The Recognitions in The Roundtable

Feb 07, 2012 Christopher rated it it was amazing

Shelves: american, fiction, favorites, 20th-century, 500-pages-or-more, nameless-characters, modern-classics, postmodern

First things first: let's get the size out of the way. Yes, it is a long book, 956 pages plus a fifteen page introduction. It takes a long time to read, but really it's only the size of three averagely sized novels put together. Its heft will not strain your pectoralis major nor cause any other physical distress... it's a book, not an exercise regimen, so there is no further need to talk about its physical enormity or the pain it simply cannot inflict upon your corporeal self.

The noncorporeal he ...more

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May 25, 2014 El rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: library-borrow, 1001-books-list, artsy-fartsy, 20th-centurylit-late, big-effing-books

I understand it took Gaddis seven years to write this book, and I think, in many ways, it shows. Not in the length of the book (although that too), but because this is a choppy story. There are different storylines that one must be patient enough to wander and wade through, and the choppiness, I feel, comes with the amount of time it took for him to write this book. Some stories read like silk; this is not one of them.

That being said, I loved reading this. I loved the challenge of it. I will adm I understand it took Gaddis seven years to write this book, and I think, in many ways, it shows. Not in the length of the book (although that too), but because this is a choppy story. There are different storylines that one must be patient enough to wander and wade through, and the choppiness, I feel, comes with the amount of time it took for him to write this book. Some stories read like silk; this is not one of them.

That being said, I loved reading this. I loved the challenge of it. I will admit to enjoying the first *mumblemumble* pages which centers around Wyatt Gwyon, but that's really the lazy part of me talking. His story, with the focus on his forgeries (not a spoiler, it's in the book description, mmkay) is the most interesting and certainly the most satisfying. The side stories of Otto, the writer (and supposedly Gaddis himself), Esme, the muse (based on another real person who apparently was muse to many other people), and the musician, Stanley, are all interesting, but they're all lacking a certain something that comes alive most in Wyatt's story.

Beyond that, the next aspect of the book that intrigued me was the author's use of symbolism. This is something that I'm always receptive to when I read, but there are motifs in this book that are hard to overlook. The scent of lavender is one that stands out the most to me, though inexplicably it's only mentioned heavily throughout the first three-fourths of the book or so. Lavender is known for its calming scent and its oils are often used for that specific purpose. (A coworker gave us all bars of lavender soap for Christmas last year; I keep mine in my desk drawer so every time I open it I get a nice, calming whiff which saves my sanity throughout the day.) It also tends to symbolize decadence, so it's possible Gaddis is saying something else here - which isn't entirely unlikely since the most frequent references to Gaddis involve very troublesome circumstances that illuminate some characters' isolation.

I wish I had something profound to say about the book, but I really do not. It's worth the effort. Don't be turned off by the religion or the complex dialogues that make you want to strangle yourself trying to keep track of whose talking. This is one of those books where it's necessary to just roll with the punches, or else you'll miss some really fine details. When Gaddis isn't complicating things by having his characters talk to one another (or over each other), he wrote very detailed and specific character traits. Just little things, really, like a woman whose heel gets caught in her scarf. Nothing fancy, it's just there, the way it's just there in real life when you see something similar in passing. A woman putting her hand against her forehead and leaning against the sink. Some pieces of paper getting caught in the wind. Gaddis wrote very prettily, and I appreciated those moments.

Do I know what this story is about? Not quite. Forgery on the surface. Which I think speaks to superficiality overall. Sin.

Look back, if once you're started in living, you're born into sin, then? And how do you atone? By locking yourself up in remorse for what you might have done? Or by living it through. By locking yourself up in remorse with what you know you have done? Or by going back and living it through. By locking yourself up with your work, until it becomes a gessoed surface, all prepared, clean and smooth as ivory? Or by living it through. By drawing lines in your mind? Or by living it through. If it was sin from the start, and possible all the time, to know it's possible and avoid it? Or by living it through. I used to wonder, how Christ could really have been tempted, if He was sinless, and rejected the first, and the second, and the third temptation, how was He tempted?... how did He know what it was, the way we do, to be tempted? No, He was Christ. But for us, with it there from the start and possible all the time, to go on knowing it's possible and pretend to avoid it? Or... or to have lived it through, and live it through, and deliberately go on living it through.
(p 896)

The idea that each and every one of us is a forger, a counterfeiter, a liar of our emotions. Atonement. Sorting out what is and is not real in life, in each other, in our work, our passions.

At least that's what I took from it.

Everybody has that feeling when they look at a work of art and it's right, that sudden familiarity, a sort of... recognition, as though they were creating it themselves, as though it were being created through them while they look at it or listen to it and, it shouldn't be sinful to want to have created beauty?
(p 535)

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Dec 22, 2024 Lori rated it did not like it · review of another edition

Shelves: zy-own, zy-text, fiction, pre-2000, zy-calibre, literature, z-recommended

I've finally given up on this book. The main character's Catholicism is a major part of the book.
I am not a Catholic, I'm not even a Christian, and I don't want to learn any more about the Catholic church than I already know (except medieval politics).

1 star Did Not Finish ...more

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