The Recognitions (NYRB Classics) -

William Gaddis

NYRB

2020

976 páginas

1d 8h 32m

ISBN-13: 9781681374666

The Recognitions is a sweeping depiction of a world in which everything that anyone recognizes as beautiful or true or good emerges as anything but: our world. The book is a masquerade, moving from New England to New York to Madrid, from the art world to the underworld, but it centers on the story of Wyatt Gwyon, the son of a New England pastor, who forsakes religion to devote himself to painting, only to despair of his inspiration. In expiation, he will paint nothing but flawless copies of revered old masters—copies, however, that find their way into the hands of a sinister financial wizard by the name of Recktall Brown, who sells them as the real thing. Gwyon’s story is only one of many that fill the pages of a novel that is as monstrously populated as the paintings of Hieronymus Bosch. Throughout, William Gaddis’s characters preen and scheme and party and toil, pursuing salvation through the debasement of desire.

Dismissed uncomprehendingly by the critics on publication in 1955 and ignored by the literary world for decades after, The Recognitions is now recognized as one of the great American novels.

Resenhas (1)

5 (Perfeito)

Uma literatura boa e moderna como deve ser.

Essa revolução que é pós moderna trazida por gaddis tá em um ponto alto aqui nesse livro. Considero um livro difícil não por linguagem ultra difícil mas sim pelo "não ligo" que o autor da seriamente pra história sem dar a ela totalmente um centro, é apenas o que está ali e não o que pode esta. O gaddis tem uma prosa bem fria que contrasta com a desimportancia mais extrema importância que ele dá a história em si, é bonito, é estranho e é "moderno" é o primeiro respiro da maravilha literária.