Evan’s Reviews > The Recognitions > Status Update

Bunches of characters who were in New York now happen to be in Rome, and just as before, they conveniently bump into each other in cities populated by millions of people. I see this is getting $25 to $30 on ebay. Getting rid of this cinderblock will open a lot of shelf space. Maybe for a second copy of Finnegans Wake...

Heading into the finale, the epilogue. We finally get a bit more clarity (somewhat, as such things are relative in this book) on Stephan's (Wyatt's) psychology and the nature of his vague questing. I would like to have had that about, oh, 850 pages ago so that I gave a shit about him. But here it is.

Some interesting bits in this part, in the monastery in Spain, reiterating the themes already expounded for 900 pages, but more clearly. Still, Gaddis' comedy sense is like the Bowery Boys compared to Joyce's comedy like the Marx Brothers. One is clearly superior.

100 pages left. I will make it across the desert.

Chaotic hijinks on a transatlantic passenger liner. The Marx Brothere' "Monkey Business" was way better.

130 pages away; light at the end of the tunnel. Once out, I will dynamite this fucking hole.

Unfunny hijinks with mistaken corpses now, trying to circle back to some stuff from 750 pages ago when the novel was good and was getting five stars from me but has spectacularly flamed out in crash-and-burn heap in a way I have never experienced in 60 years of reading.