Everything and More: Dialogue and Voices in "The Recognitions"

Given the volume of history, citations, sources, and secondary texts in The Recognitions by William Gaddis, the novel has often (rightfully) been referred to as encyclopedic. Even though it works as both a historical and (then) contemporary piece, rife with facts both fictional and non-fictional, I sometimes get the feeling that any novel over 500 pages is sometimes labeled encyclopedic, which if it's not, and merely just a long book, renders said label inexplicable at best, and mildly self-insulting to the reviewer at worst, since it hints at a lack of adjectives on his/her part. Some writers and critics have tried to tear away that label from The Recognitions, and the best argument that I've found comes from writer Joseph McElroy in his excellent essay "Gaddis Dialogue Questioned" (re-printed in Paper Empire: William Gaddis and the World System):

"[The Recognitions]was a work adequate to our underground history and pretension, carried through no matter how long it takes: this was the Gaddis example, an idea of the book itself, what it could hold. (Forget "experimental"; forget "encyclopedic") Worth writing, worth reading, it will be a book to be in, not just to pass through as so much nowadays passes through us and is gone.....
....The hole so overflows with voices (McElroy 67)."

In my introductory essay on The Recognitions, I mentioned that I would be writing a follow-up piece on "some nuances of the novel." This was a terribly vague statement on my part, but while I tossed around various potential specific essays, I could not escape the winding turns, power and sheer abundance of voices and dialogues in the novel. Granted, albeit with rare exceptions, dialogue is a constant in fiction, postmodern or otherwise, and done in ways that are brilliant, subversive, contradictory, or realistic. However, in The Recognitions, Gaddis manages to combine all of those potentials, presented in standard fashions, but also in labyrinth, multi-character discussions that are compelling, intentionally evasive as to who is speaking, and mysterious. Mix these with radio voices, reprinted news articles, and reprinted personal letters, and the novel manages to combine both Realism, an intelligent caricature of bustling city cacophonies, as well as purely seductive, misleading bullshit. However, every piece is intentional; it's up to the reader to decide what's true, what's blatantly false, and what could possibly be a combination of the two. Nothing is set in stone, yet everything is available for an endless equation of possible meanings.

Critics from McElroy to Franzen have made many notes on Gaddis' use of ellipses, dashes, and unnamed or non-cited speakers. A careful reading makes the majority of the conversations understandable, and in the best cases, meanings are both explicit as well as merely implied. Early in The Recognitions, Wyatt has a transforming conversation with a corrupt art critic, and their back-and-forth conversation is deceptively simple, yet weighed with (mostly negative) implications.

"--What do you mean? Wyatt looked up, startled, dropping his arms.
--I am in a position to help you greatly.
--Yes, yes, but...
--Art criticism pays very badly, you know.
--But...well? Well? His face creased.
--If you should guarantee me, say, one-tenth of the sale price of whatever we sell...
--We? You? You (Gaddis 71)?"

The reader knows exactly what is going on, the two speakers are on the same page, but at the same time, there's an air of deception and corruption, which is an appropriate microcosm of the novel as a whole. Other microcosms abound; it would be far too easy to say that the dialogue is representative of the novel's actions (depending on the form, that could be said of any novel or story), but the pieces work as excellent stand-alone movements. Gaddis has an excellent ear for mixed-up party scenes, perfectly evoking the interjecting, sometimes-confusing, alcohol-fueled conversations that inevitably happen at large gatherings. The example below might not make perfect sense out of context, but imagine it being spoken at a random party: in a slightly twisted way, it makes sense even in its confusion.

"--You write a novel! Who'll read a novel with no women in it?
--But baby, there will be, I'll do it just like Proust did, write it about simply everyone I know and then just go through and change boys' names to girls, I know the perfect Odette...
--You ought to go back to analysis. Or have a vagotomy and get it over with. Just because your analyst killed himself...
--He didn't kill himself, it was an accident.
--An accident! He ties a rope around his neck and climbs out a window, but the rope breaks and he falls forty-six stories, so it's an accident?
--Hannah, I'm going, going to get a drink. Herschel said turning on the room, no idea where he was going, but away.
--I didn't know he was a writer, Otto said.
--Writer! He ghosts. He just ghosted some army general's autobiography. A writer!
--Otto looked after Herschel. --I'd say he was a latent heterosexual, he said, immediately regretted wasting such an inspired line on Hannah, and resolved to repeat it later to someone who would repeat it as his own. He even tried to think quickly of a spot for it in his play (Gaddis 180-181)."

Quiet moments of reflection are scarce in The Recognitions, with background noises, conversations, and mild chaos being constant presences. McElroy's essay is mainly focused on Gaddis' second novel, JR, but I couldn't help but notice how a lot of the dialogue themes could also apply to The Recognitions, especially McElroy's assertion that:

"Apt thus for the strandedness of his principles, dialogue serves Gaddis in other ways. And the tumbling out of broken hopes and tentative, even underground will, and bursts of incipient action and frenetic speeches ma bring from Edward, Amy, Jack [characters in JR] in their voicings of frustration a lost and distracted tragic-comicness like that of some Dostoevsky people in their own messy but awful and true crisis-dramas (McElroy 66)."

Tumbling out of broken hopes...frenetic speeches...messy but awful and true crisis-dramas. These are honored standbys of classic and contemporary novels, but in an amazing, saddening way, Gaddis is able to apply these not only in character discussions, but also in advertising. Radio voices pop up every now and then, and Gaddis' satire of advertising culture is blistering, especially given the time period. While 1950s ads have their own websites and DVDs devoted to their nostalgia, and while advertising today is viewed through a skeptical lens, Gaddis shows that nostalgia was the last thing on his mind. Even then, advertising was ludicrous at times, and laughable in its intense pursuit of listeners and dollars. This "ad" from a child's radio show is an excellent example, both comically astute and stunning in its subject, asking children to talk to their parents about birth control.

"--you friend Laughing Lazarus will be here in a minute, but listen kids. Here's one real confidential question I want to ask you first, just between us. Do you have enough brothers and sisters? I know, you love big brother or little Janey, don't you. But too many can spoil your chances. Look at it this way. When you have pie for dessert, how many ways does it have to be divided up? Do you get your share? If you have enough brothers and sisters, or even if you don't have any and don't want any, tell Mummy about Cuff. Cuff, the new wonder preventative. Cuff is guaranteed not to damage internal tissues or have lasting effects. But you don't have to remember all those long words, just tell Mummy to ask about Cuff next time she visits her friendly neighborhood druggist. Remember, Cuff. It's on the Cuff (Gaddis 366)."

Even in the most basic Gaddis dialogue, there are underlying messages, plays for power, distinctions between class, and accents/untranslated passages that lend The Recognitions a multiculturalism that play easily in a backdrop like Manhattan, or in the various overseas locales to which the characters travel or appear in at random. In one particularly comic exchange, the playwright Otto is in Central America, trying to write while interrupted by a housemate named Jesse. Gaddis slightly exaggerates Jesse's diction, but it's not done in a stereotypical way; instead, it highlights the different temperaments between the two men, the pseudo-intellectual Otto and the more "manly" Jesse:

"--Hello, Jesse.
--Hello Jesse. How do you like that. Hello Jesse. What are you doin anyhow? said the tattooed man, and sat down on the other wooden chair.
--I'm writing.
--Jesse put the bottle and glass on the table and looked around him. The corners of his mouth twitched, momentarily confused about something, but something which was going to be pleasurable. He looked over the table, littered with papers illegibly scribbled upon, and at the pictures on the wall.
--Do you want a cigarette? Otto asked him.
--Yeah, give me a cigarette. Jesse put out his hand, and then waved away the green package of MacDonald's Gold Standard.
--What do you smoke those things for? That ain't even American-made stuff.
--I don't know, I...anyhow it is Virgina tobacco, I...
--Yeah what do you smoke those lousy things for? Why don't you smoke American cigarettes? He knocked one of Otto's clean socks from the corner of the table into the cuspidor with his elbow, and watched suspiciously while Otto got up and went behind him to retrieve it.
--What are you doin anyhow? Jesse asked. Then he said,--You're a religious bastid ain't you (Gaddis 154-155)."

For a novel that relies heavily on communications or lack thereof, it's curious to note that the work famously ends on a fatal miscommunication. Stanley, a deeply religious composer, heads to an Italian monastery to play his composition on the monastery's organ. An elderly monk tells him (in Italian) to not play anything too heavy, given the fact that the ancient system is unequipped to handle deeply resonant music. Not understanding, Stanley plays anyway, collapsing the area around him, and dying in the process. The closing lines of the novel are: "He was the only person caught in the collapse, and afterward, most of his work was recovered too, and it is still spoken of, when it is noted, with high regard, though seldom played (Gaddis 956)." To me, the telling phrase is "most of his work," and the closing would take on different potential meanings if Gaddis had phrased it as "all of his work." Jonathan Franzen felt that this final statement was an unintentional precursor to Gaddis' life-long reception. To expand my reading of it, the mostly completed work is "noted with high regard." Like the dialogue in the novel, we have most of it, but not all of it. The communications are flushed out, but at the same time, it's impossible to know if, as readers, we're getting the complete picture. Reading between the lines in such a mammoth and (yes) encyclopedic work is daunting enough, but even with the brutal honesty of the characters and voices, they are deeply flawed individuals, and aren't as seemingly open as Gaddis makes them. Once more, a seemingly unrelated phrase from McElroy, in reference to JR, makes for an excellent potential reading of The Recognitions, both regarding its voices and emphasis on communication at the end.

"The voice sort of at the end of the line with dramatic persona nonetheless abstracts itself (McElroy 66)."

Works Cited:
Gaddis, William. The Recognitions. Copyright 1983 by William Gaddis.

McElroy, Joseph. "Gaddis Dialogue Questioned." Paper Empire: William Gaddis and the World System. Rone Shavers and Joseph Tabbi, eds. Copyright 2007 by The University of Alabama Press.

And Now, Your W---- C----- Chicago Bulls

Last June proved to be an rarity in Chicago sports: the Chicago Blackhawks won the Stanley Cup after being the sexy (and logical) favorite for the championship. At the same time, I proved to be a rarity myself, being a Chicagoan who refused to hop on the Blackhawks bandwagon. I've never been a hockey fan, and I didn't feel the need to become a temporary one when the entire city was caught up in the excitement. That's not to say that I wasn't appreciative; the only hockey game I saw all year was the Stanley Cup championship game, when I happened to be at a local bar with my brother. When the game ended, the entire bar erupted. A possibly homeless woman took the time to high-five everyone in the establishment. I applauded, felt a tinge of euphoria, and just as quickly, it subsided. While I'm all about civic pride, I was annoyed by the scores of people who took it upon themselves to don Patrick Kane jerseys because it was the chic thing to do. This year, the same thing might be happening. For the first time since 1998, the Chicago Bulls are a possible favorite to win the NBA championship, and many people, people who stopped following the Bulls after Michael Jordan, Scottie Pippen, and Phil Jackson left the team, will be dropping cash for Derrick Rose and Joakim Noah jerseys.

I'm a major fan of the Bulls and the Chicago Cubs, but I've always been diligent about distancing myself from the normal ebbs and tides of Chicago sports. I find it ridiculous that people still cling to the 1985 Bears, and when I attend a Cubs game, I actually watch the game instead of going to enjoy the scene and to get drunk (however, it is possible to consume more than the recommended amounts of Old Style while actually watching a baseball game). The civic pride will be terrific if the Bulls advance deep this year, but a part of me will be falling into the stereotype of a fan. I want people to be excited about this team. I love being able to exchange excited Facebook messages with a handful of my fellow Bulls fanatics. However, part of me wants to talk to everyone who hops on the bandwagon or dusts off the Bulls fanaticism that was tucked away in 1998. I've never stopped being a Bulls fan, and part of me will want to ask a few questions. Where were you? Where were you during the terrible years? Were you drumming your fingers watching Keith Booth and Rusty LaRue? Deep down, were you never buying the drafts of Eddie Curry and Tyson Chandler? Were you hopeful when the Bulls signed Ben Wallace, only to watch it fade rather quickly?




It's easy to get caught up in the potential of the 2011 Chicago Bulls. When Derrick Rose was drafted in 2008, he came with a ton of potential and skill, but nobody was able to foresee his leadership and the development of said potential. He challenges himself and his team every night, and while national commentators love to harp on his "shortcomings," nobody can deny the beauty of his layups and fast-breaks. Joakim Noah came into the league branded as a headcase, but his development is even greater than that of Rose. He matured, toughened up on defense, and made himself into one of the greatest assets on the team. Early in the season, he was rumored to be part of a potential deal with the Denver Nuggets in exchange for Carmelo Anthony. If this had happened, I would have been devastated. Even if 'Melo had dropped 35 points a game as a Bull, he never would have matched Noah's intensity and drive. Last year, the Bulls lost in the opening round to LeBron James and the Cleveland Cavaliers. Even though they lost, their determination was never in question. ESPN columnist Bill Simmons stated that the mentality of Rose and Noah was a sort of love letter to last year's free-agent class: "We're wired the right way. We want to win." Instead of signing LeBron James, the Bulls signed forward Carlos Boozer; instead of landing Dwyane Wade, they signed Kyle Korver to strengthen the bench. While the consensus is that the Bulls "lost out" on the major free agents, the players that they did sign ended up contributing enormously, helping lead the team to the best record (62-20) in the league.

Nationally, the Bulls are sexy again. They have the best point guard (Rose) in the league, and they are a favorite for nit-picky sportswriters who assume that they don't have the talent to compete with the likes of the Lakers, Spurs, Celtics, or Heat. Among the Bulls' supporters, a lot has been made about the team's history. This year marks the twentieth anniversary of Chicago's first NBA championship, which was won against the Los Angeles Lakers. Along with the Lakers' penchant for being a terribly difficult playoff opponent, a lot of writers and commentators are gushing over a re-match twenty years in the making: The Bulls vs. The Lakers in the NBA Finals. Add a dash of Lakers head coach Phil Jackson (who led Chicago to their six previous titles) claiming that he's retiring after the season, and the supposed pieces are in place for the NBA's final playoff match.

While I would not complain about this if it did happen, the realist in me wants to take things slowly. In today's age of instant analysis and instant gratification, if the Bulls lose in the Eastern Conference semi-finals or conference finals, the onslaught of critiques and opinions will be overwhelming. Of course, living in Chicago adds yet another twist. As sports fans, Chicagoans are obsessed with the past and with history. The aforementioned 1985 Bears will remain the local favorite until a new Bears team finally wins the Super Bowl; the 2008 Chicago Cubs won the most games in the National League during the anniversary of their last World Series title in 1908, and while they didn't succumb to history, they succumbed to reality: a hot Dodgers team (more Los Angeles references) with great pitching and timely hitting. Simply put, Chicago needs to separate the current teams from the glory teams of years passed.

Derrick Rose is not Michael Jordan; he's Derrick Rose. Joakim Noah is not Scottie Pippen; he's Joakim Noah. Even if Rose and Noah had playing styles similar to Jordan and Pippen, it would be ridiculous to keep making the comparisons. While contemporary athletes are constantly compared to their previous counterparts, this year's Bulls team should be respected and loved for their difference. They play the best defense in the league, and with Rose, they have a player who can take over nearly at will. Their bench players can go hot and cold, but in a playoff atmosphere, I'd err on the side of hot. If Chicago fans want to make a comparison to the past, it would be wise to go with this one: Derrick Rose is in his third year as a professional basketball player. It took Michael Jordan seven years to win his first championship. While I'm aching for the Bulls to go all the way, I'm hoping that, if they don't, the fans and media personalities think back to the build-up of the previous championship teams. After years of being close to winning a title, the first one in 1991 was a perfect culmination.

Chicago: get excited when the Bulls tip off tomorrow against the Indiana Pacers. However, don't get caught up in the potential ending, since it could be disappointing or spectacular. Enjoy the ride, and know that if it doesn't happen this year, the foundation is set. In 1991, there were no such things as Facebook and Twitter calling for instant happiness. The current team, much like its predecessors, will get by with practice and sweat. Some things never change with the times.

Data Accessibility: "The Recognitions"

"...The Recognitions was perfect for the task. Reading the whole thing would also confer bragging rights. If somebody asked me if I'd read The Sotweed Factor, I could shoot back: No, but have you read The Recognitions? And blow smoke from the muzzle of my gun (Franzen 247)."




I recently completed a long-term goal of mine, a project that has been on my to-do list since I was twenty. Back in December, I began reading The Recognitions, the 1955 debut novel of author William Gaddis. Several times in the past, I started it, but never managed to make it beyond the first fifty pages or so. After a couple of months of on-again, off-again struggling, I finally finished the book. Even though I opened with it, the above passage from novelist Jonathan Franzen does not represent my beliefs. I didn't read the book for any bragging rights or literary hipster street cred. And even though I finished it, I'll be the first one to openly admit that I was lost at times, and that the book is packed with allusions and references that I undoubtedly missed. I had to turn to online summaries to pick up on some characters who were lost in the shuffle, and I found myself being slightly passive at times, skimming through parts written in Spanish, Latin, and Italian without taking the time to translate them. Even though this is an admission of literary sins, I still feel as if I made an accomplishment. Reading can be a combination of pleasure and work, and reading The Recognitions was a lot like my reading of Infinite Jest by David Foster Wallace: I knew it would be a challenge, but a good one. The readings were done out of a desire for the literary pleasure, but with full knowledge that I'd have to roll up my sleeves and devote time to vastly long narratives. Admittedly, this was far from easy. Even when the book was first published, a lot of critics and readers found it daunting, as William Gass explains in his relatively famous introduction to the Penguin Classics edition, which works as an example of Gaddis defenders being extremely devoted to the writer's cause, and also offering a glimmer of hope to the first-time reader.

"Its arrival was duly noted in fifty-five papers and periodicals. Only fifty-three of these notices were stupid. But the reviewers' responses to the book confirmed its character and quality, for they not only declared it unreadable and wandering and tiresome and confused, they participated in the very chicaneries the text documented and dramatized. It was too much to expect: that they should read and understand and praise a fiction they were fictions in. You, too, can let your present copy rest unread on some prominent table. A few critics confessed they could not reach the novel's conclusion except by skipping. Well, how many have actually arrived at the last page of Proust or completed Finnegans Wake? What does it mean to finish Moby-Dick, anyway? Do not begin this book with any hope of that. This is a book you are meant to befriend. It will be your lifelong companion. You will end only to begin again (Gass vii)."

My fascination with Gaddis (despite the fact that I've only read three of his books, including the slim essay collection The Rush For Second Place) began at the University of Illinois-Chicago, where I lucked out and studied under Joseph Tabbi and Rone Shavers, two Gaddis scholars who also edited an invaluable critical collection entitled Paper Empire: William Gaddis and the World System. It was at that time that I began following Franzen's critical work, and professor Tabbi and I occasionally clashed over the issue of Franzen's assessment of Gaddis, in his essay "Mr. Difficult." At that time, I wasn't anywhere close to being ready to read The Recognitions, even though I gave it some attempts. The enthusiasm that Tabbi and Shavers brought to even the most basic studies of Gaddis rubbed off on me. I still have quite a way to go before I a.) complete the Gaddis bibliography, and b.) can profess to have a more complete knowledge of his style and sources. But even with just one basic reading of The Recognitions, the amount of information and genuinely brilliant passages is exhilarating.

The novel follows several interconnected and dissecting plot lines. A preacher's son named Wyatt Gwyon grows up with intense religious fear, partly due to his Aunt's belief that he should devote himself to God, not the emulation of him (namely, recreating God's creations via art). As an adult, his marriage is strained and possibly sexless, his wife is engaged in multiple affairs, and after bad reviews, he takes an offer to forge the paintings of old masters to be re-sold as originals by a corrupt art dealer named Recktall Brown. Wyatt's path crosses with Otto Pivner, a playwright dogged by hints of plagiarism and pursuing a troubled poet and model named Esme. In the beginning and the middle of the novel, the reader is introduced to a counterfeiter whose son is mixed up with Esme. Showing up at a party and taking the dubious center stage at the novel's end is Stanley, a tortured Catholic composer who lives his life under a continually troubled religious code. Granted, in a twisting novel of 956 pages, this is just a sampling of the complete list of characters. Other ones play small to semi-important parts, others drift in and out, and some make mere cameo appearances. Giving a capsule description of each character would be both helpful and pointless, since, much like the novel's themes, picking and choosing their ultimate destinations is challenging.

The novel's themes and sources are many, and the historical and classical references alone are daunting to keep up with (again, as I mentioned above, I know that I missed most of them; some of the historical allusions are even explained within the novel, but a full understanding of their relation to the story requires nearly infinite background studies and resources). However, the implications and questions pop up at the reader from the beginning, and make for a literal whirlwind of ideas. Religious fanaticism and hypocrisy are bluntly explored. The nature of art, art criticism, and reality are debated. Few, if any, of the character relationships are genuine or truly long-lasting, creating a sense of isolation and despair in the multiple cities and countries in which the stories take place, thereby making The Recognitions a truly underrated example of 1950s unhappiness (Franzen hints that, stripped down, the novel is akin to Catcher In the Rye). What is, on the surface, a continual search for happiness is actually a search for integrity and reality in a false, corrupt world. For such a vast work, it's important to read carefully, since Gaddis had a knack for creating intensely philosophical and sociological details in his fiction. It's really the best of both worlds, with consistent, smaller character examinations mixed in with the novel's more expansive, overall messages. For example, look at the details infused in a brief sketch of the marriage between Wyatt and Esther:

"A year later, they had been married for almost a year; which was unlike Wyatt. He had become increasingly reluctant wherever decisions were concerned; and the more he knew, the less inclined to commit himself. Not that this was an exceptional state: whole systems of philosophy have been erected upon it. On the other hand, the more insistent from those depths, became the necessity to do so: a plight which has formed the cornerstone for whole schools of psychology. So it may be that his decision to marry simply made one decision the less that he must eventually face; or it is equally possible that his decision to marry was indecision crystallized, insofar as he was not deciding against it (Gaddis 79)."

Given that the novel was published in 1955, reading it today still renders it fresh, and shocking in the sense that Gaddis' criticisms were almost literally years ahead of the times, even if this is only evidenced in hindsight. As William Gass hinted, Gaddis seemed to poke fun at his eventual critics, but he also shows a deft hand for critiques of the consumer, political, and overall cultures of the 1950s, especially in the face of art and creativity. Some of these critiques are blunt, but at times, they are sly and carefully worded.

"He listened to the radio during periods of political heat, the speech in which one senator told the truth about another (this was known as a 'smear campaign'); and then the raucous gathering where people were paid in five-dollar bills to shout, clap, parade, and otherwise indicate the totally irrational quality of their enthusiasm for a man they had never met to take office and govern them (Gaddis 290)."

For a novel that packs in a stunning wealth of religious history and study, the subject is another one that doesn't escape Gaddis' wary eye. A few of the characters, most notably Stanley, profess intense religious feelings. Wyatt's father alternates between his life as a preacher, as well as a descent into madness, Mithraism, and pagan worship. However, a prevailing sentiment is the fact that religion is fueled by money and hypocrisy, which isn't so far-fetched today, but one can only imagine how daring this was in 1955. Again, Gaddis combines both explicit critiques with ones that the reader either discovers or stumbles upon.

"There was, in fact, a religious aura about this festival, religious that is in the sense of devotion, adoration, celebration of deity, before religion became confused with systems of ethics and morality, to become a sore affliction upon the very things it had once exalted (Gaddis 311)."




I feel as if I'm picking and choosing various aspects of The Recognitions, but its scope is such that one essay on it cannot hope to reveal every question or theme. However, the prevailing ruminations center on art and creativity, and again, the balance of the real (personal integrity) and the false (corruption, monetary aspirations). Passages and pages of dialogue are devoted to these very notions. Some of the most striking ideas come in conversations between Wyatt and Basil Valentine (an associate of Recktall Brown).

"--You? the, what was it you said, the shambles of your work? What a pitifully selfish career! being lived, as you said? by something that uses you and then sheds you like a husk when its own ends are accomplished?......

--No I, it's just, listen, criticism? It's the most important art now, it's the one we need the 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 (Gaddis 335)?"

A substantial part of the Gaddis "mystique" is his lifelong separation between his work and his personal life. While he wasn't a recluse in the sense of J.D. Salinger or Thomas Pynchon, writer Cynthia Ozick was famously noted for saying that Gaddis was famous for not being famous enough. His art was meant to stand alone with little to no readerly expectations to wonder or assume how personal or autobiographical his novels were. His most famous interview was conducted in 1986 in The Paris Review (The Art of Fiction No. 101), and his first published statement puts to rest any notions of wanting to be a public figure.

"I suppose because I've got some illusion about finally getting the whole thing out of the way once and for all. In the past I've resisted partly because of the tendency I've observed of putting the man in the place of his work, and that goes back more than thirty years; it comes up in a conversation early in The Recognitions. That, and the conviction that the work has got to stand on its own--when ambiguities appear they are deliberate and I've no intention of running after them with explanations--and finally, of course, the threat of questions from someone unfamiliar with the work itself: Do you work on a fixed schedule every day? On which side of the paper do you write? That sort of talk-show pap, five-minute celebrity, turning the creative artist into a performing one, which doesn't look to be the case here."

Perhaps with this introductory essay, I've committed the same mistakes of the early Gaddis readers. I've sketched some of the themes, I've admitted the work's difficulty, but in reality, I haven't dived into anything truly substantial; in fact, given the impossibility of doing so on a small scale, I've left vast amounts of The Recognitions unmentioned. One of my next blog posts will be a more detailed look at some nuances of the novel, but I felt that a general introduction essay was warranted. The Recognitions has been called an encyclopedic novel, has been noted for its vast amounts of data, almost rendering it as a book of codes to be deciphered. However, while these notions are in part true, for an overall assessment, the novel is accessible for a good majority of readers. Given the passion of Gaddis scholars, and the sheer length of his first two novels (the other being JR), there's a definite sense of intimidation that goes along with any attempts to ease into his bibliography. However, the book is a very real novel, and not an impossible mass that some would make it out to be. William Gass makes the deceptively simple advice seem even grander than it actually is: it just takes time and understanding, but the works of Gaddis are not impossible, but challenging in the best literary sense. Again, this is the first of two essays that I'm planning to write about this book. Perhaps I've introduced the important topics, or perhaps I've glossed over more important themes. I'll be getting into specifics in my next piece, and if anyone reading this is unfamiliar with Gaddis, I'm hoping that this introductory outline helps with perfunctory understanding. I'm also writing this for myself, and hoping that within these notes, I'm working towards a more complete understanding of not only the novel, but of the majority of the Gaddis bibliography.

Works Cited:

Franzen, Jonathan. How To Be Alone.
Copyright 2003 by Jonathan Franzen.

Gaddis, William. The Recognitions. Copyright 1983 by William Gaddis. Introduction copyright 1993 by William H. Gass.

"Chicago Ex-Patriate:" Now On Twitter

If you glance to your right, you'll see a widget for my Twitter account. Twitter is a new website that enables...okay, okay, you already know what it is, and saying that I'm "late to the game" is an understatement; to expand that metaphor, I'm checking into the game with thirty-seven seconds left on the clock in a lopsided blowout. I've avoided Twitter for years now, but some of my fellow bloggers have been using it, and I figured that it couldn't hurt to give it a go.

I began this blog over three years ago, and wasn't sure what it would become. It took me awhile to get my voice down and to sculpt my posts into consistent book reviews and essays. While Twitter is a drastically smaller format, I'm still not sure what direction I will end up taking it in--but for now, I'm hoping to update it along with my blog, follow various writers and publishers, and maybe it'll end up being a nice compliment to my modest goals. With the occasional lapse, I'm hoping to keep it limited to posts that are book, music, or film based. If you want to know how my lunch tasted, or how terrible my commute was on a given morning, you'll just have to ask me outright.

So here goes: follow me. On a final note, I'm going to be "updating Twitter." I cannot bring myself to use the verb "tweet."

The Future Of Baseball: Less Is More

Like many people, I'm anxiously awaiting the start of the 2011 Major League Baseball season, but aside from the anticipation, I've also been thinking about Commissioner Bud Selig's desire to expand the baseball playoffs. Granted, this might seem odd. Perhaps it would be best to focus on the beginning of the season, and not October. However, Selig was hoping to have the expansion in place for this season, but that was thankfully pushed back. Of course, there's a strong possibility that it could happen for the 2012 playoffs. As I've mentioned in some of my previous baseball articles, I'm in no way a purist; as long as the game itself is the same, I'm all for the changes that inevitably happen due to logistics and the passage of time. And the point of this piece is not necessarily to criticize Selig, but to offer my own thoughts as to how a possible expansion of the baseball playoffs could work. Besides, I'm not a stranger to critiques of Selig:

"Another glaring problem is Bud Selig, baseball commissioner. [The 2002 All-Star game that ended in a tie] fiasco proved that he lacks the true baseball mind that is needed to run the league. That is why I propose two people who would be respected, organized, and intelligent baseball commissioners.
The first choice is former NBC announcer Bob Costas. In addition to being a lifelong fan of the game, his book Fair Ball showed that he has astute knowledge of both what happens on the field and off the field. He has some good ideas to help baseball's labor problems, if not to solve them completely. This labor problem is going to take years to fix, but Costas could lay a foundation.
The second choice is journalist George Will. Again, Will is a man who loves the game. He has a keen political mind that would serve the business end of the game. As much as we fans love to think that baseball is just a game, it's really a business, with politics and money being the real bats and balls.
Bud Selig no doubt loves the game, but he lacks the command that either Costas or Will would immediately bring to the job."

I wrote the above passages when I was nineteen, part of a longer article calling for a change in baseball's leadership, and it was published as the featured letter in the April 27th, 2003 edition of the Chicago Sun-Times. Looking back, it's obvious that I was only nineteen at the time (what exactly is a "true baseball mind?" And did I not know how to write a compound sentence?), but I'm semi-pleased that it worked as a sort of bi-partisan appeal (Costas leans to the left, Will to the right). Also, a random reader could assume I was hinting that Selig doesn't love baseball. Obviously, that's not the case, whether viewed through the actual game or the business side: more playoff rounds equal more television revenues and more games. However, that's the problem.




It would behoove Selig to reverse the decision he made following the embarrassing tie in the 2002 All-Star Game (currently, the league that wins the All-Star game gets home field advantage in the World Series). The home field advantage of the World Series should go to the team with the better record. Also, even as a teenager, I hated the rule that every team needs an All-Star representative. Instead, Selig should take a cue from the NBA. Last year, Chicago Bulls point guard Derrick Rose was named Chicago's first All-Star since Michael Jordan in 1998, and the attention he received was extremely well-deserved, in addition to (even if viewed in a nostalgic manner) highlighting the fact that being named an All-Star should be earned on the field, and not by default. For example, I doubt that the majority of Houston Astros fans tuned into the game to see Michael Bourn get his one at-bat.

As much as I love the game, by the time late October comes around, I cannot help but think "Is the season STILL going?" And when the World Series is continually pushed into November, it becomes even more ridiculous. If Selig has his way, a possible second or third wild-card would be added to each league, bring the total number of playoff teams to either ten or twelve. This would mean another round (or two) of playoffs before the League Championship Series and the World Series. The current format (three division champions and one wild-card for each league) has been ridiculed since its inception in 1995. But then again, when the season was expanded from 154 games to 162 in 1961, that was criticized heavily before it became accepted.

I don't think that expanding the playoffs would cheapen baseball, but something has to be done about the length of the season, both the regular season and the playoffs combined. In my opinion, this is how a baseball season would work:

1.) I applaud baseball executives for starting the 2011 season right at the beginning of April, and hopefully this will continue. However, I would prefer to see the season cut to 158 games. This way, the season would end in the middle of September, and there's no reason to not have the playoffs start the week after.

2.) I prefer the current playoff formats, and let's assume that it doesn't get expanded. It would make sense to keep the best-of-five divisional playoff format, and while this may be a stretch, baseball could go back to its original LCS roots and revert to the current American and National League Championship Series to a best-of-five, rather than a best-of-seven.

3.) After the NLCS and ALCS, the pennant winners would take a week off, and the emphasis would be on the World Series. This is taking a cue from football, which does an excellent job of building to the Super Bowl. Yes, this would drastically cut down on the number of playoff games, but would add potential excitement to a playoff system that, even for the most diehard baseball fans, tends to drag on too long. The World Series would still be played under the best-of-seven format, and would end in the middle of October, instead of flirting with November. Even with these rules in place, another round of playoffs could be added, but would still keep the postseason within the confines of September and October. Selig's current problem is that he thinks nothing about baseball going past October. By reverting the format of the LCS to a best-of-five, I cannot imagine that any television revenue would be lost, since the series in either league rarely goes to a seventh game.

I'm not trying to focus on the negatives. Overall, I'm as excited as always to see the start of the season. However, Selig is taking steps back when he thinks that he's taking steps forward. He's entirely right to be thinking about expansion, but the fact that baseball has a longer season than any other sport, it's odd that he's not taking these simple subtractions into account. Shaving a few games off the schedule would create immense room for a logical playoff increase, and would bring back the reverence for the World Series that seems to have been lost. I'm sure that I'm overlooking some logistical problems, but I think that my ideas would appeal to both purists and the natural progression of baseball.

Now that I have these concerns written and out of my head: Play ball!

L'âge De Non Innocence: Jean-Christophe Valtat's "03"

For some reason, when it comes to reading other blogs, I tend to focus on film-based, rather than book-based, writings. My outside literature information tends to come from magazines, websites, and word-of-mouth, and I'm also fortunate to have been introduced, so to speak, to an excellent circle of film bloggers. Since most writers who run blogs do so for nothing other than the passion he or she feels for the given subjects, maintaining a well-written site, juggled with a career and family, is really no small feat. For this post, I'm taking a page from Bob Turnbull, a Toronto film critic and the creator of one of my favorite film blogs, Eternal Sunshine Of the Logical Mind. Turnbull occasionally does a feature in which he selects a film at random to review, a film in which he knows next to nothing about any of the actors, the writer, or the director. It's fascinating to see how someone reads a film with virtually no outside comparisons to make, or at least think about. I've long wanted to do the same thing for a book, and recently did so, opting to read the English-language debut translations of 03, a novella by French novelist and screenwriter Jean-Christophe Valtat. The only outside factors that went into the choice were 1.) my need to catch up on international literature outside of the mainstream (I rarely compliment myself, but I feel that the last time I did this, it worked out quite well, resulting in one of my better pieces), and 2.) the fact that the novella was published by Farrar, Straus & Giroux, arguably my favorite publisher (see Jonathan Franzen and Roberto Bolano).

03 is a very brisk, 84-page story told from the point of view of a nameless French teenager (or, perhaps, a recalled memory from said teenager's adult self), and the sometimes philosophical, sometimes rambling feelings and explanations for his attraction to a mentally challenged girl whom he sees across the street while waiting for the bus. The style and tone makes the novella feel as if it's being mentally narrated in real time, but only towards the end does the hint of it being a past memory come into play. The teenager's voice is, at least superficially, wise beyond his years, but not in a precocious way; his occasional foray into sentimentality saves him from being utterly cold and even nihilistic. Virtually every novel with a teenage protagonist offers hints to a hatred of school (or at least a certain part of school), but Valtat's teenager manages to phrase in very stark metaphors:

"I couldn't possibly cross the street in the dawn light and speak to her directly: first because I felt held as though on a leash by my bus stop and wouldn't dream of missing the public transport meant to hand me over to school; more to the point, because her mother (whose face, strangely, held so little interest for me that I couldn't have recognized her from one sighting to the next) rarely let go of her hand...(Valtat 5-6)"

His attraction to the mentally challenged girl is based on a myriad of reasons. Some of these are admirable (an acute sense of mutual loneliness and isolation), and some of them are inappropriate (there's a hint of the teenager's sexual desire). However, in any case, his thoughts tend to grow from basic acknowledgments to scattered, free-form transitions that are basically easy to follow, but a possible hint to a troubled mind coupled with obvious intelligence. It's difficult to tell whether or not Valtat is obviously striving for this balance, or if he's trying to pack so many thoughts into the story that it ends up veering into verbal chaos.

"There were two ways to think of this obvious lack of recognition, and both suited me, for different reasons. The first, in keeping with my low opinions of romantic love, and perfectly appropriate for my age, was that my love, if ever I could make it halfway visible in the too often cold and clammy air that lay between us, would be doomed to a disappointment that matched the intensity of my feelings, in which case my sincerity, underwritten by the pain I'd have to feel, would no longer be in doubt, however unlikely the source of it might be (Valtat 17-18)."




However, Valtat's writing does have the occasional well-crafted exploration of an idea that goes into a run-on, but in a positive way. The reader doesn't necessarily have to agree with a lot of the narrator's opinions, but has to admire how well-written they can be at times:

"Maybe it was from reading too much, or seeing too many forbidden movies, or from the gloomy music in which I steeped my aching hormones--[The Cure's album] Pornography was the cruelest example--I'd prematurely hit on the ragged idea, stitched together as best I could, that sex was deeply connected to corruption, of both body and spirit, and that it violently held all the truth that should ever matter to any human being worthy of the name (Valtat 31)."

The tempting thing to do would be to call 03 a coming-of-age novel, but that's not the case. The narrator, even if explaining these moments as an act of remembrance, is obviously not losing his innocence, since there's really no hint that he ever looked at his life through rose-colored glasses before. In retrospect, despite the book's occasional flaws, this is refreshing. Instead of a teenage narrator gliding between innocent and worldliness, it's interesting to see a rigid slice of a time period, with a narrator who doesn't claim to know everything, yet seems to have a handful of hypotheses for every possible question that 03 brings up. As I've mentioned before, in regard to both literature and film, the "coming-of-age" tag is applied far too often when a young protagonist is present. Also, it would be wrong to view the narrator through an American filter. While the dissatisfaction of youth is universal, I couldn't help but wonder if some of the narrator's problems, as written by Valtat, were unique to the troubles of contemporary French youths. But then again, there's nothing "political" about the work.

I hesitate to criticize 03, but at the same time, I didn't love it, either. Valtat's use of the novella format is refreshing, since it's still an artistically viable medium, and for a story that goes onto so many different sociological paths, it would have been a problematic full-length novel. A commendable note is that Valtat rarely goes for the obvious metaphors or thoughts, and 03 has moments of being genuinely thought-provoking. He doesn't shy away from uncomfortable subject matters, yet manages to render them in realistic internal monologues. My outside research has shown that this was well-received upon publication, as evidenced in this brief interview with Valtat in The Paris Review. Perhaps it would benefit from another reading or two, but while I admire Valtat's style and ambition, 03 ends up as an odd paradox: it leads to the occasional dead-end even in the midst of an intentionally free-flowing story.

Work Cited:
Valtat, Jean-Christophe. 03. Copyright 2005 by Editions Gallimard. Translation copyright 2010 by Mitzi Angel.

Radiohead, Limbs, and Mind

One of my deluded daydreams revolves around me, in the near future, being commissioned to write articles, essays, or stories for actual payment. I suppose that, to make such a fantasy a reality, I need to be more assertive and resourceful in my queries and research, as well as continuing to better myself as a writer. However, this latest post is, in a roundabout way, being done as a request. My best friend Edward is arguably the biggest Radiohead fan that I know, and with the recent digital release of their eighth album The King Of Limbs, he found himself torn, at least initially, between varying opinions. He enjoyed the album on his first listens, grew to appreciate the song distinctions with even more time, and likened said feelings to his initial response to their previous album, In Rainbows. After the novelty of Radiohead releasing In Rainbows as a "pay what you want" deal wore off, fans and critics heaped immediate praise, but even then, it was an album that took a little getting used to, and while the payment option highlighted how most record companies simply charged too much for most albums, I couldn't help but think that most people praised the album merely because of the release method. The King Of Limbs was released via the band's website with virtually no announcement, and Edward asked me to review the album as a way to see a second opinion. He's long expressed admiration for my opinion-based writings and reviews, and while my self-deprecating side resists praise, I respect his views on everything else, and I looked at writing about The King Of Limbs as a challenge.

The album is less than forty minutes long, making it Radiohead's shortest album to date. Therefore, I was curious to see how much Thom Yorke and company could work an actual album into such a condensed space, especially given that their lyrics and musical textures almost demand longer running times. The opening track, "Bloom," is not bad by any stretch, but doesn't immediately hook the listener, either. The words "electronic" and "experimental" are too easy and too vague to work as labels, especially for such a talented group, but they can often be used as quick standbys. These designations immediately popped into my head upon hearing "Bloom," but with repeated plays, the song proves to be neither. The lyrics are bare, and the beats are repetitive, with the only decipherable instrumentation coming from Phil Selway's scattered drumbeats. The opening tracks of 2003's Hail To the Thief contained the same thematic foundation, but quickly meshed with some incredible lyrics, thereby making the repetition work as a balance to the words. Even "15 Step," the opening to In Rainbows, worked better as a Radiohead imagining of funk.

However, by the second track, there's a definite sense of something building. "Morning Mr. Magpie" ups the tempo, maintains the repetition, but is immediately catching. The lyrics aren't anymore advanced than the beginning, but are intangibly more effective.

You've got some nerve coming here....
You stole it all, give it back
You stole it all, give it back



By the time "Lotus Flower" rolls around, my aforementioned remarks can happily be tossed aside. It's arguably the best track of the lot, and feels more like a "Radiohead song." There's a much stronger melody and cohesive structure, yet doesn't feel restricted at all; it's a combination of great songwriting, with discernible contributions from Colin and Jonny Greenwood, and Yorke's voice seamlessly glides between low and high ranges. The band puts in a little bit of everything, and the mix of sounds that open the album are now used as nearly flawless background sounds. Returning to Edward's thoughts, he initially wondered if one of the lyrics in "Separator," the album's final song--"if you think this is over, you're wrong..."--was a possible hint to more to come, even a newer release with more cohesion. For the time being, this album stands on its own. But does it? A lot of comparisons are being made to their previous effort, Kid A, an album that was either loved or hated upon release. I've listened to Kid A the fewest times of any Radiohead release, yet another non-musical idea follows the comparison between that album and The King Of Limbs: Kid A was the follow-up to OK Computer, Radiohead's best album; The King Of Limbs is the follow-up to In Rainbows, which was well-received as well as revolutionary for its optional payment plan.

This may end up being a ridiculous stretch, but I couldn't help but wonder if essayist Curtis White's thoughts on Kid A would be applicable to The King Of Limbs, since both are musically similar and coming on the heels of drastic expectations. In his excellent 2003 book The Middle Mind (which I've cited in a much different fashion before), White took exception to novelist Nick Hornby's critiques of Kid A, specifically Hornby's claims that all art needs a message, and that, as a band, Radiohead is a commodity. In the eight years that have passed between the publication of White's book and Radiohead's penchant for releasing albums on their own, the questions that were originally posed now have possible answers.

"And Radiohead asks, What does it mean to be artists opposed to technical rationality when we are obliged not only to create our art through computers, in highly technical and utterly engineered recording studios, but also in cooperation with international mega-corporations (White 58)?"

Obviously, the technological effects are still present in The King Of Limbs, but the beauty is that the band has now moved beyond being reliant on a label to promote and release their music. They can do it on their own (even if the albums are eventually released in CD format). As far as a message goes, I couldn't immediate place one in the new album, but perhaps its best to let the songs stand alone, even if a few of them aren't as strong as the band is capable of producing. In various interviews, the band members have tried to distance themselves from explicit themes or messages in their work, and The King Of Limbs doesn't offer any answers, even if fans and critics will attempt to find the questions. It isn't their best album, but for such a short work, it still demands attention, even if it's not as immediate as their previous works. Radiohead is not a band that deals in novelties or gimmicks, but a small batch of songs that are this thought-provoking, even if done based on their musical history, is something to be applauded.

I was worried that citing Curtis White would be veering into Pitchfork territory (that is, wildly speculative and unnecessary comparisons that tend to get away from the actual album). I never read other music reviews before writing my own, but for some odd reason, I happened to glance at Pitchfork's take on The King Of Limbs, and found this curious passage:

"A trawl through message boards and social networks leaves the impression that many disappointed fans are still struggling to make sense of the gap between the greatness of the thing they got and the genius of the thing they thought they might get. It's in that gap, when assessing the album overall, that it's easy to get tangled up. This is well-worn terrain for Radiohead, and while it continues to yield rewarding results, the band's signature game-changing ambition is missed."

Could this be the point? Could this be what the band was actually aiming for?

Work Cited:
White, Curtis. The Middle Mind: Why Americans Don't Think For Themselves. Copyright 2003 by Curtis White.