William Gaddis - The Recognitions

His thumb over the headline, Campanile at Venice Periled, his eyes blinked closed behind the glasses which were steadily weakening them, until one day they might be as little good in light as they were now in darkness: his trouble had been diagnosed as nyctalopia, caused, he was told, by a vitamin deficiency (and not, "like people used to think," from sleeping in the moonlight). He had a shelf-full of bottles (labeled Afaxin, Pancebrin, Natola, Multi-Vi Drops, Vi-Dom-A Pillettes, and others) to help correct this condition; but he had got the glasses "just to make sure." Nonetheless, he still stumbled in the dark.

Now, the headlines had commenced to run together before his eyes. He had read the letters written to the editors (written by the editors), and the columns of the columnists, an assortment of aggressive ulcerated men, self-appointed authorities who wrote intimately of people they had never seen and places they had never been, or colyumísts with the "common touch," who simulated and encouraged the average reader's lack of intelligence, talent, and sensitivity. But now, Holy See Bans Psychoanalysis. ., Giant Robot Runs Amok. ., Lobotomy to Cure Man of Writing Dud Checks. ., the black letters swam before his eyes, and he started to doze over the news that the bell tower of Saint Mark's was in danger of falling, cracked in the cool nights of summer after the scorching sun of the days.

— The Rootsicola Company now brings you the correct time. The time is six p.m. Have you tried Rootsicola? Rootsicola tastes better and is better for you, and remember, friends, Rootsicola keeps its flavor twice as long, and you get twice as much Rootsicola in the familiar big bottle. .

(Better than what? he wondered faintly. Twice as long as what? Twice as much as what?)

— Rootsicola. That's right, friends. Remember the root. Rootsicola, for the smile of happiness. . the uprooted voice went on, bursting with aggressive vitality, leveling Mr. Pivner's weariness to chronic decrepitude. True, he it was to whom they all appealed; and he did try, with all the attention his consciousness could muster under the attrition of the sameness of their words, to maintain his responsibility as a citizen. He listened to the radio during periods of political heat, the speech in which one senator told the truth about another (this was known as a "smear campaign"); and then the raucous gathering where people were paid in five-dollar bills to shout, clap, parade, and otherwise indicate the totally irrational quality of their enthusiasm for a man they had never met to take office and govern them. Occasionally, it is true, Mr. Pivner slipped into listening to these conventions in much the same spirit as benighted members of certain Latin cultures listen to the drawing of the National Lottery; but even when this expression disappeared he had as much difficulty reconciling his sense of public duty and responsibility with his feeling of total helplessness as a Central American Indian might, upon being told that he shared the responsibility for the number drawn in Panama on Sunday afternoon; and as far as that goes, the Indian could call in powers which Mr. Pivner knew nothing about, dreams and spells, magic numbers and meretricious deities, a seedy band to call in where Reason reigned, however staunch they might prove as allies there where the Indian sat silent with his radio on a peak in Darien.

Science assures us that "If man were wiped out, it is extremely improbable that anything very similar would ever again evolve." Threat and comfort: we need only turn the particle of the earth's crust read with such eager pride to make one of the other. Here in the foremost shambles of time Mr. Pivner stood, heir to that colossus of self-justification, Reason, one of whose first accomplishments was to effectively sever itself from the absurd, irrational, contaminating chaos of the past. Obtruding over centuries of gestation appeared this triumphal abortion: Reason supplied means, and eliminated ends.

What followed was entirely reasonable: the means, so abruptly brought within reach, became ends in themselves. And to substitute the growth of one's bank account for the growth of one's self worked out very well. It had worked out almost until it reached Mr. Pivner, for so long as the means had remained possible of endless expansion, those ends of other ages (which had never shown themselves very stable) were shelved as abstractions to justify the means, and the confidently rational notion that peace, harmony, virtue, and other tattered constituents of the Golden Rule would come along of themselves was taken, quite reasonably, for granted.

Retirement? the word shook him hollow, left him in a void where nothing remained to be done. With survival a triumph, the means themselves had become an end constantly unfulfilled; and now the specter of retirement formed its expression, leering within sight. He found himself surrounded by the rights of others who had ceased to grow more recently than himself, having earned that right the instant they mastered some fundamental technique of making a living, which they called education. Assured that they were under no obligation, and would do very well as they were, they advanced to take his place and relive his dilemma.

— and do you feel run down at the end of the day? that dull logy tired feeling that just seems to creep through you? Well friends, modern science has developed….

It was to him that these voices appealed, siding with him in this conspiracy against himself, citing him splendidly satisfactory just as he was, heralding his privileges, valuing the mass of his concurring opinion with guarantee of his protection against dissenters, justifying his limitations, and thus proving, by their own successful existence, that he was obliged to seek no further than himself for the authority which justified them both, pledged at last to secure and defend him in all these things, which they called his rights.

The newspaper now lay open to a feature story (exclusive) on the imminent canonization of a Spanish child, a feature not because the little girl was soon to be a saint, but because she had been raped and murdered. He stared, started, and felt suddenly for the keys in his pocket, always terrified that, losing them, the finder would know to whom they belonged, what they guarded. The newspaper tipped in his hand, and lay quiet on his lap, as the tic which came in his lip when he was tired pulled his mouth out of line. His half-opened eyes met those of the two faces before him, both pictures indistinct because they had been sent by radio, not that there was any hurry, but to show that this newspaper afforded its readers the most modern news service possible. He summoned his attention to read the article, for it was in such "features" that he found the satisfaction which life never suggested, that of a beginning, a middle, and an end. (Though occasionally one beginning got confused with other middles and other ends, he knew that these events were really tak- ing place; and he even had the sense that he was slightly ahead of them, with evening papers out in the morning, and next morning's papers out that night.)

His eyes met the penetrating eyes of the murderer, fixed in a round face whose limp flabby quality was belied by a exquisite mustache and a sharp cleft in the widow's peak of black hair. He read the man's name, and that of his victim, confusions of foreign syllables which he did not try to align, and then details of the crime so rewardingly grisly and sharp that it might have happened the day before, instead of four decades. "Very soon after her death, the village of San Zwingli, its facades splashed blue with vine-spray, where the peasants live a mixed life with their goats, chickens, and burros, became the scene of a series of miracles. There were miraculous cures among sick peasants who insisted on attributing them to the little girl who appeared to them in visions, in a mist, carrying lilies of purity. ." Even the criminal testified, " 'I see her against the light, coining to me with lilies in her hands. But when she offers them to me they become flames. It is in these flames that I find remorse and penitence, and peace!. .' " Through his drooping eyes, Mr. Pivner stumbled on to an interview with the priest who had promoted recognition of the child's sanctity, "A candle gave an extra flicker and lit up his face, the color and texture of antique parchment, surmounted by the black satin biretta. ." With a gesture of "his pale El Grecoesque hands. ." he went on, " 'The Devil's Advocate took the information and after two years' study passed it to the Preparatory Congregation, which was held in the presence of the Cardinals. The following year, the Pope was present at the General Congregation, with his Cardinals, Prelates, and consultative Padres. They all cast votes in favor of the Martyrdom. . We started without a single lira, and it takes a great deal of money to promote a saint. Apart from the expenses of bringing witnesses to Rome anj: I making out the documents, it costs 3,000,000 lire to hire Saint Peter's for a canonization.