The Missing Link

I'm playing a little bit of catch-up here and writing about a few books from the project that I finished almost two months ago. First up, William Gaddis' The Recognitions.

It's an Encino Man-like link between the mid twentieth century American traditionalists (I guess Saul Bellow is the best example) and the experimental 60's/70's post-modernists (Barth, Pynchon, etc.) that were soon to come. I guess a more apt (the book is at least partially about art), Brendan Fraser-less comparison would be Picasso who mastered traditional painting techniques then created something completely original.

I guess the problem is that being such a literary bridge might be too much of a burden for one novel to bear. I enjoyed the beginning of the book and the portions that dealt with art forgery. I thought there was an interesting theme developing with the main character's day/night work schedule being important to him because of lighting since all light provided in an actual painting (forged or otherwise) is artificial. As the book went on it followed some standard big book conventions: hundreds of characters, globe trotting, funny names and aliases. It just got to be too much, especially when there were such promising bits at the beginning. There were some Altman-like "eaves dropping on seven conversations at once" chapters that don't quite work as well in print as they do in Nashville or Short Cuts.

I ended up thinking that the book suffered from one of two (Kurt Cobain-related) effects:

- The Vaselines Effect - the album/book's reputation is enhanced beyond what it may deserve because it was overlooked when it came out. Fervent followers with means to do so spread its gospel (Cobain with the Vaselines, Jonathan Franzen, David Foster Wallace and others with The Recognitions), fans of the followers freak out and assume they have to love all of their favorite author/musicians' influences (both why I own the Vaselines album and the Recognitions).

- The Nirvana Effect - the followers (the Seven Mary Threes of the world) are so omnipresent that they water down the novelty of the original. Without experiencing the novel's successors chronologically, it's hard to tell how groundbreaking it was. (Also known as The Pixies Effect)