negative cliche: what! no resolution?
the recognitions has no happy ending
hollywood overdoses have he explores extensively the possibilities of religion in our time. But(tho lightened by "often hilarious" portraits) do novelists have to cure the world? Everything in the book ends in death or destruction, the end of thewhat does life end in? hartmans too sophisticated to use the cliche without apology so he uses it with apology, whats the difference? I will say that the creation of the minister is nothing short ofa counterfeit sentence the non seq couldnt have been really a con- dition for hartmans approval, he lies when he says it could like when he says if the real ambiguity of gaddis position"whatever it is"had been fully stated "we might have had here a book we could consider side by side with the very best" a fake if & a fake then simak too starts apologizing for dragging in this old wornout cliche: the one objection which sticks in this reviewer's crawand it is notbut gets brasher is that while indictment after indictment is trotted out and thebecause he simaks learned the value of humility if you seem to laugh at yourself as well as your victim it shows youre modest & the readers more likely to believe whatever nonsense youre peddling. like the disgusting capital letters in "This Terrible Mess"
the grimmest work of art
being really there can give the pos-
in westerns & mysteries, the happy ending & invulnerable hero trick
rolo says the recognitions "theme is familiarthe modern world is hell."
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rolo's last 2 paras (favorable review) <> >< |
rolo reversed (unfavorable review) >< <> |
The novel's central failure is that the characters through whom the corruption of the modern world is dramatized are inadequate for the purpose. Too many of them are drawn from Bohemia, which has always been (along with bet- ter things) the refuge of fakers, self-deceivers, and hysterics. One does not convincingly demonstrate that the world is insane by de- scribing life in an insane asylum. A second failing is that the theme has been elaborated before the halfway mark and what fol- lows is further illustration rather than development. As for the resolution, it is presented too thinly and too obscurely to emerge as a counterpoint to the thunder- ous chorus of perdition. There are other obscurities, some of them due to excessive deployment of the author's phenomenal erudi- tion; and generally speaking, Mr. Gaddis has been mastered by, and not achieved mastery over, the delirium he wishes to depict. In spite of these flaws, which make The Recognitions a some- what incoherent semi-failure, the book seems to me one of the half dozen most remarkable first novels published by American writers since the end of the nineteen- thirties. A work of 956 pages in the nightmarish vein could easily sink into unbearable dreariness; but as far as this reader was con- cerned, The Recognitions retained a quality of excitement to the end. Mr. Gaddis has wit and passion and imagination in abundance, as well as seriousness and learning. A profound sense of irony enables him to distill savage comedy and atrocious farce out of his dooms- day vision of the world. His ex- travagant portraiture is arresting and frequently brilliant. All this adds up to something new in con- temporary American fictiona highbrow novel of ideas which, flawed though it is, has the qualities which our intellectual novels have tended to lack: mo- mentum, range, and imaginative vitality. |
A work of 956 pages in the nightmarish vein could easily sink into unbearable dreariness; but as far as this reader was con- cerned, The Recognitions retained a quality of excitement to the end. Mr. Gaddis has wit and passion and imagination in abundance, as well as seriousness and learning. A profound sense of irony enables him to distill savage comedy and atrocious farce out of his dooms- day vision of the world. His extrav- agant portraiture is arresting and frequently brilliant. All this adds up to something new in con- temporary American fictiona highbrow novel of ideas which has the qualities which our intel- lectual novels have tended to lack: momentum, range, and imag- inative vitality. In spite of these virtues, which make the book seem to me one of the half dozen most remarkable first novels pub- lished by American writers since the end of the nineteen-thirties, The Recognitions is a somewhat incoherent semi-failure. The novel's central failure is that the characters through whom the cor- ruption of the modern world is dramatized are inadequate for the purpose. Too many of them are drawn from Bohemia, which has always been (along with better things) the refuge of fakers, self- deceivers, and hysterics. One does not convincingly demonstrate that the world is insane by describing life in an insane asylum. A second failing is that the theme has been elaborated be- fore the halfway mark and what follows is further illustration rather than development. As for the resolution, it is presented too thinly and too obscurely to emerge as a counterpoint to the thunder- ous chorus of perdition. There are other obscurities, some of them due to excessive deployment of the author's phenomenal erudition; and generally speaking, though his work has many virtues, Mr. Gaddis has been mastered by, and not achieved mastery over, the delirium he wishes to depict. |