LFINO - Issue #5 Reading The Recognitions - Chapter 3 BONUS ESSAY: Night Fishing in Antibes
Listen, do you see what I mean?
As will be apparent to anyone reading this blog alongside, The Recognitions, the length and depth of the novel’s third chapter presents numerous avenues for investigation and the choice to focus on any individual aspect of the chapter will lead to cries about attention being taken away from other, equally significant, elements. Unfortunately, following all of the potential threads over the course of two medium sized blog essays is impossible, and I hope I can be forgiven for choosing to discuss Picasso’s Night Fishing at Antibes (1939) instead of the Faustian pact between Wyatt and Recktall Brown. One advice I remember being given when reading Thomas Pynchon’s, Gravity’s Rainbow (1973), was not to get too deep into every rabbit hole or you’ll never see the whole (If I may quote the dearly departed David Lynch, ‘keep your eye on the doughnut, not the hole’). This equally applies to The Recognitions. While one can (and I’d be surprised to find out someone hasn’t yet) write a whole book tracking Faust throughout, The Recognitions, I would like to save that particular monolith for a special occasion.
Be assured, I have not forgotten Faust and we will get there on this journey eventually.
Instead, what strikes me upon re-reading this third chapter is the moment Wyatt has when describing his encounter with Picasso’s painting, Night Fishing at Antibes.
For those not reading along, Wyatt, who has become prone to wandering without telling anyone where he’s going, visited a gallery where Picasso’s Night Fishing was being exhibited. After having a profound experience with the painting, he returns home. What Wyatt hasn’t realised, however, was that his wife, Esther, was also present at this event and she is upset that Wyatt has walked past her without even noticing her. Even now, as he begins to explain to her what it is he felt while staring at that painting, he continues to ignore her interjections. Yet, what he reveals is perhaps the most vulnerable the character has been since the early days of his sickness in the first chapter.