, when the character of Esther was introduced, phrases like vagina dentata and

"tarantula's silk-lined burrow...no more than the trap door which the tarantula leaves open at the top, or the victims who tumble in, affirming her woman's part in deep despair over their common lot, expressed in a resentment of men for the success of their casual fortunes where her devourings continued, but not for love...".

and

"Esther had spent little time with women. She seemed to find in their problems only weak and distorted plagiarisms of "the monstrous image of her own."

Granted, it might reflect the author's possible misogynist point of view, but it also characterizes Esther as ambitious possibly to the point of coldness.

The way she scrutinizes, pushes and criticizes Wyatt is irritating. With such characterization, I imagine that after being with her, I wouldn't want to share with her any of my fanciful musings, either. And when she pushes him to say hs thoughts, she continued to push him to dissect his thoughts. I would imagine life with her would be suffocating in her ambition and personal dissection.

This passage I interpret as Wyatt's defensiveness after being married to such a woman:

"it was this look he had now, the surprise of one intruded upon. And year after year as their marriage went on, the first came less and the other more often, until one day, remembering him, or trying to remember, it would be this one which would come to her, this face of confusion, of one intruded upon, an anxious look. He said, —Nothing."

Remember that it was to Otto that he opened up. Maybe it's because Otto was able to understand and appreciate his ideas in a way that does not make him defensive.

That is my take based on the author's initial description of Esther, and my imagination of why, after a while, their marriage would end up with Esther pushing and Wyatt not sharing.

[Aloha]

There were other passages that says a lot about Esther's ambitious nature and need to elevate herself.

"Esther liked books out where everyone could see them, a sort of graphic index to the intricate labyrinth of her mind arrayed to impress the most casual guest,"

This is more than just somebody who loves a collection, hoards it, and lays it out for personal satisfaction. I'm not even sure that she personally enjoys her book collection but more as a way to impress people of her erudition.

"Esther had admired the drawing begun on that large soiled cracked surface...admired the drawing not for what it was but, as she said, for what it could be. He stood looking at it, and they were silent, for he knew she was looking at him."

Note how she does not see his drawings for what they are, but what they could be. There were also passages where she grilled him about why he doesn't push himself to be more than he is.

I'm still not convinced of the author's misogyny since he also depicted male characters in an unflattering light. Also, ambitious women were frustrated in those days since it was a man's club, which makes the character of Esther quite real. Even nowadays, I've met women who find other women too trivial, too sexy, too misrepresenting what they would like their own sex to represent. Sometimes women are the worst misogynist.

[Whitney]

Moonbutterfly wrote: "Since this book was written in 1955, I'm not surprised by it's treatment of women. Just look at newspaper ads from the 50's. ..."

Well, that's a depressing little trip down nostalgia lane. But are you sure they weren't ads taken from recent presidential campaigning?

[Aloha]

The book is definitely written from a male's point of view, but I still wouldn't label the author a misogynist. If a guy is a jerk, I would call him a prick, but would that make me a male hater? The term vagina dentata is appropriate in describing Esther in that she was the one that wanted to speed up the marriage to Wyatt for her own ambition, in what she sees in him as a powerful team for her creative ambitions. It really is a very biting and strong term for a woman who wants to trap a man to her manipulations. They do exist.

[Ellen]

I don't think Gaddis is necessarily a misogynist and certainly not based on one label or character. However, a novelist creates the characters in their work and the only woman so far who seems good is the dead to begin with.

[Aloha]

Esme seems fine to me, but that's later on. In fact, Esme is the character I like the best so far. I don't really care for any of the men, either. Recktall Brown and some of the other men are poopy awful.

[Aloha]

I think that if you look at how irreverent the whole book is, towards religion, art, etc., the vagina dentata comment is not particularly out of place. I'd rather be a vagina dentata than a Rectall Brown. :oD

I'd say Esther and Wyatt deserve each other. He for being self-absorbed, she for eyeing him for her own ambitious purposes.

[Whitney]

Aloha wrote: I'd rather be a vagina dentata than a Rectall Brown..."

:-D Amen!

[Aloha]

I'm a little past the halfway point in the book at a point that makes me feel really sorry for Esther. My heart really goes out to the pain she feels because of Wyatt. So sad.

[Ellen]

I feel bad for Esther too-maybe I overidentify but I wish Wyatt would just leave her instead of shutting down around her. Also, why is it so terrible to be ambitious? Especially in the 50s, women often had to achieve through their connections to men.

[Aloha]

He did leave her. It's the way that she was ambitious. Maybe it has to do with the fact that it was much more difficult for women to get their foot in the door. I think Gaddis illustrated that quite well. That's why I'm not convinced of his misogyny. You'll see what I mean when you read further. Her ambitions made her life miserable.

[Whitney]

You're okay, by the end of chapter 3 Wyatt is in a crappy subbasement apartment and Esther has passed through Otto and is on to Ellery.

Aloha, you are not alone in having issues with the limited discussion forum, there was a long discussion about this previously under the "Questions, Resources and General Banter - The Waves' heading. Worth revisiting for the opinions on the advantages / restrictions of this format.

[Aloha]

Thanks, Whitney. That's what I thought. At the end of Chapter 3, Wyatt was basically gone, and Esther went through Otto. They seemed separated to me.

I'll check out the discussion you mentioned.

[Aloha]

Esther also has a choice in this relationship, too. She does not have to stay with Wyatt, either. You can't mold somebody to what you want. If who they are is not good enough for you, then you have a choice to leave the relationship, instead of playing the suffering partner.

[Whitney]

Aloha wrote: "Esther also has a choice in this relationship, too. She does not have to stay with Wyatt, either. You can't mold somebody to what you want. If who they are is not good enough for you, then you h..."

Always easier said than done, though.

[Aloha]

Whether it's Wyatt leaving her or her leaving Wyatt, the end result is the same. She'll be without Wyatt. But I know what you mean that it's hard to see the result when you're in the process.

[Ellen]

I didn't mind the spoiler-and I do feel I overidentify with Esther's feelings in the relationship. It's hard to leave if you're the one who cares.

[Whitney]

Switching gears, how did people see the (mostly one-sided) discussion with Wyatt and Recktall? Wyatt quit painting in disgust after his mentor sold his painting as a forgery and the critic tried to solicit a bribe for a good review. Recktall, however, implies Wyatt is acting more out of petulance that the world didn’t instantly bow down before his genius.

I suspect there’s an element of both sides, but Rectall’s (so hard to write that name without shaking my head) comment’s definitely had a ring of truth. It seems to me Wyatt has a mass of insecurities, which he covers up with intellectualism, arrogance, and disdain for others. His emotional unavailability also seems to be an indication of his insecurities.

[Lily]

Checked the book out late last week. Liked what I read enough that I downloaded the ebook this weekend. Got through the first chapter yesterday. Not certain I am in adequate training for this marathon, especially since Ulysses is still in process on CD listening and not at the moment yet in sync with the delightful Great Courses lectures by Dartmouth professor James Heffernan.

But, I enjoyed that first chapter immensely. I have been reading and exposed to perhaps too much religious thought the past several years, but it was pure hoot to see "of one substance" (homoousian) versus "of like substance" (homoiousian) embedded in casual description. (Or "...when, at Nicaea, the fate of the Christian church hung on a diphthong...") Oh, I wonder how a next generation, trained in our secular education systems, will encounter such allusions, let alone the biblical ones of a Hardy. Or, will we morph our systems enough they be able to handle the Quran, Ovid, the Tanakh, the Book of Mormon, the Vedas, and the Gospels et al in the same breath?

Adored the white funeral carriage resembling "a baroque confectionery stand"; applauded Gwyon's turning his back on the alternative "ponderous black vehicle" for the "tainted and corrupt"; smiled at the garish National Geographic photography trinkets and beaded wreaths in the cemetery; and shed a dry tear over the sad photograph of the ravaged cross-eyed white stockinged waif. Laughed, sadly, too, for sanctimonious Aunt May: "Better to marry to burn, but she had not been forced to that pusillanimous choice: gnarled, she stepped from one virginity to another without hesitation." Then there was the cavity hollowed in St. John's (of the Cross) The Dark Night of the Soul, leaving a tome faintly redolent of caraway!

[Lily]

Stream of consciousness associations:

"...it was, after all, Spanish earth...", but more:
"The ladies were seduced by salt..." (p10)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wieliczk...
There was an email about this place floating around a year or so ago -- fascinating photos. Apparently not a totally unusual thing to associate with salt mines. I think the rather baroque Catholic settings triggered the associations.

"...peace settled for two more centuries, broken only by occasional dousings of the church altar by peasants who chose this fashion of delivering their tithes..." The Lombards and their uprisings against machinery; the woman who delivers the jug of milk in the opening pages of Ulysses. (Uprisings and milk are universal and persistent across history? OK, trite, but where my associations went.)

Not quite certain why this rather powerful association, perhaps because of death and of cemeteries. I read this as a part of my grieving process after the death of my husband -- moved the experience to a broader scope than the personal alone: Night of Stone: Death and Memory in Twentieth-Century Russia by Catherine Merridale.

[Catherine]

Lily wrote: "Checked the book out late last week. Liked what I read enough that I downloaded the ebook this weekend. Got through the first chapter yesterday. Not certain I am in adequate training for this ma..."

I, too, absolutely adored this first chapter and the almost off-hand references to religious thought. The casualness of the mention of the Trinitarian debate made me chuckle; it reminded me of my days in seminary! Now if I mention anything like this I get some odd looks. I agree, Lily, most folks I believe are going to have a more difficult time picking up on these more esoteric allusions, especially the next generation. But that's the wonder of a group like this, we can bounce our ideas off each other and learn from each other - even if we are late to the party =).