The Recognitions - Softcover

William Gaddis

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1843541661 ISBN 13: 9781843541660

Publisher: Atlantic Books (UK), 2003

Synopsis

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.

About 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).Agape Agape was published by Atlantic in 2002.

Review:

"The novel is like a huge landscape painting of modern New York, peopled with hundreds of doomed but energetic little figures, executed on wood panels by Brueghel or Bosch, and looking incongruously ancient beneath layers of yellowed lacquer. Even the blue skies in the book (the phrase "Another blue day" recurs as a despair-inducing leitmotiv) glow like oil-paint skies in an art museum..." (Jonathan Franzen, The New Yorker)

"The Recognitions is always spoken of as the most overlooked important work of the last several literary generations... Through the famous obscurity of The Recognitions, Mr. Gaddis has become famous for not being famous enough." (Cynthia Ozick)

"[The Recognitions] seems as relevant as ever. For who would dare say that we no longer live in a world in which people 'exchange forgeries of what the heart dare not surrender?' The problem of authenticity in all its forms is always with us, and in reading this extraordinary book we are constantly freed into recognitions ― re-cognitions ― of many aspects, of the problem, which have deteriorated into non-cognitions in our mass media age. William Gaddis detects forgery at all levels, but in doing so he has forged a classic." (Tony Tanner, The New York Times)

About this edition

• Publisher: Atlantic Books (UK)
• Publication date: 2003
• ISBN 10: 1843541661
• ISBN 13: 9781843541660
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 956