William Gaddis

Obsessed with seventeenth-century Flemish masterpieces, Wyatt Gwyon forges original artwork amazingly faithful to the spirit and techniques of the time.

A Novel

The Recognitions

Will Vunderink

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."

The Recognitions A Novel