Recognitions
49.99 €
In stock
Recognitions
49.99 €
A joint publishing project of Kongress W press and Pollen press.
"The Recognitions" (1955) is a masterpiece by William Gaddis, which is included in the modern canon of American literature of the 20th century and has been rethought for more than half a century as a work in a unique position between modernism and postmodernism. A novel that has absorbed the best artistic techniques of both eras. This duality is the key to the masquerade novel, and at the same time its curse. The three parts of the novel (according to the number of panels of the triptych by Hieronymus Bosch) tell the story of Wyatt Gwine, the son of a Calvinist priest from New England, a talented artist who made a Faustian deal - to forge paintings by old masters for the New York art fraudster Rectal Brown. Around this plot core, a complex narrative system unfolds, spanning three decades on three continents and addressing religion, alchemy, witchcraft, art history, medicine, hagiography, mythology, anthropology, astronomy, metaphysics and other fields of knowledge. But Gaddis’s extraordinary erudition, paradoxically, repelled the first readers of The Recognitions, and only later did this novel receive the recognition it deserved. In 2022, on the 100th anniversary of William Gaddis’s birth, the New York Book Review series reissued key works by the writer, and a major conference dedicated to the author’s work was held at Washington University in St. Louis. The influence that Gaddis had on world literature has yet to be understood, but, as Cole Fishman aptly noted, “William Gaddis may not be your favorite author, but he is probably your favorite author’s favorite author.”
"The Recognitions" (1955) is a masterpiece by William Gaddis, which is included in the modern canon of American literature of the 20th century and has been rethought for more than half a century as a work in a unique position between modernism and postmodernism. A novel that has absorbed the best artistic techniques of both eras. This duality is the key to the masquerade novel, and at the same time its curse. The three parts of the novel (according to the number of panels of the triptych by Hieronymus Bosch) tell the story of Wyatt Gwine, the son of a Calvinist priest from New England, a talented artist who made a Faustian deal - to forge paintings by old masters for the New York art fraudster Rectal Brown. Around this plot core, a complex narrative system unfolds, spanning three decades on three continents and addressing religion, alchemy, witchcraft, art history, medicine, hagiography, mythology, anthropology, astronomy, metaphysics and other fields of knowledge. But Gaddis’s extraordinary erudition, paradoxically, repelled the first readers of The Recognitions, and only later did this novel receive the recognition it deserved. In 2022, on the 100th anniversary of William Gaddis’s birth, the New York Book Review series reissued key works by the writer, and a major conference dedicated to the author’s work was held at Washington University in St. Louis. The influence that Gaddis had on world literature has yet to be understood, but, as Cole Fishman aptly noted, “William Gaddis may not be your favorite author, but he is probably your favorite author’s favorite author.”
See also:
- All books by the publisher
- All books by the author