Myth, Magic, and Metaphor

13 Pages·2004·7.8 MB·English

14 WILLIAM GADDIS
critiques of "what America is all about," as a character in) R would
say. Gaddis, like Hawthorne and Melville before him, is the leading
modern exemplar in American literature of what LeslieFiedler would
Chapter Two
calla"tragic Humanist," awriter "whose duty istosay'Nay!', to deny
the easyaffirmations bywhich most men live, and to exposethe black-
TheRecognitionMs:yth, Magic,
nessoflifemost men try deliberately to ignore. For tragic Humanists,
it isthe function ofart not toconsoleorsustain, much lesstoentertain,
and Metaphor
but to disturbby telling a truth which is always unwelcome."34The.
sentiment isevenmore forcibly expressedbyGaddis's most recent pro-
tagonist/spokesman, the learned Judge Crease, who insists "the artist
The length of three or four average novels, The Recognitionsis many
comes among us not as the bearer of ideesrefusembracing art as deco-
novels in one: a social satire, a pilgrim's progress, an anatomy of for-
ration or of the comfort of churchly beliefs enshrined in greeting-card
sentiments but rather in the aesthetic equivalent ofone who comes on gery, both abildungsroman and kunsderroman-not to mention a ro-
earth 'not to send peace, but asword.'''35 man aclef-a philosophicalromance,evenamysterystory.Similarly,
it is narrated from not one but several points ofview and in as many
styles. Wyatt could be speaking forGaddis when he boastsofhis latest "<
forgery, "There isn't any single perspective, like the camera eye, the
C:
one weall look through now and call it realism, there. . . I take five
"'I
or six or ten. . . the Flemish painter took twenty perspectives if he
wished, and even in a small painting you can't include it all in your
single vision, your one miserable pair of eyes" (251). The first-time
readerofTheRecognitionsfacesasimilar challenge. Ranging acrossthree
continents and three decades, evoking four thousand years of cultural
history, speaking half a dozen languages, and drawing upon fields of
referenceasdiverseasalchemy, witchcraft, art history, mummification,
medical history, hagiography, mythology, anthropology, astronomy,
and metaphysics, TheRecognitionsthreatens to overwhelm the hapless
reader, who may be tempted to cry out with Wyatt, "But the disci-
pline, the detail, it's just. . .sometimes the accumulation istoomuch
to bear" (114).
"How ambitious youare!"hiswifeEsther responds, and it wasGad-
dis's ambition in this first novel to do no lessthan to excavatethe very
foundations of Western civilization, to expose to the harsh light of
satire the origins ofits religions, socialstructures, epistemologies, sex-
ual ideologies, and its art forms. To do so, he created a protagonist
whosedifficulty assimilating his cultural/religious heritage and achiev-
ing a state of psychic wholeness would parallel the rocky road civili-
zation itself has traveled tOward that illusory goal. Ontogeny
recapitulates phylogeny, and in Wyatt Gwyon's indecisions and diffi-
culties we have a microcosm of the macrocosmic conflicts throughout
15
16
WILLIAM GADDIS The Recognitions: Myth, Magic, and Metaphor 17
history between patriarchy and matriarchy, God and Mammon, reli- regarding the artist's place in the modern world-the oneaspect ofThe
gion and the occult, the demands of the community and the impera- Recognitionsthat hasattracted the most critical attention-at its widest
tives ofthe self.
perimeters the novel is an encyclopedic survey of the varieties of reli-
"The most sensitive individual, although not the most normal," Ste- gious experience. In one sense, all of the novel's major characters can
phen Spender writes of Lowry'sConsul, "may provide the most repre- be grouped into those "having, or about to have, or at the very least
sentative expressionofabreakdown which affectsother people onlevels valiantly fighting off, a religious experience" (900), with the majority
ofwhich they maybescarcelyconscious.,,'The breakdown inquestion, falling into the third category. Religious and mythic parallels and par-
in The Recognitionsas in Underthe Volcano,is that of values, morals, odies, from the sublime to the blasphemous, abound in the novel. Not
standards. Gaddis's novel is primarily an account of personal integra- only does TheRecognitionsmake extensive use of the primary colors of
tion amid this collective disintegration, ofan individual finding him- mythology's palette-sun and moon imagery, the infernal descent,
selfin a society rapidly losing itself. In stark contrast to the dozens of death and rebirth motifs-but Wyatt's symbolic voyagefrom spiritual
other characters in TheRecognitionswhoareindifferent to (when not the darkness to enlightenment follows (by way ofquotation and allusion)
cause of) any breakdown in values, Wyatt is tortured bypersonal and in the wakes of such metaphysical wanderers as Odysseus, the Flying
ethical concerns that strike others as chimerical. "The boundaries be- Dutchman, Faust, and Peer Gynt. Some indication of the scope of
tween good and evil must be defined again," Esther taunts him, "they Gaddis's preoccupation with religion in this novelisgiven bythe range
must be reestablished, that's what aman must do today, isn't it?" BUt of sources he used in composition: from the third-century theological
Wyatt insists, "this moral action, it isn't just talk and. . . words, romance attribUted to Saint Clement from which TheRecognitionstakes "<
morality isn't just theory and ideas, that the only way to reality isthis its name, to the ApocryphalNew Testament,Foxe'sBookofMartyrs, leth- C:
moral sense" (590-91). ""1
aby'sArchitecture,MysticismandMyth, Frazer'sGoldenBough,Phythian-
Wyatt's pursuit of"reality" isconducted primarily onametaphysical Adams's Mithraism, Lang's Magicand Religion,Kramer and Sprenger's
plane. All religions and occult traditions have at their basea belief in Malleus Maleficarum, Conybeare's Magic, Myth, and Morals, Marsh's
another, higher reality that transcends sensory reality, and Wyatt- Medicevaland ModernSaints and Miracles,the Pilgrim Hymnal, Sum-
like every true mystic, alchemist, and magician before him-searches mers's PhysicalPhenomenaofMysticism,Graves's White Goddess,and Ed-
for a window on that transcendent state where suddenly "everything gar Saltus's survey of atheism, TheAnatomy ofNegation. In addition,
[is] freed into one recognition, really freed into the reality that we there are more than a hundred citations from the Bible as well as ref-
never see" (92). Traditionally, this other reality (which "you can't see erences to almost everymajor religious and occult tradition, from the
freely very often, hardly ever, maybe seven times in a life") has been EgyptianBookoftheDeadandDruidicpracticesto the writingsofthe
literalized into such forms as asupercelestial heaven or asubterranean early Church fathers, the Koran, legends of Krishna and the Buddha,
hell. But Wyatt is asconvinced asMelville's Ahab that all visible ob- Gnostic speculations, Saint Ignatius's Spiritual Exercises,hermetic <11-
jectsarebut aspasteboard masks, and the noveldramatizes hisprogress cherny, acalendar's worth ofsaints' lives, witchcraft manuals, Mithraic
through institutionalized religion and the jejune theatricality of the worship, Fortean hypotheses, magic numbers, Zuiii prayer sticks, ex-
occult, past the realms conquered and codified by overconfident sci- communication rites (both Catholic and Jewish), even a Satanic
.
entists, to the timeless state beyond the reach of those who would make invocation.3
of God a science, or of science a god. This ineffable state resists de- All this ledsomereviewerstocomplain that the novelwas"shrouded
scription and accounts to someextent forthe vaguenessofWyatt's final in mysticism" and filled with "pagan mumbo-jumbo. "4But Gaddis is
appearancesand cryptic utterances; asKafkatold MaxBrod, "Youcan't not merely indulging in arcane name-dropping; like art, religion is
write salvation, only live it."2 subject to decayand counterfeit, and Wyatt's obsessionwith authentic
This needs to be stated at the outset in order to make sense of the art isinextricably bound up with hisobsessionwith authentic religious
novel's complex matrix of allusions, references, iconography, and iter- experience. In both realms, the genuine must be distinguished from
ative imagery. For even though the novel addresses timely questions the fake. Institutional religion receives little serious consideration in
19
18 WILLIAM GADDIS The Recognitions: Myth, Magic, and Metaphor
and allows an unsettling encounter with acorrupt art critic to discour-
the novel, dismissed out of hand as an amateurish forgery or a poorly
printed reproduction. Esmetells Otto that Wyatt oncesaid "that saints age him from continuing his art. Drifting into a sterile marriage and
were counterfeits of Christ, and that Christ was a counterfeit ofGod" a dull draftsman's job, Wyatt lets his artistic talents go to waste until
Recktall Brown, discovering him in the depths ofdespair, tempts him
(483), and most conventional formsofreligion areridiculed mercilessly
in the novel. (Here, of course, Gaddis parts ways with Eliot, whose awayto forgeFlemish paintings that his associate, BasilValentine, will
authenticate in the art journals-with all three enjoying the profits.
preoccupation with religion he otherwise shares.) Instead Wyatt finds
in myth, magic, and mysticism a more authentic religious tradition, Increasingly prey to guilt and thoughts ofdamnation, however, Wyatt
later decides to forsake forgery and resume his studies for the minis-
"religious that is in the sense of devotion, adoration, celebration of
deity, beforereligion became confused with systems ofethics and mo- try-a desperate act that failswhen he returns home to find his father
rality, to become a sore affliction upon the very things it had once deranged. He extricates himself from his counterfeiting ring only after
exalted" (311)-an attitude closerto the Pound ofthe later Cantosthan witnessing Brown's death and causing Valentine's (or so he thinks),
to Eliot. after which he flees to Spain, where his mother is buried. Drifting
But the novel does not merely advocate a retreat from rational reli- through Spain and North Africa, he winds up at amonastery in Estre-
madura where he is finally able to free himself from the feelings of
gion to irrational mysticism, or dropping the rosary to pick up a
Buddhist prayer wheel. TheRecognitionsdoeshave its supernatural mo- guilt, loneliness, and depression that had been accumulating since
childhood. Whether heresumes hisart or simply returns to hisSpanish
ments, but its immense network of references to myth, religion, and
lover to raise their child are possibilities suggested but not confirmed
the occult is deployed chiefly for psychological purposes. Carl Jung
found in such spiritual traditions the validation needed forhis theories as Wyatt, now called Stephen (as his mother first intended), resumes
of the process of individuation, and Gaddis's documented reliance on his journey, with the monastery bells ringing him on.
Jung's IntegrationofthePersonality-a psychological commentary on al- On the mythic plane, however,Wyatt's careeradapts severalmodels:
chemical symbolism-allows the readerto interpret Wyatt's "wild con- he isan adept ofhermetic alchemy, a Faust figure, amodern saint, the
flict" (247) in terms ofthe quest forpsychic wholenessthat Jung insists priest in the ancient cult-ritual ofthe White Goddess and her Son, the
is at the heart of all mystical traditions. With Jung supplying the Wandering Jew/Flying Dutchman archetype, a near-victim in the sac-
Ariadne's thread, readers can make their way through Gaddis's laby- rifical killing of the royalson, a Christ figure, Dante and Orpheus in
the underworld, even the New Year Robin out to kill his father the
rinth ofmagic and myth with results that are assurprising asthey are
enlightening, perhaps even allowing TheRecognitionsitself to function Wren. In this respect, Gaddis doesindeed resembleJoyce: by"manip-
as a heuristic, symbolic text in the tradition ofalchemical tracts, and ulating a continuous parallel between contemporaneity and antiquity,"
allowing Gaddis to succeed Melville asan "heir to the protestant tra- Eliot feltJoyce had found "awayofcontrolling, ofordering, ofgiving
dition of New England, parodying with astonishing provincial vigour a shape and a significance to the immense panorama of fUtility and
the old emblematic discourses of a Cotton Mather or Jonathan anarchy which is contemporary history."6Gaddis pursues the same
Edwards."5 mythical method with equally intriguing results.
Gaddis accomplishes this bynarrating Wyatt's careerontwo parallel
Masks and Mirrors
planes, the realistic and the mythic. The realistic concerns "a lonely
little boy, getting upset oversilly people" (118). Losing his mother at
"Even Camilla had enjoyed masquerades," The Recognitionsbegins,
an early age, Wyatt isreared byadour Calvinist aunt whodiscourages
"of the safesort where the mask may be dropped at that critical mo-
his talent for drawing in favor of a career in the ministry. Wyatt du-
ment it presumes itself as reality." But Gaddis is chiefly concerned
tifully pursues the latter while secretlypracticing the former, and after
ayearat divinity school sneaks offto Europe to study painting. Indif- with masquerades ofthe dangerous sort, where the mask haspresumed
itself as reality for so long that "reality," as Nabokov remarked, re-
ferent to the prevailing fashions in the art world ofthe 1930s, Wyatt
works in the tradition of the Flemish painters of the late Middle Ages quires apologetic quotes. "It's like a masquerade isn't it," Herschel
,...
20 WILLIAM GADDIS 21
The Recognitions:Myth, Magic, and Metaphor
exclaims during the novel's first party scene; "I feel so naked, don't associateshimself (545). "The child LlewLlaw'sexact aim waspraised
you? among all these frightfully masked people. Remember? de Mau-
by his mother Arianrhod becauseasthe New YearRobin, alias Belin,
passant, Guy de Maupassant ofcourse, writing to that Russian girl, 'I he transfixed his father the Wren, alias Bran to whom the wren was
mask myself among masked people'" (177). Herschel, however, isone sacred, 'between the sinew and the bone' of his leg" in the manner of
of the few in the novel who can still recognize a mask when he sees the Roman ritual ofcrucifixion.9
one; the rest have grown so used to theirs that only an accidental Wyatt is associated with the robin both via LlewLlawand by way
glimpse in the mirror can recall them to themselves. of his first work of art, the crude drawing of a robin soseverely criti-
Masks and mirrors dominate the novel's iconography and carry the cized by his Aunt May. The young Wyatt had killed a wren not on ~>..~,
psychological values Jung assigned to them in The Integrationof the Saint Stephen's Day-though his use of a stOnerecalls the stOning of h~
Personality:"The man who looks into the mirror of the waters does, the protO-martyr, after whom Wyatt was intended to be named-but,
indeed, see his own face first of all. Whoever goes to himself risks a significantly, on his mother's birthday (32). Tooguilty at the time to
confrontation with himself. The mirror does not flatter, it faithfully confess the "murder," he blurts it oUt during his illness a few years
shows whatever looks into it; namely, the face we never show to the later, to which his befuddled fathe~responds with anthropological data
worldbecausewecoverit with thepersona,themaskoftheactor.But from Frazer's GoldenBough(47), indicating he is clearly aware of the
the mirror liesbehind the mask andshowsthe true face."7Wyatt, "that symbolic implications ofhis son's patricidal act. When Wyatt returns
most dubious mirror-gazer ofour acquaintance," isshown throughout to his father in II.3 a few days before Christmas, the sight of a wren
the novel troubled by "the intimacies ofcatoptric communion" (673), reminds him of his earlier transgression:
q.
avoiding the confrontation with himself Jung warns of. For others
,~
merely a confirmation ofwhat they want to see, the mirror for Wyatt
-I'll goout like the earlyChristian missionaries did at Christmas, cohunt
shows that authentic self he hasn't the strength to become, partially
down the wren and kill him, yes, when the wren wasking, doyou remember,
becauseofunresolved familial conflicts. "They aremirrors with terrible
you cold me . . . When the wren was king, he repeated, getting his breath
memories," Esme saysof the ones in Wyatt's studio, "and they know,
again, -at Christmas.
they know, and they tell him these terrible things and then they trap The wren had flown, as he turned from the window and approached with
him" (221). burning green eyes fixed on Gwyon. -King, yes, he repeated -when the
The most terrible things they tell him are that he has dishonored king wasslain and eaten, there's sacrament. There's sacrament. (430)
his mother and wants to kill his father. Wyatt ispainfully awareofthe
first charge, and admits as much; speaking of Camilla's face in his
Wyatt's eyeshad burned green at his first confessionofkilling the wren
forged Stabat Mater, Wyatt agrees with Valentine's interpretation: asachild (47), and the repetition ofthis sign ofanger during hisreturn
"Yes,the reproach!That's it, youunderstand?" (548). But the Oedipal
(his second coming, as the servant Janet interprets it) followsWyatt's
conflict emerges only with closeattention to the novel'savian symbol-
ominous quotation ofMatthew 10:21: "'and the children shall rise up
ism, submerged in the text just asthe conflict issubmerged in Wyatt's
against their parents, and cause them to be put to death'" (430). The
unconscious. Gaddis learned from Robert Graves that "in British folk-
anger directed at his father apparently springs from an unarticulated
lore, the Robin Red Breast as the Spirit ofthe New Yearsets out with
suspicion on Wyatt's patt that his father was somehow responsible for
a birch-rod to kill his predecessor the Gold Crest Wren, the Spirit of
his mother's death. All the young boy knew was that his father left
the Old Year,whom he finds hiding in an ivybush. [ . . . }The robin with his mother but returned alone, and although the older Wyatt has
issaid to 'murder its father,' which accounrs for its red breast."8Else-
learned the story of "the Spanish affair" (as his father calls it), the
where, Graves idenrifies the Welsh Arianrhod (one ofhis White God-
suspicion joins the other terrible things in the micror.
desses)as"the mother ofthe usual Divine Fish-Child Dylan who, after
Wyatt is also acting in self-defense. Rev. Gwyon broods over the
killing the usual Wren (asthe New YearRobin does on St. Stephen's
chapter "The Sacrificeofthe King's Son"in Frazer'sGoldenBough(23),
Day) becomes Llew Llaw Gyffes," a Welsh hero with whom Wyatt
and Aunt May relentlessly indoctrinates Wyatt with a religion that
22 WILLIAM GADDIS The Recognitions: Myth, Magic, and Metaphor 23
centers on a father's deliberate sacrifice ofhis only begotten son. (The "Suchpictures seemtohave, forthe patient, apsychological magic,"
father's threat is symbolized by the straight-edged razor Wyatt takes Jung writes of a patient who likewise used painting as a means of
from his father when he leaves for Europe; Esther recognizes it as a attaining individuation. "Becausepictorial expression fixescertain un-
castrating symbol [90}, and Anselm will later steal it for that exact conscious contents and draws others around it, he can work magic by
purpose.) Wyatt's unconscious fears of death and/or castration at his this means, but only upon himself."IIWyatt's conscious, aesthetic con-
father's hands surface for the last time when the Reverend Gwyon flicts with art have been treated elsewhere in Gaddis criticism,12 but
threatens to initiate him into the priesthood of Mithras, to whom the to comprehend his unconscious conflicts further, and the importance
deranged minister is now devoted: "-Yes, at my hands, Gwyon said of his mother's appearances in her son's paintings, another pattern of
looking at him steadily, -you must die at the hands of the Pater mythic imagery must be introduced.
Patratus, like all initiates" (432). Wyatt flees, but not without incur-
ring additional guilt. Telling Valentine afterward of his trip home,
Wyatt says, "I fellin the snow, killing wrens" (545); and byabandon- A Fluctuating BetweenSunand Moon
ing his deranged father Wyatt can be held indirectly responsible for
the Reverend Gwyon's confinement and eventual crucifixion in II.9, In choosing to open the novelwith Camilla's funeral, Gaddis draws
just asLlewLlawthe robin symbolically crucified his father the wren. attention to the character who makes the fewest appearances in the
The recurring referencesto the robin/wren conflict, to the killing of novel but nevertheless exerts the strongest influence on Wyatt: his
the king CMy father was a king," Wyatt tells Ludy at the end of the mother. In fact, her onlyappearance in the temporal progression ofthe
novel [892}), to the various myths of "the god killed, eaten, and res- novel(thus excluding the flashbacksonpages 14and 52) isasawraith,
urrected" (536), to Wyatt's useofhis father's facein his earlyMemling appearing before three-year-old Wyatt at the moment of her death
imitation of TheFlayingoftheUnjustJudge, and to the significant jux- (20). The ability to see the ghost ofone's mother, saysAniela Jaffe in
taposition ofsymbolically killing hisfather on his mother's birthday- her Jungian study Apparitionsand Precognition,"indicate[s} an intensi-
all point to aclassic caseof the Oedipus complex. By finally "eating" fied unconscious, or a relatively easyand rapid lowering ofthe thresh-
his father in III.5-his father's asheshave been mistakenly baked into old of consciousness," and "points to a close relation with the
the monastery's bread--the sacrificalact iscomplete, and by allowing unconscious,that is,arootednessintheinstinctuallife," for"wemust
his father's painted face to drop on the ground unheeded (896), the not forget that the 'mother' is a long established symbol for the un-
conflict isresolved, the terrible voicesfrom the mirror silenced at last. conscious."13Wyatt canseeher, but Camilla vanishes upon Aunt May's
Frazer follows his account of mirror superstitions (on which Gaddis entrance (just as the robin flees before her [40}), that is, before that
drew) with similar superstitions surrounding portraits, which "are which denies the unconscious, the instinctual, the emotional, and of
often believed to contain the soul of the person portrayed. "10Most of course the irrational, thereby setting into motion a dichotomy active
the novel's major characters have their likenesses, if not their souls, throughout the novel: the opposition between the unconscious and
captured on canvas. The Reverend Gwyon, as mentioned earlier, is conscious, mother and father, instinct and intellect, emotion and
flayed as the unjust judge in Wyatt's apprentice painting; Esther re- rationality, night and day, paganism and Christianity, and so on.
sembles "the portrait of a woman with large bones in her face but an Warped by Aunt May's influence and only confused by Rev. Gwyon's,
unprominent nose" that her husband restores (88); Recktall Brown's Wyatt will thereafter vacillate between two extremes represented by
ludicrous portrait issubjected to repeated ridicule; Anselm and Stanley father and mother, like Stevens's Crispin voyaging "between two ele-
resemble Kollwitz's print of two prisoners listening to music (524); ments, / A fluctuating between sun and moon,"14until he learns that
Esme not only "looks like she thinks she is a painting. Like an oil one extreme is not to be privileged over the other, but that the best
you're not supposed toget too closeto" (147) but models asthe Virgin qualities ofeach are to be integrated within.
Mary in Wyatt's forgeries, with Wyatt taking the role of Christ cru- This skeletal psychological program obviously needs fleshing out.
cified, as the Son mourned over by the Mother. The necessity of integrating the conscious and unconscious is not a
-'II
24 WILLIAM GADDIS 25
TheRecognitions:Myth, Magic, andMetaphor
modern discovery but is rather of ancient provenance with a rich and predecessor and rival of early Christianity, in which the godhead was
exotic history. It isat the heart ofsuch unusual disciplines asalchemy, represented by SolInvictus, the Invincible Sun. Asearly aspage 8 the
witchcraft, Gnosticism, "true" poetry (as Robert Graves defines it in reader is informed, with the ironic foreshadowing so common with
The White Goddess),and other assorted heresies, all of which can be Gaddis, that at his seminary Gwyon "started the course of mithrida-
found in the crowded first chapter of Gaddis's novel. Before the exis- tism which was to servehim so well in his later years." We also learn
tence ofthe unconscious wasposited bymodern psychologists, its func- that beforehe returned to New England after Camilla's funeral he vis-
tion was expressed in other terms by those who realized there is more ited the Mithraic temple beneath the basilica at Saint Clement's in
to perception than what ordinary daylight consciousnessallows. Most Rome (which Gaddis himself finally visited in 1984). Gwyon had ~"\
I"",.~
Platonic and oriental philosophies, all occult traditions, and the mys- squared his shoulders upon "coming forth from the subterranean Mith- ~,4..
t1',
tical branches of institutional religions speak of this alternative con- raeum" (61), convinced Christianity was a forgery of Mithraism, and
sciousness, and countless are the ways adepts have sought to tap its dedicated himself thereafter not to the Son, but to the Sun. (The pun r.~
'"::.
...t,
unique powers. The most universal symbols for these two modes of wasnot beneath early Christian writers, and Gaddis often plays on the "'.
.".~'~
consciousnesshavebeen the sun and the moon; associatedwith the sun ambiguity.) r'1
are the so-called masculine traits ofrationality, intellectualism, order, But beforedoing sohe, too, receivesasupernatural visit from Cam- :~~
(1':
separation, logic, ete.; the opposing "feminine" traits belong to the illa, where she is symbolically equated with the moon for the first ..,
.".
moon: intuition, emotions, tenderness, harmony, and so forth. It has time. At the Real Monasterio de Nuestra Senorade la Otra Vezsome
..~
become common, therefore, to speak of the opposition of solar con- twOmonths after his wife'sdeath, he falls ill and develops a delirium:
q
sciousnessto lunar consciousness:most intellectual activities and insti-
.,~
tutional religions employ solar consciousness, whereas most mystical
and occult traditions, as well as artistic creation, pay homage to the Sohe layalone one evening, perspiring in spite of the cold, almost asleep to
moon. Recent discussions of this dichotomy have focused on the op- be wakened suddenly by the hand ofhis wife, on his shoulder asshe used to
wake him. He struggled up from the alcoved bed, across the room to the
erations of the two hemispheres of the brain, the left half embodying
window where a cold light silently echoed passage. There was the moon,
the traditional masculine traits and the right the feminine; though this
reaching astill arm behind him, to the bedwhere he had lain. He stood there
line of investigation may eventually give greater psychological preci-
unsteady in the cold, mumbling syllables which almost resolved into her
sion to the question, it is still useful to speak of solar and lunar con-
name, as though he could recall, and summon back, a time before death
sciousness because of its rich symbolic heritage, and all the more so
entered the world, beforeaccident, beforemagic, and beforemagic despaired,
because the most consistent and obvious pattern of imagery in The
to become religion. (11-12)
Recognitionsis the symbolic equation of Rev. Gwyon with the sun and
Camilla with the moon. Making the equation early in the first chapter,
Gaddis proceeds to draw upon the immense religious and mythological Rev. Gwyon too, then, isoffered"passage" to lunar consciousness, but
connotations of the sun and moon, effectively enlarging Wyatt's per- squanders his opportunity. Upon recovering, he resolvesto forsakethe
sonal struggle for psychic wholeness to universal proportions by em- bleak Christianity of his putitanical community to search for "persis-
ploying archetypal images that have influenced civilization, largely by tent pattern, and significant form" (15), which he hopes to find in the
way of religion, from the beginning of history. The ubiquity of solar study ofcomparative religion. It isenough, heseemsto think, tobreak.
and lunar imagery in the novel not only converts even atmospheric from the Calvinist tradition of Aunt May and her Use-Me Ladiesand
conditions into telling indications of Wyatt's psychological state, but to regale his congregation with pagan parallels to their Christianity.
also illuminates and justifies other patterns ofimagery and sundry ref- But asregards Camilla, he canonly hope there will be time (afrequent
erences that otherwise might seemsuperfluous. Prufrockian refrain in the text), and postpones the recoveryofwhat he
The symbolic alignment of the sun with Rev. Gwyon is introduced has lost in her until its recoveryisfinally beyond reach.
and maintained chiefly by his involvement with Mithraism, a Persian What both he and his son losein Camilla isthe key to the feminine
26 WILLIAM GADDIS 27
The Recognitions: Myth, Magic, and Metaphor
component ofthe malepsyche, whatJung callsthe anima. Rev.Gwyon event in the first chapter: Wyatt's cute by means of a ritual for the
married late in lifeand only after his own father died (14), suggesting
expulsion of evil in an animal scapegoat. Miriam Fuchs has suggested
his own upbringing wasasstringent as Wyatt's is under Aunt May- that Rev.Gwyon's sacrificeofhis Barbary apeduring this ritual masks
a paternal relative, be it noted. That Camilla was antithetical to the a sacrifice of Camilla herself, insofar as "this monkey had replaced
repressed life of that patriarchal environment isseen in the two flash- Camilla" (32), as Aunt May suspected.16 The obvious parallels to
backs in which sheappears. In both instances sheisportrayed asvital, Christ's passion suggest Gwyon sacrifices his wife that his son might
impulsive, daring, but most of all nourishing: when Camilla noticed live, asthe Christian god sacrificedhis that Christians might find eter-
~..
her father had mounted the wallpaper upside down, "she threw her nallife. 17Whether Camilla's spirit transmigrates first into Heraclesthe ""'It
arms overhis crooked shoulders and thanked him, and never told him" ft~
ape and later into Esme, as Fuchs argues, or more simply represents
(52). Aunt Mayor Esther would have pointed out the error immedi- Wyatt's anima, it is clear that the sacrificial act isRev. Gwyon's final
r.:
ately. After Camilla's death, however, Rev. Gwyon seemspowerless to break with Camilla. To sacrifice is to give up something dear, and he ~_.~,~
~~
recoup his losses; he does not consider remarrying-perhaps in obedi- sacrificeshis wife that their son might live. He had turned awayfrom ~.
'~
enceto the Mithraic injunction against marrying more than once-and Camilla's photograph at the beginning of the ritual, and afterward ~~
~=
instead buries himself in his studies, apparently feeling things can be
neverspeaks ofher death (61). LikeRoderick Usher burying his anima ~,
-,
set aright ifonly he canexposeChristianity's imposture to his congre- in the vault of his unconscious, Rev. Gwyon thereby draws ruin on -,
gation. (Similarly, Wyatt will later assume hecanredeem his misdeeds himself and his house.
by exposing his forgeries at Brown's party; in both cases, the unen- What he loses in Camilla he hopes Wyatt may find. Shortly after q
lightened prefer to remain so-a tendency McCandless rails against in his recovery, and now lodged in Camilla's sewing room-where "she .,~
Carpenter'sGothic.) had come at the moment of death" the narrator reminds us (52}-
The reverend's studies at this time center on the discovery and ex-
Wyatt undergoes an experience much like his father's in Spain. That
posure ofantecedents and parallels to Christianity. But he remains im- which wasoffered his father and refused is now offered, indeed forced
pervious to the spiritual nourishment others have found in these same
upon Wyatt. Significantly, Wyatt begins twOpaintings at this time,
pre-Christian religious traditions. His preoccupation with the "acci- each capable of leading him either to salvation or damnation, to Bal-
dents" of religion at the expense of its "substance" (to use, as Gaddis lima way or Oorooma way (268): a portrait ofhis mother, and a copy
does, the terminology of the Mass)isthe samefault, incidentally, that of Bosch'sSevenDeadlySins.The first is an attempt to redeemhis
Wittgenstein found with Frazer, on whom Gwyon relies for much of mother's memory and her rich symbolic heritage, the second a grim
his material. "What narrownessofspiritual lifewefind in Frazer!" the emblem of the Calvinist worldview Aunt Maytried to impose on him
Austrian philosopher complained. "And asaresult: how impossible for (and eventually the painting that will initiate him into the world of
him to understand a different way of life from the English one of his forgery). Both will haunt him throughout the novel.
time!"'5 An apposite example isRev.Gwyon's referencesto the ancient The painting of Camilla is based on the photograph on the living
ritual of "drawing down the moon": his interest in the rite isconfined room mantel (57), and it is important to remember that this photo-
to the lurid pagan light it shedson Matthew 16:19, reducing Jesus to graph was made before Camilla was married (19). ~uch is made of
the level ofaThessalonian witch. But this rite, still in useby modern Camilla's symbolic virginity in the first chapter: she is said to have
witches, is actually a meditative exercise to enlarge lunar conscious- "borne Gwyon a sonand gone, virginal, to earth: virginal in the sight
ness, to gain accessto to the deep wellsprings ofthe unconscious. It is of man, at any rate" (14}-because Gwyon arranges to have her trans-
not the sillysuperstition Lucian, Aristophanes, andother ancients took
ported in a white funeral carriage "ordained for infants and maidens."
it for, but rather, when properly executed, aspiritual exerciseakin to For Wyatt, Camilla remains "his virgin mother" (19) and thus is not
Loyola'smeditations or the alchemical opus. It may be only an anti- the impulsive New England girl who married his father, but rather the
quarian curiosity to his father, but Wyatt will eventually recognize the idealized figure Gravescallsthe White Goddess-at oncegirl, mother,
benefits ofdrawing down the moon. and hag, and patroness of the white magic ofart.
A declining sun and rising moon are appropriately present at a key At the end of the first chapter, then, Wyatt must choose between
28
WILLIAM GADDIS
The Recognitions: Myth, Magic, and Metaphor 29
the Christian myth of the Father and Son (embodied in Rev. Gwyon, The recurrence of the word "illumination" in some of these quota-
"forsomehow his father and the Lord were the sameperson" (20)) and
tions is significant, for the word implies intellecrual enlightenment
the ancient cult of the White Goddess and her son, the artist-priest. along with its root meaning, and reminds us that the paradox out of
Instead offinishing theportrait ofhis mother, however,hefirst finishes
darkness comesillumination isamajor premise ofmysticism, alchemy,
the Boschforgery, which he sellsto Recktall Brown to finance his trip and (Wyatt insists) artistic creation. However, Wyatt's defense has an
to Europe to study art. Thereafter, the incomplete portrait ofCamilla
air of rationalization about it, for he is prey to the very guilt and
(until its destruction by fire sends him to Spain for the "original"), secrecyof which he is accused. Aunt May made it quite clear to him
along with her Byzantine earrings that hisfather passeson to him, will
that artists are of the devil's party, and Wyatt never does completely ~..,
be a reminder of his incomplete relationship with his mother/anima, I"~".
free himself from her influence; two pages before his final disappear- to"..
which will in turn prevent him from having a complete relationship ance he is still quoting her on "the prospect of sin" (898, from 33). ~'1',
with any other woman ("Finish it," Esther will plead. "Then there
YoungWyatt's earliest artistic effortshad to becarried out insecrecy- c::":
might be room for me" (88)). There is no ruse Wyatt will disdain not only his drawings hidden in the midden heap but his first forgery ~I:I::.:,..
henceforth to avoid coming to terms with his mother and all she rep- aswell-and the counterfeit nature ofthe older Wyatt's work ofcourse II~:'
r1':
resents. Camilla will remain "in coldvigilance, waiting" like the moon necessitates both secrecyand guilt, despite his rationalizations. Aunt
;~~
(61) while her son squanders his inheritance and attempts to forge an May was Wyatt's first and most severe critic, and he has apparently .(.I.~...
existence in which she need not playa part, until he realizes only she neverforgotten her reaction to hisfirst drawing: "-Don't youloveour ..~
can supply the missing part of him without which he has no real ..~
eXIstence. LordJesus, after all? He said he did. -Then why do you try to take
His place?Our Lord isthe only true creator, and only sinful people try q
.,~
to emulate Him. [ . . . }That is why Satan is the Fallen Angel, for
The World ofNight
he rebelled when he tried to emulate Our LordJesus. And he won his
own domain, didn't he. Didn't he! And his own light is the light of
Writing from Munich, Wyatt tells his father he cannot continue
the fires of Hell! Is that what you want?" (34).18Here, illumination
studying for the ministry becauseofguilt, and like a guilty criminal comes by the light of the firesof hell and reinforces in young Wyatt's
Wyatt goes underground. Much is made throughout the novel of the
mind the relationship between artistic creation and sin.
fact that Wyatt paints at night, evoking the traditional associations of
Yetnight isalsothe domain ofthe female, ruled byGoethe's Mother
night: death, sin, guilt, fear, crime, sex, and-not so traditional-
Night, and associated in myth and psychologywith the unconscious-
artistic creation. In "the darkening room" ofWyatt's Paris studio, the an association the narrator spells out quite often (e.g., 12, 53, 69,
art critic Cremer reminds Wyatt of Degas's remark "that the artist
891, 955). Drawn to the night, Wyatt is also terrified of it, terrified
must approach his work in the sameframe ofmind in which the crim-
of confronting the dark contents of his unconscious. The victim of
inal commits his deed" (71). When Esther surprises Wyatt in his New nightmares, he often works at night to avoid dreaming, which entails
Yorkstudio yearslater, he stands "asthough stricken, in the midst of
entering "the world ofnight, [where}lost souls clutching guidebooks
somecriminal commission" (87) and shewonders if"the music ofHan-
followthe sun through subterranean passagegloom, corridors dark and
del [would} always recall sinful commission, the perpetration ofsome dangerous: sothe king built his tomb deep in earth, andalone wanders
crime in illumined darkness, recognized as criminal only by him who
the darkness ofdeath there through twenty-four thousand square feet
committed it" (98). Esther maligns "this crazyCalvinistic secrecy,sin" ofpassagesand halls, stairs, chambers and pits. SoEgypt" (388), and
(129), but when Valentine makesthe samecharge, Wyatt defendshim- so the unconscious.
self: "It isn't sosimple. [ . . . }It's the samesense. . . yes, this sense Confrontation with the dangerous unconscious usually takes the psy-
of a blue day in summer, do you understand? It's too much, such a
chomythological forms of an infernal descent or a vigil through the
day, it's too fully illuminated. It's defeating that way,it doesn't allow dark night of the soul. The number ofworks mentioned or alluded to
you to project this illumination yourself, this. . . selective illumina-
in TheRecognitionsthat feature one or the other ofthese related themes
tion that's necessaryto paint" (239-40).
is extensive: Goethe's Faust (opening with the Doctor's dark night of
30 WILLIAM GADDIS 31
The Recognitions: Myth, Magic, and Metaphor
the soul and later involving an infernal descent to the Mothers), This Pelagian Atmosphere
Dante's Inferno,the Dark Night oftheSoulofSaint John of the Cross,
the apocryphal Acts of Pilate (the second part of which features the In mythology, the movement of the moon acrossthe sky was most
harrowing of hell), Homer's Odyssey(book 11), Vergil's Aeneid(book often compared to a ship at sea, and illustrations of moon boats have
6), Fichte's VocationofMan (book 2), the Egyptian BookoftheDead, survived from many early cultures. The sky has impressed many asan
Rimbaud's A SeasoninHell, Gluck's OrfeoedEuridice,Ibsen's PeerGynt, immense celestial sea, and even in our technological day space explo-
Novalis's Hymn totheNight, the medieval passion play TheHarrowof ration employs traditional nautical terminology. A third large pattern
Hell, Marlowe's DoctorFaustus,and many others. In addition, numer- ~..~
ofmythic imagery in TheRecognitionsisgenerated from the metaphoric "~II~
"'~I.
ous referencesare made to myths dealing with the underworld, which identification ofthe seawith the sky, which in light ofthe relationship ~'"1
brings in another important association-the equation of night with between the lunar and nocturnal symbolism examined so far, canper-
hell. As long as Wyatt's psychological conflicts remain unresolved, he
haps be best understood asyet another facet ofwhat slowly emerges as
remains in hell, so to speak. Wyatt had been dwelling in an "infernal
a huge, interrelated system ofcosmological symbolism, again extend-
kingdom" (98) eversincehis arrival in New YorkCity, and numerous
ing to universal proportions the inner struggles ofan individual.
indirect, evencasualreferencesreinforcethis symbolic equation, build- The night sea journey common to so many myths represents yet
ing upon the poetic tradition linking the modern city with hell (Mil- another confrontation with the unconscious, and morespecificallywith
ton, Blake, Francis Thompson, Eliot, and later Allen Ginsberg). The the anima (since the sea isa universally recognized feminine symbol).
city is called "Dis" (696), a "chilly hell" (467), and the discovery of Gaddis builds on this archetypal symbolism, augmenting it with a
q
Wyatt's two Bouts forgeries takes place, appropriately enough, in wide and colorfularray ofbackground material, to establish one ofthe .,~
Hell's Kitchen (288). Wyatt moves from uptown to downtown when
major themes ofthe novel, that ofvoyaging. Avoyageimplies ahome-
he begins his forgeries, and is tumored to be living "underground" coming-"whoever started a journey, without the return in the front
(172). Even expletives contribute: "You look like hell," Brown tells of his mind?" (898)--and Wyatt's ultimate destination is the resolu-
Wyatt at one point, who responds, "That's becauseI'm . . . I've been tion of the interior conflicts preventing him from leading a fulfilling
working like hell" (238). Like Milton's Satan, he seems on the verge life. Gaddis wrote in his notes for TheRecognitions,"I think this book
oflamenting, "Which wayIflyisHell; myselfam Hell" (ParadiseLost, will have to be onvoyaging, all the myth &metaphor ofthat in mod-
4.75). Consequently, when he decides to return to New York from
ern times."19Aheavycargoof"myth &metaphor" accompanies Wyatt
New England and exposehisforgeries, he refersto it as"the harrowing on his voyage, largely through Gaddis's multiplying ofthe metaphoric
of hell" (442).
possibilities of the sea until it floods the novel with a "pelagian at-
Escaping from New York, Wyatt leaves both the underworld and
mosphere" (553).
the world of night for Spain, a purgatory where night gives way to a The novel begins literally at sea, and the allure ofvoyaging and the
successionofovercast, "sunless" daysasWyatt worksthrough hisguilt. conceit ofacelestialseaareintroduced asearlyaspage 6 in adiscussion
"The evenunchanging gray ofthe sky" (806) in these Spanishchapters ofthe constellation Argo and the Pleiades. (It isworth noting that the
represents a provisional union of bright day and dark night, a con- novelopens with the setting ofthe Pleiades and ends with their rising,
junction ofthe two extremes between which Wyatt had been fluctuat-
symbolic of the general movement of the novel from death to rebirth,
ing throughout the novel. Only on the final day does dawn bring a from the Day of the Dead to Easter Sunday.) Throughout the first
clear sky; throughout the novel Wyatt had been waking at dusk and chapter, there are many references to voyaging-especially from the
mistaking it for dawn, but finally he wakesat dawn, mistaking it for TownCarpenter, Wyatt's maternal grandfather-but alsoseveraldelib-
dusk at first, but learning quickly "the sky wasn't getting darker, it erate blurrings ofsky, sea, and land: the harsh plain ofCastile iscom-
wasgetting light" (893-94). His long dark night ofthe soul over, the
pared to the sea(7; cf. 770); the skyat the time ofWyatt's departure
Pleiades signaling the beginning ofanew sailing season(892), Wyatt! for divinity school is described as "deep gray-blue, banded with the
Stephen is ready for a new voyage: "Now at last, to live deliberately" colorsofrust seenunder water" (60); in their awkwardness during this
(900).
scene, both Rev. Gwyon and Wyatt are "caught, asaswimmer on the
32 WILLIAM GADDIS Tf. Recognitions:Myth, Magic, andMetaphor 33
surface iscaught by that cold current whosesuddenness snareshim in trieved from the ocean during her and Stanley's voyage(834) and with
cramps and sends him in dumb surprise to the bottOm"(60); and there the drowned sailor ofGervase'stale (912,914). The first association is
is the first of many references to Gervase of Tilbury's tale of "the sky of vital importance, for it represents Wyatt's symbolic death at sea,
being a sea, the celestial sea, and aman coming down a rope to undo foreshadowed several times earlier in the novel. Wyatt's "drowning"
an anchor that's gotten caught on a tombstOne" (28). Even the Town takes place in the chapter strategically placed between his abandon-
Carpenter's interest in ballooning advancesthe conceit ofavoyagein a ment of Sinisterra and their "mummy" as Stephan Asche in 111.3and
celestial sea. his reemergence in III.5 as simply Stephen, the name originally in-
~.,.
But this traditional conceit soon takes on a number of unexpected tended for him by Camilla. An obvious parallel is the "Death by ".'...
overtones. Young Wyatt associatesthe drowned sailor ofGervase's tale Water" section that appears at about the same point structurally in f~~
with the martyrdom of Saint Clement by way of the anchor common Eliot's TheWasteLand, the symbolic death prerequisite to rebirth. "I've
to both stories (44), to which the older Wyatt adds a third element, been avoyage, I'll tell you," Wyatt/Stephen concludes at the end. "I've
namely Charles Fort's wry speculation that perhaps we are all at the been avoyage star~ingat the bottOm ofthe sea"(895).
bottom of a celestial sea and are occasionally fished for by aliens, a In contrast to the lunar and nocturnal symbolism, both deployed in
speculation that Wyatt (and Esme after him) will voice often in the a fairly straightforward fashion, the marine imagery is developed
novel. These three references join in the general submarine imagery through the novel in a variety of ingenious ways. An informative ex-
that accumulates (see60, 79, 109, 115)until it isrumored that Wyatt ample is Gaddis's extended pun on Pelagianism / pelagic / pelagian /
"lives underground. Or underwater" (172). A number of similar ref- Pelagia. Pelagianism, it will be remembered, is one of the heresies q
erences follow until, arguing with Valentine the night he decides to Wyatt asks his father about after his return from a year's theological .,~
rerum home to his father, Wyatt brings these referencesinto a Chris- studies. One of the great heresiarchs, the British monk Pelagius (ca.
tian perspective: 360-420) not only denied the doctrine oforiginal sin but insisted that
man isfreeto dogood or evil-as opposed to the Augustinian doctrine
that man, without spiritual guidance, isirresistibly drawn toevil. Rev.
-Now, remember? Who wasit, "gettatOamare," remember? ananchor tied
to his neck? and thrown, caught bykelpies and martyred, remember? in the Gwyon minimizes Pelagius's achievement: "If it hadn't been Pelagius
it would have been someone else. But by now we . . . toOmany ofus
celestial sea. Here, maybe we're fished for. [ . . . ] Have you read Averroes?
What I mean is, dowebelievein order to understand? Or in order to be . . . may embrace original sin ourselves to explain our own guilt, and be-
fished for. [ . . . ] Yes,yes, that's it. That's it! Flesh, remember? flesh, how have. . . treat everyone else as though they were full-fledged. . .
thou art fishified. He jumped to his feet. -Listen, do you understand? umm . . . Pelagians doing just asthey please" (58). Wyatt himself, as
We're fished for! On this rock, remember? and I shall make thee a fisher he confesseslater, is a Pelagian (806), though that hardly means he
ofmen? (382)
simply does as he pleases. Rather, it means he takes personal respon-
sibility for his own salvation, refusing to rely on Christ (or his minis-
Suddenly recalling Jesus' promise to Peter and Andrew to make them ters) to do it for him. Too confident a reliance on Christ, Pelagius
fishers ofmen-salvaged from this melange ofmedieval tales, scholas- argued, promotes "moral decline."20
tic argument, evena linefromRomeoandJuliet(2.4.37)-Wyatt de- The name "Pelagius" isaLatinized form ofthe heretic's Welsh name
cides to return home to resume his studies forthe ministry. A number Morgan, meaning "the sea";Gaddis mayor may not be playing on the
of nautical references in the chapter at home, however, indicate that connection between Pelagius and the seawhen Wyatt puns on "Pelagic
Wyatt is not yet out of the sea, that is, no closer to salvation than he miles distant" (392), but he surely is during Basil Valentine's
was before. Undersea imagery continues throughour part 2, especially harangue:
at Brown's, fancifully identified asthe undersea domain ofIbsen'sTroll
King. -And what wasit yousaid?Aman's damnation ishisown damned business?
In part 3, Esme associates Wyatt both with the drowned sailor re- It's not true, you know. It's not true. Why, good heavens, this suicide of