Chekhov's Mistress
Reading The Recognitions
I don’t know how much I will be able to chronicle of my reading of The Recognitions, but I will lay out some of my thoughts as I go along. None of these are significant enough to put on the GDC site.
Okay, easy going in the beginning. I read the first couple of pages about three times to get my bearings but didn’t have a hard time getting into the narrative line. It actually has a good rhythm to it, and not knowing exactly what to expect, I was presently surprised.
As promised in Gass’ intro, the description of the Doctor Sinisterra (Sinister? No land?) is terrific and I wonder if he will play a significant role in the book. Even with a short introduction, he’s an interesting character.
Fortunately, the early major references are familiar, Goethe’s Faust, Dante’s Inferno, an allusion to the Odyssey and The Aeneid and Argonauts. Other references are covered in the annotations, which are situated on the web such that it’s easy to browse through. My strategy is to give them a look-see after I’ve read a passage so as not to interrupt the flow.
The annotations on the Gaddis site are great, in part because they include comments from WG himself, sometimes refuting what the scholars have come up with. That’s always an interesting gap, because sometimes I do think that great authors assimilate more into their works than they are aware, and of course, sometimes more is read into a text than ought to be. That unknown chasm between the two is left to we readers.
My guess is that the particular Dante reference to Adamo De Brescia is just to the counterfeiting. Adamo is a counterfeiter in Canto 30 (tr. Musa, p. 345), who was burned to death for his crimes.
“pause here and look upon
the misery of one Master Adamo:
in life I had all that I could desire,
and now, alas, I crave a drop of water.
The Malebolge are ravines (evil pockets) in Hell where deceivers are doomed to eternity. Both Jason and Ulysses are found here and both are referenced early on in The Recognitions.
Themes so far –
death and beliefs or attitudes/celebrations around death
Journey – doomed journey
deception
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About this Post
- Posted by: Bud Parr
- Date: November 12, 2004
- Filed Under:
Wise Men Fish Here: Literature
- Comments:0
- Links to this Post: Technorati
