Giving Up On Books: The Recognitions by William Gaddis

[@bjwnashe5589]

Have you ever read The Recognitions by William Gaddis?

[@sebastianwang670]

i think he talked about it in a video a while back. was a big fan of it iirc

[@OttoIncandenza]

My favorite novel of all time. Shame it didn’t do it for you. :(

[@EveryoneWhoReadsitMustConverse]

I am halfway through rn and it is so awesome! Intriguing, darkly psychological story and these "tedious party scenes" are very welcome comic relief.

[@TedBurke]

Our host complains that author Gaddis displays contempt for all his characters and comes across as though he's blissfully unaware that The Recognitions is an epic satire. Satire by any definition by any research one can research or contrive a severe form of making brutal fun of people, ideas, situations, things. It exists not just to make us laugh but also to create in readers that humans are capable of being bad actors devising horrible schemes and finding ways to make their grotesque fantasies become real things. Gaddis was brilliant with this and the number of things he manages to decimate --the art industry, species notions of what constitutes authenticity, the torturously labyrinthian theology that props up The Catholic Church-- is breathtaking, actually, and written in some of the most elegant prose composed in the 20th century.

[@ryanand154]

Is that your takeaway??? Ha!

[@Edmonddantes123]

Postmodern approach to video editing

[@syater]

I read The Recognitions in the Spring and Summer of 1989. Certainly there is a sort of mental girding needed to take up a book of this sort. I came to the novel with an interest in the theme of 'original versus copy' and an interest in Northern Renaissance painting. That was enough to get me started but of course I could not have known how much more there was to this world of a book. And that is the point. 33 years later I am left with a thick book with notes and underlined passages and am nearly inspired to dig in again. I'm thinking about it. I'm just glad Franzen's essay wasn't around to dissuade me from the adventure.

[@ryanand154]

Jonathan Franzen was at the Farmer’s Market with his therapy dog Garfield, the other day.

[@mistry6292]

@@ryanand154 wishing the woorst for franzen

[@ashulman2008]

I found the erudition stimulating and thought the satire hit its mark. Also, it's brooding on authenticity, a hot topic in the 50s, may seem irrelevant only because authenticity was so thoroughly defeated in our time.

[@EveryoneWhoReadsitMustConverse]

Gaddis is an amazing writer. JR is masterful satire. The Recognitions, being his first novel is unbelievably strong.

[@bigfat4172]

I wish you would've finished it but I understand the sluggish feeling you get when a book is totally missing you. My only real gripe with the review was the discussion on difficulty in books. It felt a bit reductive. I understand the impulse to question the idea of why a book is difficult and to maybe attribute the purpose to being to fuel some litbro ego. But difficulty is a literary technique like any other. It's there for many reasons but most of all just to increase engagement from the reader. Of course that can fail, like in your case, in which the difficulty fails at its job. But in other words we read difficult books because it's fun and exciting to do so. Im sure im not saying anything you haven't heard or don't know already but I wish that angle would've had a larger effect on the timbre of the review.

[@k.e.1760]

Long, difficult books aren't worth it buddy.

[@maryse8]

@@k.e.1760 I would amend your statement: long, difficult books that fail to captivate are not worth it. Of course, a successful, captivating novel is subjective. Some people might find Melville's Moby Dick difficult and not worth it, but it is one of all-time favorite novels that I return to again and again.

[@bigfat4172]

@@maryse8 my point was just to illustrate that difficulty can be used purposefully as a narrative technique in of itself and using the difficulty of a book as a way of psychoanalyzing the reader or author is not reliable if your goal is to understand a text. I don't think the bookchemist does that much in the review but I do think the discussion around difficulty itself was somewhat shallow.

[@FSVR54]

@@k.e.1760 In your opinion. While I haven't read the particular book he's reviewing, I'd say some people actually like to challenge themselves and learn something. Y'know, actually come out smarter from having read something. Not all free time has to be leisurely and unchallenging, what a dull life... but everyone is free to do what they wish.

[@EveryoneWhoReadsitMustConverse]

@@FSVR54 amen 🙏

[@secretmeeting4886]

Have you read William Gass? He has a similar reputation but his prose is the most startling I've read ever. His preface to In the Heart of the Heart of the Country is better criticism than some critics manage in a career.

[@carterlinsley8221]

Agreed about that preface! I especially love his discussion of his pursuit of writing less to document the content of his thoughts but more as a means to really get at their "form". Have you read The Tunnel?

[@secretmeeting4886]

@@carterlinsley8221 Indeed, I return to that slim volume a lot. The Tunnel yes, loved that in a Gravity's Rainbow sort of way - like a drug that delivers a punch to the stomach before it delivers the goods, and leaves you feeling a bit sick afterwards. I need to read his later works though. Middle C is on my list. You read that? Not garnered as much attention so far.

[@secretmeeting4886]

@@Abhishek-fe3zs I mean he is an academic philosopher by trade, so I'm sure his implied readership crosses over with the kind of people who are critics. I don't see how this makes one a charlatan though. Is he successful in what he aims to do? That is the metric I use. My answer is yes in this case, ymmv, of course.

[@jonnypaul7260]

I prefer Gass to Gaddis, by a hair, but I agree. I have written about Gass extensively and just find that well such a rewarding one to continually draw from. Given Mr. Colour CoOrdinated's apparent distaste for 'difficult' literature I don't think he'd enjoy.

[@ryanand154]

@@jonnypaul7260 I prefer Jonathan Saffron Franzen Frottage.

[@mandys1505]

I read it in my early20s. I thought it had the most hilarious sense of humor. It fits for people with a familiarity with religious texts and who had studied Hermeticism and Alchemy. I had come from a Roman Catholic background so for me it made total sense and I loved every second of it!

[@mandys1505]

Also. It is perfect for the audience of people who are intellectuals and who are alienated from society, bc modern society is fiercely anti-intellectual.

[@Ferrari1504]

I'm finding the humour to be constantly overshadowed by a sense of dread and pity, particularly the pivner/artist satire. I think thats a good thing too, the characters aren't entirely jokes to me, i find them pretty compelling like anselm and esther after reading section 2 chapter seven.

[@LandsknechteL]

filtered

[@austinpratt1923]

I also did not finish 'The Recognitions' and I am an old inveterate reader (all of Proust, Tolstoy, Pynchon, Borges, Cortazar, et al), but I detested the main character of this novel and could find nothing within to validate devoting more of my ebbing life to the drudgery. Difficult is not synonymous with profound. Sometimes the failure to connect is entirely the author's. Many are shelved in well-deserved obscurity.

[@ryanand154]

Jian Ghomeshi is looking well.

[@Lebowski55]

I’ve tried on several occasions to get into Infinite Jest and A Confederacy of Dunces and have yet been able to continue reading them.

[@TheZalor]

Curious to know what you found off-putting about Confederacy of Dunces. Infinite Jest I completely understand (wasn't a fan myself and dropped it), but Confederacy of Dunces I found quite enjoyable. I suppose Ignatius Riley can be a polarizing protagonist, but idk if that was your issue with the work.

[@tarico4436]

@@TheZalor Over the years I found someone here and another person there who could not get into Dunces. My fav book of all time. Nothing really stands out as to how they are all alike: not stupid, not all of them; readers, yes all of them were/have been readers. I guess if there is a common thread it's that Ig is this gross ugly person, and couldn't really sympathize with him, so didn't get into the narrative, put it down. Something like that.

[@joaoluizsiqueiraclemente8743]

I was reading against the day in the original. I am brazilian, so a native portuguese speaker. I already read other novels in the original english, infinite jest included, but this was the first time that i decided to read a Thomas Pynchon novel in english, he is also my favorite writer. Unfortunately half way throug i had to give up once i realized the reading was being more of a work than fun to me. So, i bought the translated version (it was very expensive, the translation is sold out here in Brazil) and i am hoping to read the english version somewhere in the future, when i'm ready. Loved the review, by the way, The Recognitions was in my wishlist since it was mentioned in The Marriage Plot

[@hazyhillsblue]

A book is not guaranteed to connect with every reader, no matter how critically acclaimed it is. Especially if you don't connect with the writer's ideology or view of the world. I'm getting the same type of irritation with Vollmann's 'Royal Family'. I find all the characters deeply unpleasant for the sake of it, the plot glacial and the author's experimentation unneccesary. I also find that the book is easy to understand but hard to read as a text. It's a very bitter book that leaves a bad taste in my mouth. At the same time, I'm almost finished with Barth's 'The Sot-Weed Factor', which despite being written in an older English style, is actually extremely fun and straight-forward to read, which I wasn't expecting from Barth. But Barth has always been weirdly entertaining.

[@MarcNash]

Oh dear, am doing a group read of The Recognitions starting tomorrow and I have The Royal Family to read later in the year!

[@hazyhillsblue]

You might like them. It depends on the reader.

[@TheBookchemist]

Vollman is an author I've always avoided because I get the feeling that I might have the exact same reaction as you ;)! I will get round to giving him a try eventually, but at the moment I'm not optimistic!

[@TheChannelofaDisappointedMan]

I almost gave up on Trollope's mammoth The Way We Live Now at about page 200, but I decided to soldier on. 700 pages later, I was done, and firmly convinced it was a damned masterpiece.

[@ryanand154]

Anthony Trollope was a writer of books.

[@matthewandel1497]

"The entire novel..." - from someone who opened this video stating that they did not resd the book lol unreal

[@valpergalit]

All respect for you, Book Chemist, but I really think you missed the mark on this one. Perhaps a few years down the line you will tackle it again - and finish it - and recognize Gaddis’s genius.

[@TheBookchemist]

But perhaps not ;)

[@valpergalit]

@@TheBookchemist I know that given your distaste for the book you probably aren’t too keen on reading more about it, but John Johnston’s book “Carnival of Repetition” is an incredible examination of the thematic and semiotic intricacies of the novel. I think you were being unfair when you said Gaddis wrote the novel to be difficult to read just for the sake of difficulty. Like most postmodern works accused of the same (Sot-Weed Factor, Gravity’s Rainbow, Sixty Stories, etc.), that’s really not the case. The meaning is all there, you just have to search for it. Kudos to you for never failing to express your true thoughts, though - I really appreciate your sincerity when it comes to your reviews.

[@jamescappio7434]

@@TheBookchemist Obviously not. Mojumbo.

[@bodhibrother]

I have this weird issue with people who organize their books by color.

[@tectorgorch8698]

Yes, I trust no one who does that.

[@Pantano63]

It's very cheesy and juvenile!

[@ryanand154]

@@Pantano63If you have a big book shelf if it looks cool.

[@ryanand154]

You only say that because you have writers of colour over there.

[@chadfredrick1519]

This kind of organization of books disqualifies one from being morally considerable.

[@warlockofwordsreturnsrb4358]

interesting video, Mattia! The question of which books are worth going the distance is a perennial one, I'm starting on Graham Greene's The Comedians soon, which sounds like a jewel. Finished Bowie's Books a while ago, a well worth perusing investigation of his Top 100 reads, by John O'Connell. Can recommend.

[@tarico4436]

Love Greene. Never met a Greene novel that I didn't finish. Pulp with a sliver of philosophy. If Greene wrote a bit deeper, he'd be a Nat West.

[@bingiamatta]

Oh man, I'm in the same situation : shelves full of unread books since the last decade and I keep buying more!

[@bryangarcia5599]

Jack Green’s _Fire the Bastards!_ should, in my opinion, be read immediately _before_ one takes the plunge into _The Recognitions,_ as a sort of preparatory measure.

[@ryanand154]

You do know that Jack Green was William Gaddis, right?

[@bryangarcia5599]

@@ryanand154 No, but I _do_ know that 'Wanda Tinasky' was second-rate Beat poet/scam artist/murderer Tom Hawkins. 'Jack Green' is Christopher Carlisle Reid.

[@ryanand154]

@@bryangarcia5599 Chris Reid died in a dunk tank when children brought dodgeballs and just sunk his ass.

[@ryanand154]

@@bryangarcia5599 Wanda Tinasky was the pseudonym of Jeremiah Kakanikan, a Saudi Prince.

[@ryanand154]

Tom Hawkins used to walk down the road with his thumb out.

[@redeyedfigure4906]

I dropped the tin drum by gunter grass. It wasn't necessarily difficult, but I felt that I had seen it all about 200 pages in and, while it was a really clever allegory, the book was starting to get extremely tedious and I felt like I'd never read a book again if I kept reading it.

[@rishabhaniket1952]

I totally get you, I have an issue with books which try to prove ,repeat and analyse the same point and philosophy page after page no matter how clever the world play or references are. It’s like shoving their point of view…..

[@ryanand154]

@@rishabhaniket1952 Thomas Bernhard wrote The Strange Attractors for you.

[@billcardigan4997]

Hi Bookchemist, I like your channel This not-review is more pessimistic than the novel. I’ll try to break down why. You said when you were younger you had more of an appetite for difficult literature which would have pushed you through the novel. Now, in retrospect, you seem to believe that type of passion is not entirely pure but rather symptoms of “obnoxious young man seeking confirmation,” “Hipsterism 101,” and “the most WASP thing ever.” I think you’re discrediting yourself. Regardless of your motivations to read hard books (Infinite Jest, GR) you still read them and they undoubtedly kindled your passion for literature. The same thing happened with Jonathan Franzen (thanks for the essay link) who’s description is perfect: “By the time I reached the last page of "The Recognitions," I felt readier to face the divorce, deaths, and dislocations that were waiting for me out in the sunlit world. I felt virtuous, as if I'd run three miles, eaten my kale, been to the dentist, filed my tax return, or gone to church.” In summary, not exactly fun, but well worth the effort. You recommended to read his essay before The Recognitions but, after seeing your reaction to it, I completely disagree. Almost every negative point you found in the book was almost verbatim from Franzen’s opinion of JR (which he did not finish). I don’t think that’s a coincidence. In fact, I think it heavily clouded your reading and gave you an academic “excuse” to not finish the book. The fun is the challenge. The fun is the reward. The fun is engaging deeply with something that actually has depth. If you quit climbing the mountain because it gets too cold you’ll never see the view. You’ll only know a cold mountain. And of course there are a million good reasons to quit a book halfway and a million and one good reasons to quit The Recognitions, but I don’t think you tackled many. A lot of what you said was completely misinformed and disrespectful to the author. I’m referring to basic things like: Wyatt’s name being dropped is “difficult for its own sake.” That there is no significance to the difficult dialogue “If you don’t have that kind of fascination with humans why... write novels” It confronts old fashioned religiosity and yet is paradoxically not fun. (?????) You’re better than this! You know it, I know it, everyone knows it. And to be fair this is probably one of the worst times to read an incredibly challenging and brutal novel. You gotta save those for when you’re young and passionate and have all the free time in the world and still romanticise books… To summarize: You found a book that requires work, did not put in the work, and then claimed it was not worth the work. The videos comes off more arrogant than the hipsters and WASPs you insult. And to answer your question... I quit Paradise Lost for a very stupid reason: the iambic pentameter drove me nuts.

[@novelsandcrumbs3558]

This is frightening in all forms as I was sure you would of devoured this without breath like Gravity's Rainbow. It looks like I will touch it next after Darconville's Cat to see how it feels. Thanks for the Review!!!!

[@tarico4436]

Would HAVE devoured. OMG.

[@ryanand154]

Itali Calvino’s The Unwound Snail is always a refresher after these long and tiring reads.

[@scottlyons33]

I know this is cliche, but this book will be more impactful if you read it when you're older.

[@k.e.1760]

That's why you should read Stoner by John Williams. No reader can hate that book, it is perfect.

[@cometcourse381]

It is perfectly generic.

[@human.yoohoo4646]

Can you write more about stoner being perfect? I've been hearing great things about it and am getting closer every day to reading it

[@atw-me1xy]

Fantastic book!

[@intellectualreads5696]

I hated Stoner with a passion!!

[@atw-me1xy]

@@intellectualreads5696 why is that?

[@wendilarkin9197]

Appreciate your review

[@cisley5867]

I've tried to read Ulysses several times and cannot make it work for me. Perhaps at some point I'll find a way in.

[@Abhishek-fe3zs]

With Ulysses you just have to read another book to keep your interest in reading

[@37equals37]

Listen to the audio version read by Jim Norton - he makes it come to life. My favorite book and favorite format.

[@Daniel_Zalman]

Giving up on a book. Now there is a topic I can relate to.

[@joshpettis1160]

The last line I remember from when I tried reading this when I was younger was something like a Santa guy in a bar going "I need a drink like I need a bullet in the head" which is still pretty funny but my little brain pretty much tuned out when it skipped ahead to his adulthood. Was thinking about trying it out again so it was nice to hear you talk about it

[@hendrixman121]

Believe it or not I had to put down Blood Meridian about half way through because I found myself annoyed with what I felt were stories of repeated incessant violence without much worth. Not because I was upset by the violence but because I was frankly bored with the monotony. That was years ago and I'm a more mature reader now so I know I'll have to give it another try sometime soon to see if there was something I was missing.

[@runagaterampant]

Same here. Also happened with Faulkner's As I lay dying. I liked them both at first but just lost interest at half way. I guess their style isn't for me.

[@hendrixman121]

@@runagaterampant The strange thing for me is I actually really liked No Country for Old Men and The Road, but just didn't vibe with Blood Meridian. So not sure if it was the style that rubbed me the wrong way or something else.

[@uniquechannelnames]

@@runagaterampant Loved Blood Meridian, couldn't stand As I Lay Dying. From the first word lol. Stopped a third of the way through. Ill always love Faulkner because he influenced McCarthy who's one of my favourites.

[@uniquechannelnames]

I think one thing that happens is we are so used to violence in books being put there for plot points, for *big* drama, the climax, for storytelling. In Blood Meridian the violence is simply present as a part of life, no different than breathing or drinking. So I think we are expecting the violence to culminate in something, in drama, or some major plot device but it never does spare a couple specific battles. So I think this builds up over time where people keep expecting major things out of these slaughters, but they just camp and go to sleep so the reader gets bored. It's easy to gloss over many important details in Blood Meridian, the story and the truly enriching details are in little nooks. Maybe just a few words at the end of a sentence, or a small action a character takes, a single sentence that defines the whole book (" to try whether the stuff of creation may be shaped to man’s will or whether his own heart is not another kind of clay"). He doesn't spell things out for you. I'll just say that being a detective while reading BM definitely pays off. If you read it like a classic adventure book then yes it feels boring, but once you really pay attention to the little details, it becomes incredibly rich. Blood Meridian is a very... cosmic book.. Those campfire talks, the judge's manipulative speeches, the cosmic narration. It's really beautiful, and spawns all kinds of provocative philosophical thoughts. After finishing BM I loved it, I've read it 5 times now. Or it could just not be your style, which is ok too.

[@ratherrapid]

all the ptetty horseswas enough c mcarthy for my lifetime. after all the mccarthy hype was expecting some inspired writing. it was ok. a book and a story with mediocre intelligence and iq. per ur point on bm, mccarthy is a bit overrated, possibly?

[@matthewandel1497]

"The first part of the novel was written at an earlier time" .... ya don't say?

[@ratherrapid]

My last abandonment was reflectionss on the revolution in France by Edmund Burke which by narrow margin has edged out of mice and men as dumbest book.

[@mrdeadlift6237]

Ahh, here we have again the classic phenomenon of belittling Of Mice and Men! Come on now, enough is enough, we all know that Of Mice and Men is the Great American Novel. No, in reality it's the greatest novel of the world; no novel had ever done what Steinbeck did in those 100 heavenly pages ever before and no novel ever will again, the entire generation of maximalist novels that came after was only an obvious method of coping with the fact that the novel form had already reached its apex. Yes, Pynchon, Wallace, Joyce, even this video's titular Gaddis were driven to slobbering out their turgid tomes just to accept their own impotency. Nowadays people even try to sneakily relegate Of Mice and Men to that of the novella, as if shuttering the raving old man in another room would quash his roaring exploits! Ha! do not think your subtle subterfuge went undetectedly under my nose! I can sniff out the anti- Of Mice and Men agenda wherever it might think to congeal and in whatever manner it might to hope to conceal its own perniciousness (that obviously fabricated remark about your "Edmund Burke")! But, alas, I will forgive you your malfeasance , you only need confess your love for Of Mice and Men and accept it as the true work of literature ever.

[@JohnSpawn1]

What's with the editing? Is that an implicit joke about how hard to follow the novel is? Anyways, I had a similar experience with Beckett's "Murphy", another novel which felt as if the author wanted to show off AND piss off the reader (Beckett or rather the narrator admits the latter in the novel), so I had to stop after 80 pages.

[@EdDunkle]

It's certainly of its time. But then, I lived in NYC much later and there were crazy artists ("Jack Goldstein and the CalArts Mafia), and muses like Esme flitting about. Gaddis was probably difficult to edit because he was so damned smart. And there really is a lot of humor in the book. But 1000 pages is a big ask, especially for a first novel.

[@davidw9736]

Why read 'Mr Difficult' first? Wouldn't it be better to read the book first, work out what you think about it, and then read the article?

[@PinkFLoYD9118]

Dissing people who read “difficult” books as hipsters who just read to brag or for some kind of validation is ridiculous and embarrassing. These kinds of remarks speak more of you than of the actual readers or the actual book. There might be people out there who read difficult books just for the sake of difficulty - hipsters as you call them - but this is obviously not sustainable. Sooner rather than later they will give it up. This is why I think the vast majority of people are genuine in their appreciation of a book like The Recognitions. I cannot fathom reading thousand page books just to get through them, it would be such a waste of one’s life. There is something to be said about pushing your limit, but if there’s no enjoyment and you hate every page of it, there is no point. Come back to it in 5-10 years, maybe you will enjoy it then. There are novels out there that I don’t understand the appeal of myself which are considered masterpieces but I will not tear them down. I never liked people’s arguments that describe a book as difficult and diss it mainly because of that. You don’t like it, fine, put it down and pick something else.

[@tarico4436]

It's reassuring to find someone who is obviously proficient at the reading game, and found The Recognitions as quitable as I did. I lasted five hundred or six hundred pages, then just said no. Two hundred I lasted with Infinite Jest. Got six hundred or so pages into Juliette by de Sade, quit for a year, but then picked it back up again, and finished. And yes it was well worth it to read those last few hundred pages of the work by the Marquis. Made it to page twenty of a book where the author was using again and again the C word, rhymes with bunt, and said no. But then, a week or two later and just for the heck of it, I skipped ahead to page 65 and read about ten pages. Realized why it was a classic; went back to page one and read the whole thing: Tropic of Cancer. Excellent. Right up there with a porterhouse. My point? Not finishing is not to be taken personally. Even if it's a big deal, even if it's alleged a great work of art. I developed sort of a fever as I plowed through Blood Meridian. I wasn't meditating, necessarily, on the plot as it unfolded, or examining the details, scrutinizing them for texture. I was just racing through it, knowing that it was something special. That was about five years ago. It is fast approaching the time when I can reread it, hoping that I've forgotten enough of it so that it will again be a giant amazing pleasure. DO NOT READ BLOOM'S PREFACE TO THIS MASTERPIECE before READING IT. Read Bloom's preface afterward if you choose. Bloom spoils a major part of this novel.

[@TheMaahhgret]

Enjoyed your thoughts and definitely appreciate the heads up on Bloom's introduction to Blood Meridian! Those introductions need to come with spoiler alerts!

[@tarico4436]

@@TheMaahhgret It is good to hear from you Margaret McInnis. What tomes do you recommend?

[@ryanand154]

I’m guessing Alan Bloom compares it to Shakespeare and calls it eminent in the creation of our canon of some such horsesaddled mayhem.

[@isaidpianissimo2475]

@@ryanand154 I think the OP was referring to his brother Harold Bloom.

[@emilioocchialini6094]

Maybe you know Paolo Simonetti, a professor at La Sapienza of American Literature, I met him at the Pynchon Week in Rome almost two years ago and i think we mentioned your channel while we were talking about Pynchon. By the way and by coincidence, I often read his posts on facebook about the titanic books he reads, and just few weeks ago he posted about The Recognitions by Gaddis, saying he was thinking about dropping the reading.

[@ryanand154]

People who go to book conferences have been absorbed into the next Gaddis book.

[@ryanand154]

Melville’s Tattoo

[@prognition970]

Fucking good on you, man. It’s great to be open to reading difficult fiction, and it is typically very rewarding, but I have definitely been guilty of liking a book before I read it and upon reading, realizing it was bad.

[@sLePpInG]

I couldn't finish Charlie Kaufman's Antkind, if it was 400 pages I would dig through it, but 720 pages of a meta-author-self-insert moping and desperate to convince that he was a good PC person was too much. He got it right at Adaptation, because it was so fast-paced and humorous and self-aware, but for the 200 something pages I read it was just unbearable.

[@kintrap5376]

Oh man, I couldnt get enough of Antkind! When I finished, I had wished they published the 900+ page first draft of it instead

[@bumblebeeatbreadloaf1286]

Refreshing take. I like the honesty.

[@rubeng9092]

Reading Franzens essay before trying to read the Recognitions is the worst bit of advice I ever heard, as it adds precisely nothing of value to the reading experience which it actively discourages you to take. That being said I do see some of your problems with the Recognitions and haven't finished it either. But to take my subjective experience and gripes with a piece of art and use them as basis to judge it, even though I haven't fully experienced it is absurd to me. One shouldn't discourage reading, no matter the book's subject matter or erudition. To claim something could be difficult for it's own sake is a fundamentally misguided endeavor, as you are inscribing your own experience of reading into the essence of the book, as if no one would be able to gain something different than you from the book and your meaning and experience would be somehow universal. Seeing as you studied english literature, I think you might be inclined to agree. I do for one think finger-wagging at difficult or complex books is just as bad, as entirely neglecting low- or middlebrow works. The challenge that a work poses to the reader, is in no way tied to it's quality. Therefore to have a bias towards simplicity("easy-for-it's-own-sake" or shallow works) is just as or maybe moreso harmful as having one that is inclined towards difficulty. Some literature can utilize simple methods and immediately compelling narrative structures and tropes to it's benefit and that create a unique aesthetic experience, others rely on more hidden or obtuse ways of operation to function at full capacity. Either way a work could suceed or fail, but we cannot attribute that to it's difficulty or ease. And that is folks, why I will re-attempt reading the Recognitions, when I'm 30(in 10 and a half years), to see if it can click or not.

[@rubeng9092]

@Book Shore Orpheus made a great video going over roughly the same points as I do in this comment. Also there is a Ben Marcus essay and that succinctly refutes Franzen's ideas regarding difficulty. I'm 19 and a half.

[@Vlad-vu8wv]

Genuinely curious -- is your mix-up of the contracted form of _it is_ with the posessive _its_ a conscious stylistic choice? You write otherwise very coherently and I find this error quite jarring; then again, it might be my OCD.

[@rubeng9092]

@@Vlad-vu8wv Thank you very much for pointing that out. Believe it or not English is actually my second language. So I will definitely take this critique to heart.

[@Vlad-vu8wv]

@@rubeng9092 Hey, no worries, I am happy that you didn't perceive my comment as some kind of insult, I was later afraid that it would sound insufferably pedantic or perhaps even malicious. English is my second language too, and believe it or not, I mostly stumbled upon this error when talking with native English speakers.

[@Vlad-vu8wv]

@@rubeng9092 Also, just a curiosity -- do you read English-language writers in the original? I'm thinking of starting my NYRB version of JR, but I'm a bit intimidated since reading Pynchon in English has been quite challenging and it took a lot of time.

[@BlogSnob]

Im actually surprised to here all this. I've never read The Recognitions, but everything you say is the exact opposite of how I feel about Gaddis's novel JR. I like to think he grew up a bit after the massive critical and commercial failure of The Recognitions. I was thinking of picking this up, but think I'll move on to his later works first after this review.

[@meltedpoo]

Wow I really love this review

[@jakobjohnson984]

Tried Ulysses because I had a prof who was OBSESSED. I'd read Portrait of the Artist as A Young Man, so I was like, "dope, I'll give Ulysses a go, Portrait was loads of fun." Gave up after a day when I realized I needed an entirely separate, and significantly longer, book of annotations just to have an understanding of what was going on. I've put Dhalgren by Samuel Delany on the back-burner twice now, but that hasn't been giving up so much as just not having time to give that gargantuan novel the attention it deserves. One day, Dhalgren, one day. Also though, I will NEVER finish The Big Sleep by Raymond Chandler. Fuck that book, fuck that author.

[@jonnypaul7260]

The myth that you need another book of annotations to understand Ulysses is simply not true. When I first read it I had never read The Odyssey and knew little of the aesthetic discourses the novel engages with. I just thought it was a real fun, absolutely astoundingly beautiful book. We don't need to intellectualise everything in order to glean something from it.

[@drbenway612]

What do you have against Chandler?

[@Matt_Kole]

I'm definitely guilty of reading big books like War and Peace out of vanity. I struggled at times, and put it on hold for months at one point. But once I finished the novel it was one of my all time favs and I genuinely loved it But reading a book you dislike is just a waste of time

[@davidlee1596]

That's weird, I literally finished this book a half hour ago, checked youtube and you uploaded this review, took me about a month and couldn't read more than 50 pages a day, but I really enjoyed it, in a really cerebral way. Don't get how it's treatment of lgbt characters was that problematic or even relevant tbh though, that's like letting the anti-Semitism preventing you from liking the merchant of Venice, different time and culture.

[@liquidpebbles7475]

you really need a better example than a 400 year old book lol

[@Pantano63]

These "people" are softies who live in a bubble lol disregard their opinions. Book is great.

[@wayneteacher]

I just find it really funny that in the booktube world that there's always such a joy in giving up on a book. I mean, take a couple more days out of your life and finish it. It ain't gonna kill you.

[@BlackKraya]

A couple of days you'll never get back. What is the point in finishing a book you don't enjoy unless you get paid to do it?

[@wayneteacher]

@@BlackKraya Can I put your answer in the dictionary under anti-intellectualism and willful ignorance?

[@uniquechannelnames]

@@wayneteacher As long as yours goes under contemptuous and arrogant bud.

[@wayneteacher]

@@uniquechannelnames that would be find because that's how I feel about the bullshit you all are pulling.

[@jacobharris4838]

Just finished it and I totally get your take. It was often frustrating spending this much time with a novel in which humanity has essentially no redemptive qualities. However, in its defense, I must say that his refusal to give in to our craving for humanity and something empathetic, he makes all the more clear its presence in us. It’s actually super powerful in that sense, and his ability to never relinquish hold of his pessimism across the span of it makes our faith in the necessity of goodness evident. TL;DR: it isfrustrating never feeling the writer exhibit empathy, but this device should compel the critical reader to go beyond the confines of the book to become someone capable of spreading the compassion they recognize is lacking

[@annakarlien1952]

Gosh some of those comments.. It sounds like you had all reason to put this book down, and I'm glad you're taking the time to talk about it nevertheless as it'd been somewhere on my radar for a few years and I was really curious about what you thought of it! (also just got 'the call of cthulhu and other stories' as you finally pushed me over the edge for that one after I loved At the mountains of madness haha)

[@TheBookchemist]

Thanks Anna - always happy to convert people to Lovecraft :D

[@BiblioAtlas]

"Why The World Needs Artists More Than Ever Right Now" Adam Duff LUCIDPIXUL KZbin Channel gives fabulous advice if any writers/creatives/artists need some inspiration. True artists are never understood during their own time period because they're out there creating something new. New things cannot be understood because they are so new. We don't have the framework to understand them.

[@CasparLanger]

The 100 Days of Sodom and Death in Venice (both recently) -- Infinite Jest, Ulysses and Gravity's Rainbow (at times)

[@jeremy1350]

I picked up Gravity's Rainbow, after watching all these reviews across YT. And I pushed through to about 150-200 pages. But I put it down. I'm gay, and porn is a topic everyone deals with, in one way or another. I got to a point, in the novel, where pornography began grating on my nerves. I get that sex was a topic of the research, and the dropping of bombs. But bouncing between homosexuality and heterosexuality, was getting a little much for me. And yes, I do think Pynchon was partaking in some kind of drug. When a novel rotates on pornography (read Sex) , I have to be in the right frame of mind to participate in the prose. I was not in the right frame of mind to finish the novel.

[@leventetakacs1641]

Totally understandable, I love love love GR, but had a few false starts myself. If you are not in a very solid mental / emotional state a lot of stuff in that book just rubs you in a wrong way.

[@jeremy1350]

@@leventetakacs1641 Thanks. The book mark is still in my book, so I may pick it up again, some time. Pandemic kind of ruined reading for me.

[@TheBookchemist]

What you say makes total sense - GR's treatment of sexuality is problematic to say the least! I found it incredibly disturbing, too (and not quite in a thought-provoking way), especially the first time I read it.

[@eskybakzu712]

@@TheBookchemist the fact that you have a PhD and still use the term "problematic" to describe a work is so funny to me

[@GodwardPodcast]

Wow, a 1955 novel that’s “transphobic,” I’m so surprised.

[@eskybakzu712]

It isn't transphobic, this man literally didn't even finish this shit why are you listening to his opinion

[@parvathyram4054]

that background 😍😍😍 is that your own library?

[@TheBookchemist]

Yeah!

[@jamescappio7434]

"I highly recommend reading Jonathan Franzen's "Mr. Difficult" first" I stopped after reading this, because you plainly have no understanding of anything if you take that lying, disingenuous piece at face value. Nobody should take you seriously about anything.

[@DWS205]

Just had this happen to me with Joseph McElroy’s Women and Men

[@prognition970]

Shit! I was looking forward to this book. What the hell happened?

[@superokapi5950]

It’s a good point on having an appetite for a certain type of books at a certain period in your life. Over the last five years or so I’ve gone through all Pynchon’s novels, Infinite Jest, Underworld, Pillars of the Earth. So I kind of enjoy long immersive novels. But... I made it a quarter way through The Recognitions before dropping it. There’s something simultaneously boring and annoyingly pretentious about it. Like the small foreign language openings of the chapters. Or the ceaseless confusion caused by the unattributed dialogue. I just realized that reading the book made me kind of depressed. Definitely not worth my time.

[@deane2473]

This is amazing!! It seems like your confidence in your own analysis has grow a lot since Infinite Jest.

[@Hank_Kirton]

I aborted LETTERS by John Barth after a hundred pages but I want to return to it someday. I bought a copy of THE RECOGNITIONS but haven't attempted it yet. i liked the video, as usual.

[@ryanand154]

John Barth is so cutesy bougie American professor. Gaddis was the real deal.

[@Orpheuslament]

You should be embarrassed by this video.

[@sebastianwang670]

i think thebookchemist, like most people, just doesn't take himself so seriously that he'd be able to get embarrassed about something like this video. i would be pretty embarrassed though if i were actually someone who got worked up about something as harmless as this vid

[@jacobbrewer6402]

@@sebastianwang670 are you shitting me dude? This is what he does for a living...he damn well better be taking it seriously

[@rishabhaniket1952]

@@sebastianwang670 It’s called passion. And people confuse it with pretence. People just sailing on looking on entertainment and comfort won’t understand it.

[@jamescappio7434]

@@sebastianwang670 The video is ignorant and may put readers off the experience of reading something worthwhile. Anyway, there's only two people who should be embarrassed about this, and you are one of them.

[@jimmygable569]

Interesting to see your progression from your earlier videos to this video here! I relate as I enter my thirties, I have less patience for difficult-for-the-sake-of-difficult. Its great how you can read these status books and wiggle free of how you’re “supposed” to react. I like to think, in books there exists meaning beyond the status gained from finishing a difficult book, where you’re rewarded with a patch to emblazon on your hipster sash.

[@jamesmorgan5671]

I haven't read The Recognitions yet, but I have to say, this is really disappointing: you spent seventeen minutes criticizing a book that you have no business criticizing because you only read half of it, as if the second half of a book would never alter one's opinions about the first half; and then you conclude by saying you'll be selling it, which implies you'll never try to finish it. Giving up on a book is fine, but at least 1) have the modesty to realize your opinion of a book doesn't mean much if you haven't read the whole thing, and 2) at least hold on to it in case you change your mind and decide to pick it up later.

[@tectorgorch8698]

Read Raintree County. 50% pure magic, 25% soap opera, 25% dreck. 100% worth reading.

[@edgarguevara2939]

You do read a lot of books. So I am wondering if you gave up because of impatience. Not being able to read a book within a desired time frame can make for a bad reading experience. The Recognitions isn't a difficult novel unlike Gravity's Rainbow.

[@connord9864]

THANK YOU I’ve tried Gaddis a few times and you put to words how I feel about his style. I can’t get into it at all. Hatred for humanity and nothing but people bitching at each other.

[@SasquatchFeverandSons]

I don't at all see how people can read any Gaddis at all and take away that his works have a "hatred for humanity."

[@Ali94749]

Really good video. I have never read the Recognitions but being able to put down a book you do not like is important. Some people read difficult books as a way to signal their intelligence to other people. I say that as a massive Pynchon fan so there are good difficult books but they are not good because they are difficult.

[@Ali94749]

I am reading the Pale King right now and have considered putting it down a few times but there is always a really beautifully chapter that comes along before that point. It is defo an example of a book that is good despite its difficulty and shines when DFW eases off the tricky literary devices.

[@TheBookchemist]

I will eventually read it too - I've always been put off by what I know about it, but I have friends who are great advocates of it and consider it Wallace's best!

[@Eternalplay]

Thanks dude.

[@matthewandel1497]

Why, in the first place, would you do a video on a book you did not finish and, then proceed to trash said book for over 15 minutes? Lol do you own a mirror ?

[@levitybooks3952]

Having just finished this I now understand and respect your ability to stop reading a book like this. I liked it, but there are obvious reasons for disliking it (similar to those for its dismissal at first publication) which I think many people aren't talking about due to its current popularity.

[@therepublicofbadtaste5197]

It may end up having little to do with your ultimate enjoyment of the novel, but I also was not a fan of the NYRB introduction. Check out the "Afterword" by William Gass, which served as the introduction to the previous Dalkey edition. It does a much better job of presenting the concerns of, and context around, The R.

[@Abhishek-fe3zs]

You never read the introduction before the text man

[@uniquechannelnames]

I just never read introductions anymore.

[@AndalusianIrish]

You should have read "Jr" instead! Watch Scott Bradfield about this. kzbin.info/www/bejne/qXfdZp-ZrtKJiK8 FYI it's bigot is pronounced "big ot" not "by got". Just to save you future embarrassment.

[@NateStapleton]

Fascinating. I made a recent youtube video about same topic of giving up on certain books.

[@TheBookchemist]

I'll make sure to check it out ;)

[@Pantano63]

You can be losers together :) Misery loves company.

[@charlesdexterward7781]

Yeah, why read difficult books for social cachet when you can get it a lot more easily by calling everyone a racist and a transphobe.

[@zippy2u]

I hear, "I got up to the half way mark" and that was enough for me to stop watching. Read the book. Don't waste our time. TBH, I got to 0:17 on your video before giving up so at least you read half of it.

[@blaze34]

I totally relate with you about being an obnoxious young male (white?) in college and glamourizing difficult books. When I was 25 I fell in love with Infinite Jest in a way that, as I later discovered, many people in the Internet mocked. Now I'm 32 and this last year has been terrible for my reading. I've been doing more things that I consider childish, like playing videogames. I know I shouldn't feel bad about it, but I'm now less of an intellectual comparing to 5 years ago, and many things I learned in college are now gone -- those highbrow concepts et al. On the other hand, that's life, we have to learn to embrance novelty. It always comes... Sometimes I miss that animosity from the 20s...

[@carterlinsley8221]

Don't let the internet get to you! Stigmata aside, Infinite Jest is still something worth worshipping. Obnoxiousness is entirely subjective.

[@sebastianwang670]

i'm a huge fan of Infinite Jest and DFW in general, and while i totally know that my enthusiasm for DFW's work will almost certainly become less intense as i grow older, i find the kind of smirk that comes with condescending comments like "oh yeah, you _would_ like Infinite Jest, wouldn't you?" to be really disrespectful and mean. there's really not any need to ever mock someone for what they love, and Infinite Jest is the kind of book that often impresses and moves people so profoundly that it would be especially insensitive to be a dick about someone's passion for it. legit makes me sad

[@TheBookchemist]

Bizarrely, it takes a long time to learn to embrace the things we like ;) I spent a long time, too, denying myself hobbies I enjoy, and embracing others instead, just because of some silly ideas I had about what I should be using my time on ;)

[@potaconplays8634]

Foucalt's Pendulum. Not a bad book by any means but way way way too much namedropping and references to stuff. The strange subconscious dream chapters didn't help either.

[@jesuisnoach]

You savaged this book and I love it. I also felt that Gaddis, for all his talents as a writer, made a book that was difficult simply for the sake of being difficult. It reminded me of V by Pynchon, a book a likewise never finished because I felt Pynchon's prose was twisty, labored, and overly clever.

[@TheBookchemist]

Early Pynchon (V and Crying most notably) has a lot in common with Gaddis, although I think they depart in substantial ways beneath their apparent similarities. (Pynchon, even at his worst and most sour, is always a very humane writer).

[@uniquechannelnames]

I felt the same about V and Crying of Lot 49. I couldn't STAND the prose. That being said I love Gravity's Rainbow a lot, and his even later novels are much more beautifully written (very different style than his early books). I'd recommend Inherent Vice (very funny and well-written), or if you're up for the length, Against the Day. But yeah V and Crying are in my opinion horribly written, it bothers that so many university kids are subjected to Crying of Lot 49 as their introduction to Pynchon. So knotty and twisted and just bad bad bad.

[@TheMaxman96]

Hated this one as well. JR is really good though

[@davidjames2431]

Very well said. I'm in the middle of The Recognitions right now and I've been asking myself what is wrong with me? I have read other books no problem and enjoyed them immensely and surely this book has something to offer, it's highly praised as a work of art, but yet there I am struggling with it and thinking perhaps I have lost the ability to read. It's very difficult.

[@UpperCrustthe3rd]

You organize your bookshelf by color. That's about all we need to know about you.

[@fabriziobuonpane3125]

Il libro più pretenzioso, arrogante e soporifero del ventesimo secolo as a whole. E JR è persino peggio. Libri che mi hanno fatto un effetto simile, anche se per ragioni diverse, sono stati The Tunnel di Gass, tutto quello che ho letto di Vollmann e in parte The Apes of God di Wyndham Lewis, che è comunque di ben altra caratura rispetto a qualsiasi riga di questi sacerdoti dell'aulica pippa.

[@TheBookchemist]

90 MINUTI DI APPLAUSI - grazie Fabrizio, per un secondo pensavo di essere strano io a sentir la gente che dice "ma cosa dici mai ma è il libro più bello di sempre"

[@nickwarren2768]

Hello bookchemist ! 👍🏻😁

[@TheBookchemist]

Hello Nick :D

[@rhysgibbon9278]

Isn't it strange what a novel can do to us, how angry we get when a work that's supposed to be great misses the mark (I've been there). It upsets me that a reader I respected feels the need to make a video butchering a book and stereotyping its readers. It's ok if you don't like a book and you should absolutely put it down if you're not enjoying it, but don't rant about it on KZbin and insult a readership to justify yourself =(

[@brunobaretta5522]

I don't get the argument that the novel is misogynist. Every male character is just as despicable as every female character. In fact imo the most sympathetic character is Esme , who's a lady

[@TH3F4LC0Nx]

Yeah, Gravity's Rainbow pretty much maxed out my "pretentious bullsh*t" meter. For me, life is too short to waste by bothering with attempting to read books which the author intentionally makes unreadable.

[@uniquechannelnames]

GR is plenty readable. Anyone's first run through is very difficult, but honestly it's hilarious and tonnes of fun, for me anyway. I find Ulysses far more annoying and unreadable. Nobody has time to decipher the 4 puns, 3 Irish historical references and 5 obfuscated Christian-mockeries from every sentence. At least GR is written in regular english, it's just the structure can be off-putting.

[@emileconstance5851]

I read The Recognitions when I was in my twenties, and found it uninteresting and very forgettable. I was reading a lot of novels at the time, and this one fell well short.

[@Pantano63]

Filtered

[@emileconstance5851]

@@Pantano63 ???

[@xchickster]

This comment section is...not it

[@bighardbooks770]

Dam...n

[@travischarlebois4674]

I gave up reading this book before it was cool

[@jacobrosen1988]

Not having yet finished your review, it occurs to me you could be talking about "Infinite Jest"--self-importance; and anything by Thomas Pynchon--the way he deliberately overuses pronouns just to confuse you. Now back to the review...

[@carterlinsley8221]

Honestly pretty surprised with your angle on this one. I feel like you should know better than anyone how prudent it is to see a piece of work like this all the way through to the end before feeling justified enough to spread a negative opinion about it. A few years ago, I remember hearing that Jennifer Lawrence was a member of the Academy voting at the Oscars, and in an interview somewhat proudly stated that she turned off Phantom Thread within the first five minutes for fear of it putting her to sleep. Now, clearly you gave this book more than five minutes, but as a respected critic the world looks to your guidance to strengthen its relationship and deepen its understanding with the canon - especially when the work relies on complex erudition to make its astonishingly meta arguments about the nature of art itself. It’s already hard enough to ask modernity to stick through and respect humbling and erudite works that they might come out the other end with a more profound understanding of the world, and I hope you know how disappointing this is to hear from you. You should’ve at least finished it.

[@liquidpebbles7475]

Lmao go cry somewhere else, plenty of canonical writers and pleeeenty of critics dont finish books, is true that the ending of a book can change how you see it but if youre not enjoying the experience by the halfway point is it worth it? You only live once, "you should have"? He doesnt owe you anything, did you pay him to finish the book? The audacity...

[@cjblair2586]

Believe me, the last thing “modernity” needs is to be subject to more insufferable novels by male intellectuals (Yes, I’m talking about you, Joyce, DeLillio, Gaddis, DFW). I’m sorry, but these types of novels are a genre unto themselves, which is to say, they’re written by deeply flawed men with outdated views of humanity who DEMAND we bear witness their brilliance, no matter how bloated or incoherent their work. Don’t get me wrong, I’ll take a GOOD book that’s erudite (I love Pynchon because he’s more grounded and worldly than others like him) but at a certain point, you have to ask yourself, “Is this book 900 grueling pages because it NEEDS to be, or because it’s just doesn’t have anything to say?” @TheBookchemist was smart enough to see through the bs. P.S “Phantom Thread” is 100% the cinematic equivalent of this same problem. “There Will Be Blood” worked because it had strong characters and universal themes, but for “Phantom Thread” PTA abandoned story and character in favor of pretty music and costumes. I WISH I’d turned it off at 5 minutes. Good thinking JLaw.

[@leventetakacs1641]

@@cjblair2586 so right, Phantom Thread was so disappointing to me after There Will Be Blood.

[@enthdegree]

the time I spent reading this comment is time that I will never get back

[@carterlinsley8221]

I think it’s important to note that, for the artist, it did need to be that long. That doesn’t mean we have to feel the same way, but this is one of those books that comes together so astoundingly in the end and makes such great use of all of the material it laid throughout its middle that I can’t help but feel like Bookchemist missed out on that experience by giving up.

[@eskybakzu712]

Nah this review was def not it

[@scottbowers8497]

Gaddis is one of the greats Recognitions is a true master work Also organizing books by color is so terrible

[@fabiancalderon6729]

KWAB

[@OttoIncandenza]

The editing on this is awful

[@Abhishek-fe3zs]

Man your problem was reading that terrible edition

[@bencheshire]

Colour coding books makes zero sense to me.