In Recognition of WILLIAM GADDIS ~~GatIA,~ Edited with an Introduction by John Kuehl and Steven Moore SYRACUSE UNIVERSITY PRESS 1984 In Recognition of WILLIAM GADDIS Copyright © 1984 by Syracuse University Press Syracuse, New York 13210 ALL RIGHTS RESERVED FIRST EDITION Excerpts from The Recognitions, copyright © 1955 by William Gaddis, are reprinted by per mission of William Gaddis. Excerpts from J R, copyright © 1975 by William Gaddis, are reprinted by permission of Al fred A. Knopf, Inc. Excerpts from The Diary of Anais Nin, Vol. Four, copyright © 1971 by Anais Nin, are re printed by permission of Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, Inc. "Gaddis Anagnorisis" reprinted with permission of Itinerary. Copyright © 1977 by the Itin erary Series. "To Soar in Atonement: Art as Expiation in Gaddis' The Recognitions" reprinted with per mission of Novel. Copyright © 1977 by Novel Corp. "Disclosing Time: William Gaddis' J R" reprinted with permission of The Journal of Narra tive Technique. Copyright © 1982 by The Journal of Narrative Technique. "Paper Currencies: Reading William Gaddis" reprinted with permission of The Review of Contemporary Fiction. Copyright © 1982 by John O'Brien. "The Paper Empires and Empirical Fictions of William Gaddis" reprinted with permission of The Review of Contemporary Fiction. Copyright © 1982 by John O'Brien. Excerpts from American Fictions, copyright © 1983 by Frederick R. Karl, are reprinted by permission of Harper & Row, Publishers, Inc. Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data Main entry under title: In recognition of William Gaddis. Bibliography: p. 1. Gaddis, William, 1922- -Criticism and interpretation-Addresses, essays, lectures. I. Kuehl, John Richard, 1928- . II. Moore, Steven, 1951- PS3557.A28Z74 1984 813'.54 84-159 ISBN 0-8156-2306-2 Manufactured in the United States of America For Jack Green Contents Preface lX Introduction 1 1 The Writing of The Recognitions DAVID KOENIG 20 2 Gaddis Anagnorisis JOHN LEVERENCE 32 3 To Soar in Atonement Art as Expiation in Gaddis' The Recognitions JOSEPH S. SALEMI 46 4 Flemish Art and Wyatt's Quest for Redemption in William Gaddis' The Recognitions CHRISTOPHER KNIGHT S8 S Dryad in a Dead Oak Tree The Incognito in The Recognitions JOHN SEELYE 70 6 Peer Gynt and The Recognitions STEVEN ~OORE 81 7 "il miglior fabbro": Gaddis' Debt to T. S. Eliot ~IRIAM FUCHS 92 8 Love and Strife in William Gaddis' J R STEPHEN ~ATANLE 106 Vlll Contents 9 Disclosing Time: William Gaddis' ] R SUSAN STREHLE 119 10 Art as Redemption of Trash Bast and Friends in Gaddis' ] R JOHAN THIELEMANS 135 11 Paper Currencies: Reading William Gaddis STEVEN WEISENBURGER 147 12 The Paper Empires and Empirical Fictions of William Gaddis JOEL DANA BLACK 162 13 Gaddis: A Tribune of the Fifties FREDERICK R. KARL 174 Bibliography 199 Contributors 207 Preface Jk; Ulysses, Finnegans Wake, The Waste Land, and The Cantos, Wil- J liam Gaddis' The Recognitions and R are among those twentieth century texts that demand and deserve close attention: "demand" because of their complex nature; "deserve" because of their undeniable stature. In Recognition of William Gaddis attempts to remedy past neglect, affirm ing what many have known all along-that the creator of these two re markable novels will inevitably join Herman Melville as a major force in the history of American letters. We are all familiar with the history of M oby-Dick: how the novel re ceived mixed reviews; how Melville stopped writing imaginative prose; how his masterpiece was not revived until the 1920s. Virtually the identical thing happened to Gaddis' first book. This should surprise no one, for the two novels have so much in common that Moby-Dick even recurs in The Rec ognitions as a work written by the counterfeit Melville, Mr. Feddle. Though published nearly one hundred years apart (1851 and 1955), both are ency clopedic, crammed with abstruse information and literary, historical, and religious allusions. Their form and content, which bear striking resem blances, made the earlier book a precursor of modernism, the later a tem plet of postmodernism. Consequently, they suffered the same fate: neglect. Recently called "the indispensable novel of the last thirty years in Amer ica" by Frank McConnell, The Recognitions initially encountered review ers dismayed at its length and complexity. So too were the critics, for ten years passed before the first academic article appeared. And, like Melville, who published no fiction between The Confidence-Man and Billy Budd, Gaddis, admitting, "I've been posthumous for 20 years," experienced a pro tracted hiatus between The Recognitions and J R. However, there is one crucial difference in this pattern. Whereas Melville died in obscurity in 1891, Gaddis has begun to acquire a reputation. The turning point was 1976, when he won the National Book Award for JR (1975). During 1982, IX x Preface The Review of Contemporary Fiction devoted a special issue to Gaddis; the University of Nebraska Press published Steven Moore's A Reader's Guide to William Gaddis's "The Recognitions"; and Gaddis became a Mac Arthur Prize Fellow. This generous five~year grant will help him complete his third novel, tentatively entitled, "That Time of Year," a work tersely described by the author in The New York Times Book Review of 6 June 1982: I am engaged in a novel of which for the moment there's little more to say than that, to assist the unwary, it will have proportionately more commas than its predecessor, fewer characters and locales than the book before that, be prudently shorter than either and, if the characters behave themselves, be labled "a romance." It would seem, then, that twenty~nine years after the publication of The Recognitions the time is propitious for a collection of essays illuminating and evaluating Gaddis' achievement. By 1983, when he was finally the sub~ ject of a special session at the MLA convention, Gaddis criticism had grown so extensive a separation of the wheat from the chaff became necessary. Our criteria were simple: we decided to include only essays that made an original contribution to the field (eliminating otherwise fine general in~ troductions) and that were relatively free of factual errors, the bane of this criticism. Several essays qualified, but only thirteen survived the winnow~ ing process, seven unpublished, five published, and one specially adapted from a newly printed book. Biographical information on Gaddis is scarce and scattered, yet the in~ troduction preceding these essays supplements the available data with many unpublished. "facts contained largely in the author's letters to various cor~ respondents. Thus, the Introduction-which also addresses the reception and history of The Recognitions - dispels several rumors and sets the rec~ ord straight. The first seven essays deal with the earlier novel, the next three, the la~ ter, and the last three, both. In the opening essay, David Koenig, who had access to the Gaddis notes and manuscripts, investigates how The Recog nitions was conceived, revised, and edited. We learn about the original love story; the impact of the Faust legend, The Golden Bough, and the Recog nitions of Clement; the abortive epilogue/prologue; and the deleted Mu nich section. John Leverence's "Gaddis Anagnorisis" follows "The Writing of The Rec~ ognitions." After analyzing the novel's loose baroque style and postmodern design, Mr. Leverence demonstrates the relation of alchemy to its form and Preface Xl content and discusses the ouroboros adorning the Harcourt and Meridian title pages. The complex connection between art and religion constitutes the sub ject of "To Soar in Atonement: Art as Expiation in Gaddis' The Recogni tions," by Joseph S. Salemi, and "Flemish Art and Wyatt's Quest for Re demption in William Gaddis' The Recognitions," by Christopher Knight. Whereas Mr. Salemi believes that genuine art atones for falsity, Mr. Knight feels that salvation may be achieved only through love. Mr. Salemi makes some interesting comments on the novel's self-reflective and anti-modern aspects, while Mr. Knight's detailed exploration of Flemish painting is particularly rewarding. There ensues "Dryad in a Dead Oak Tree: The Incognito in The Recog nitions," an essay which considers Gaddis the literary heir of Melville and Hawthorne. According to Mr. Seelye, the author's fundamentally evil world is dominated by male homosexuals who reflect contemporary sterility. Ef feminate art critic and Devil, Basil Valentine, tempts saintly Wyatt during an action that inverts Christian rituals. John Seelye emphasizes the pursuit of the father, but Steven Moore's "Peer Gynt and The Recognitions" focuses on the exorcism of the mother. Gaddis uses the Ibsen playas an opportune analogue, since both works are preoccupied with attaining selfhood. However, Mr. Moore points out that Peer remains stunted through an unhealthy attachment to Aasa-Solveig, whereas Wyatt finally triumphs over his Stabat-Mater, Camilla-Esme. Miriam Fuchs, in '''il miglior fabbro': Gaddis' Debt to T. S. Eliot," also examines a literary influence. This debt includes shifting points of view, juxtaposition of past and present, spatialization of events, arid landscapes, mourning women, quester, imposters, fertility figures, chapels, bells, buri als, and resurrections. Wyatt's progress toward integration mirrors the harmony of the Four Quartets, as civilization's regression toward disinte gration echoes the cacophony of The Waste Land. With Stephen H. Matanle's "Love and Strife in William Gaddis' ] R," the collection shifts from the 1955 to the 1975 novel. Mr. Matanle argues that] R, like The Recognitions, enacts what the author has termed, "the separating of things today without love." Three interrelated topics are then presented: "The Problem of Chaos"; "The Rule of Strife"; and "The Plural ity of Discourse." Especially effective is the discussion centering on Em pedocles, whose name recurs in ] R and whose Love vs. Strife conflict parallels the tension Ms. Fuchs found between the two Eliot poems. Another version of this dichotomy inspired "Disclosing Time: William Gaddis' ] R," where Susan Strehle poses successive or public time against durational or private time. Victimized by the former, the characters own