#Green25 #FIRETHEBASTARDS #JackGreen #TheRecognitions #WilliamGaddis #ReadingAnActOfSharedSolitude #paperpills🇵🇸❤️ #beedoubleokayess📚🐦 #ReemReel #AThingOfBeauty
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In 1957 anthony west listed the recognitions as 1 of 25 great books
from world literature ("the most interesting and remarkable novel
written by a young American in the last twenty-five years. It will one
day take a place in classic American literature #Green25 #FIRETHEBASTARDS

In the years after the 55 reviews there were some more mentions of
the recognitions, mostly favorable       w g rogers twice more (4/55:
new world writing "may sometime have reason to be proudest of
having printed a chapter from William Gaddis' extraordinary novel".
#Green25

the whole louisville
courier-journal notice was stolen from the blurb      favorite blurbphrase
was "pattern of forgery, emotional and spiritual as well as actual"
(plagiarized by burnette corrington klein & stevens)      FIRE them all
for theft
#Green25

the most favorable reviews was one of the worst      don stevens'
insincere puff in the worcester telegram—a typical jargonized "rave"
review & not a response to the recognitions at all      
#Green25 #FIRETHEBASTARDS

17 critics, 29 quotes—pitiful! & what the list lacks in quantity it
doesnt make up in quality a mediocre crew
#Green25 #FIRETHEBASTARDS

the recognitions has no happy ending      hollywood overdoses have
weakened the demand for lastpage euphoria, even berger demands
only "a clue to the way out"
#Green25 #FIRETHEBASTARDS

"Surely it is disturbing to find a
book which is potentially so very fine but whose method of attitude is
calculated deliberately to exclude us" (hartman)

youre in it, buddy!

#Green25 #FIRETHEBASTARDS

& heres to 1 reviewer feeling no pain:
The constant use of literary allusions and book
titles in the narra-
tive fascinated this librarian. (herbert cahoon,
curator of autograph
mss & later printed books, morgan library)
#Green25 #FIRETHEBASTARDS

not one of the critics saw it    that gaddis book isnt a novel plus      for
no good reason       lectures on flemish painting etc, but a novel that
uses nonfiction for fictional purposes       critics think nonfictions for its
own sake, result:      the erudition cliche
#Green25

the "undisciplined" cliche

The book has the formless disjointed quality of a nightmare. (parke)
#Green25 #FIRETHEBASTARDS

the reader must be ambitious too, he'll have to work too hard:

lazy reader dont buy! but critics underrate readers who arent
that lazy after all who read books voluntarily, not like critics doing
work they hate for money
#Green25 #FIRETHEBASTARDS

revanche!      critics       "ambitiously"      love to identify with the
average reader, who like them cant create anything of value      & as
the history of bestsellers shows prefers not to read anything of value
#Green25 #FIRETHEBASTARDS

To claim they give you 956 pages of novel in return for your money
is like offering you a giant headache in return for your aspirin.
(powell)
the physical labor of turning 900 pages when 300 would have been
sufficient. (klein)
#Green25 #FIRETHEBASTARDS

hear them whine, bellow, and scream:
inordinate length (berger)
forbidding length (o'hearn)
almost interminable (morse)
interminable conversations (wagenknecht)
self-indulgent verbosity, deadly unfunny repetitiveness & endless
portentous gasping conversations (swados)
#Green25

names most often dropping: hartman managed 17, fremantle 8

playing the comparison game: gaddis inferior to other writers per 15
critics, equal—7, superior—1 (to sironia, texas) purpose of the
game: to keep the new writers out
#Green25 #FIRETHEBASTARDS

its chic to play the influence game but a great novels always at heart
uninfluenced, for it has work to do of its own the recognitions is
very much its own book.
#Green25 #FIRETHEBASTARDS

namedropping to give his writeup a "literary tone"—the easy way it fills a little
space & looks like it says something groups of names are even
more obviously gratuitous:

reminiscent sometimes of Sterne, sometimes of
Joyce, and sometimes of Norman Douglas.
#Green25

since the plot is complete fantasy, somewhat reminiscent of Rex
Warner's "Wild Goose Chase."
the plot doesnt resemble the wild goose chase in the least! is there
no limit to what these hacks will drag in to fill space?
#Green25 #FIRETHEBASTARDS

does geismar really believe that failures by characters in a novel are
failures of a novel?

who never really engage our sympathy or interest; who never represent anything but themselves.
#Green25 #FIRETHEBASTARDS

he tops it off with the strawman trick in his last para having projected his own views wrongly onto gaddis,
he blames gaddis for not living up to them:
#Green25 #FIRETHEBASTARDS

FIRE maxwell geismar for his stupid saturday review review built on
the "strawman" trick like fremantle's & livingston's its procrustean.
he starts with a corny reprise of "it cant be that good":
the bed—tough!
#Green25 #FIRETHEBASTARDS

prescotts whole review of an ordinary novel encourages the potential
reader as hicks discouraged him from reading a great one      thats the
ny times for you, past present & future
#Green25 #FIRETHEBASTARDS

The reader thinks, as Mr. Gaddis obviously thought, of Joyce's
"Ulysses."

guess again—gaddis read 40p of ulysses in college, period!    

the innuendo of plagiarism in "as Mr.
Gaddis obviously thought" is dishonest
#Green25

poetry should be translated to ny timesstyle so you get the
literal meaning without difficulty       critics prefer the same old unchallenging mush       they get no pleasure from reading so they prefer
anesthesia to the choice between pleasure & pain
#Green25 #FIRETHEBASTARDS

I say to the avantgarde, dont abdicate!part of our work has always
been pushing neglected masterpieces & if we retire to contemplate
our clippings we cant be replaced      by who, the academics, the
reviewers?    
#Green25 #FIRETHEBASTARDS

where are the enthusiasts now?      where are the people who should have been writing, pushing the recognitions
long ago?      even if im wrong about its greatness, where are they
pushing some other neglected work?
#Green25 #FIRETHEBASTARDS

soon reviews will be no help at all
#Green25 #FIRETHEBASTARDS

You used to be able to find the best books by reading thereviews the most hated books were the best now its harder.
but often you cant tell at all, because the critic has read so carelessly
that he doesnt know even unconsciously what kind of book it is.
#Green25 #FIRETHEBASTARDS

He takes a smack at everything and everybody in the manner of
Eliot and Joyce and Cummings, but they do it much better and
much, much shorter. (bass)
#Green25 #FIRETHEBASTARDS