The Recognitions | Techniques

The Recognitions Techniques

Speaking of one of his paintings, Wyatt says, "There isn't any single perspective, like the camera eye, the one we all look through now and call it realism, there . . . . I take five or six or ten." TheRecognitions was written within the same multifaceted aesthetic. It contains a virtual encyclopedia within its pages, including references to mythology, witchcraft, anthropology, alchemy, and art history; has several narrators; is written in several styles and in several languages; and spans three decades and three continents. The Recognitions is several novels in one: a how-to book on art forgery, a sweeping social satire, a pilgrim's progress, a bildungsroman, and a roman a clef. Add to all this Gaddis's cryptic stage directions and dialogue, searing language and black humor, and it is not difficult to understand why a reader might emerge baffled, if not overwhelmed, and certainly intimidated.