The Recognitions

Set in mid-twentieth-century America and Europe, the novel traces the life of Wyatt Gwyon, a gifted painter who abandons original art for forgery, and follows the intersecting lives of dozens of characters caught in a world pervaded by fraud, imitation, and the desperate search for authenticity.

The novel opens in Spain with the funeral procession of Camilla Gwyon, wife of Reverend Gwyon, a New England Congregational minister. Camilla died aboard the Purdue Victory en route to Spain after a botched appendectomy performed by Frank Sinisterra, a fugitive counterfeiter traveling under forged papers who has no medical training. Sinisterra is later arrested and imprisoned, where he begins engraving counterfeit plates with obsessive care. Gwyon buries Camilla in the village of San Zwingli and remains abroad, visiting a Franciscan monastery in Estremadura and developing an intense interest in Mithraism, an ancient mystery religion centered on the sun god Mithras, that will progressively overtake his Christian ministry.

Back in New England, Wyatt grows up under Aunt May, Gwyon's stern Calvinist sister, who forbids his artistic efforts, warning him that original creation is sinful because only God is the "true creator" (54). Wyatt draws in secret, convinced he is damned, and discovers that while his original works feel flawed, his copies approach a perfection he cannot achieve otherwise. Around age fifteen, he contracts a severe illness and nearly dies. During convalescence he paints obsessively, producing meticulous copies while leaving original compositions unfinished. He begins a portrait of his dead mother, Camilla, that he never completes, and secretly copies the Bosch painting of the Seven Deadly Sins in his father's dining room, substituting his copy for the original and selling the genuine painting for almost nothing.

Wyatt briefly attends Divinity School but drops out, overwhelmed by spiritual crisis. He studies art in Munich under Herr Koppel, who teaches him that originality is a "romantic disease" and that true artistry lies in knowing forms "by heart" (91-92). In Paris, Wyatt attempts to establish himself as a painter, but a corrupt critic named Crémer demands a commission in exchange for favorable reviews. Wyatt refuses, Crémer savages his show in print, and no paintings sell. This failure ends his attempt at original art.

Wyatt marries Esther, an intelligent woman whose analyst died by suicide after she married against the analyst's advice. In New York, Wyatt works as a draftsman while doing art restoration, growing increasingly withdrawn and refusing to finish original paintings. Recktall Brown, a corpulent, diamond-ringed art dealer, discovers Wyatt's talent and proposes that he forge lesser-known Flemish primitives, paintings by early Netherlandish masters that experts will eagerly authenticate and collectors will pay fortunes for. Wyatt agrees, convinced his copies achieve a spiritual authenticity that original modern art cannot.

Basil Valentine, a sophisticated man with connections to the Jesuits and European intelligence operations, serves as the scheme's third member, writing laudatory criticism that helps authenticate the forgeries. Valentine and Brown maintain a tense alliance, each suspicious of the other. Wyatt uses Esme, a fragile young poet and model from the Greenwich Village social scene, as the face of the Virgin in his forgeries.

Meanwhile, Otto, a vain young aspiring playwright, returns to New York from Central America, where he has been writing a play called The Vanity of Time. Otto becomes romantically involved with Esme and plans to meet his estranged father, Mr. Pivner, for the first time. The reunion goes disastrously wrong: Otto waits in a hotel lobby wearing a green scarf his father sent as identification. Sinisterra enters the same lobby to meet an underground contact, mistakes Otto for that contact, and hands him a packet of counterfeit twenty-dollar bills, which Otto accepts as a paternal gift. Mr. Pivner, detained by police who believe he is intoxicated, never arrives. Otto spends the counterfeit money freely without realizing it is fake.

The Greenwich Village social world provides the novel's satirical backdrop. Stanley, a devout Catholic musician, struggles to complete an organ composition while caring for his dying mother and resisting the advances of Agnes Deigh, a literary agent. Anselm, a young man tortured by religious obsession, oscillates between blasphemous provocations and desperate spiritual yearning. Parties and café conversations expose a milieu obsessed with originality yet pervaded by plagiarism and the commodification of art.

Wyatt's crisis intensifies. He visits Valentine carrying fragments of canvas saved as proof of his authorship, hoping to expose the forgeries and reclaim his identity. Valentine discourages him, arguing that no one wants to learn their acquisitions are fakes. Valentine reveals that a Patinir painting in Brown's collection is a copy he substituted after sending the original back to Europe. Wyatt confesses that the Bosch table Brown owns is the copy Wyatt made as a teenager. These revelations devastate him. Wyatt burns his remaining materials in his Horatio Street studio, and the building catches fire.

The forgery scheme collapses at Brown's apartment. Wyatt arrives in a disturbed state and tries to explain what he has done, but no one listens. Brown, drunk and agitated, attempts to climb into a suit of Italian armor, falls down the stairs, and is killed by the impact. Wyatt stabs Valentine with a penknife before fleeing with Brown's wallet and pistol. Fuller, Brown's elderly Black servant, quietly departs with packed suitcases, finally free.

The secondary characters scatter. Otto is arrested for soliciting an undercover policewoman. Stanley is arrested when a counterfeit bill Otto gave him is detected. Mr. Pivner is arrested when the counterfeit money is traced back through a bathrobe Otto sent him as a Christmas gift. Agnes Deigh is hospitalized after jumping or falling from a hotel window. Esme attempts suicide but is rescued; she later dies from an infection.

In New England, Reverend Gwyon's Mithraic obsession reaches its catastrophe. On Christmas morning, he conducts a pagan worship service in the church, horrifying the townspeople. He is institutionalized and eventually dies. His ashes are inadvertently mixed with flour and baked into bread at the Spanish monastery, a grim communion that fulfills the novel's theme of transubstantiation, the Christian doctrine that consecrated bread becomes the body of Christ.

Wyatt resurfaces in Spain, traveling under a Swiss passport provided by Sinisterra, who now operates under a Rumanian identity as "Mr. Yák." At Camilla's grave in San Zwingli, they open the unmarked vault and discover the body of a girl whose murder years earlier made her a candidate for sainthood. Sinisterra schemes to fabricate an ancient mummy from the remains and sell the forgery, extending the novel's counterfeiting motif into yet another domain. Wyatt drifts through Spain, visiting the Prado and wrestling with questions of authenticity and atonement. At a monastery, an old porter refuses to let him enter the church and tells him to go where he is wanted. Wyatt departs, telling a visiting novelist that the only path forward is not retreat but living experience through.

Stanley travels to Rome, where he secures permission to play his organ composition at the church in Fenestrula. A priest warns him in Italian not to use the deep bass notes because the ancient walls cannot withstand the vibrations. Stanley does not understand the warning, or chooses to disregard it. He pulls out all the stops and plays with reckless intensity. The walls collapse, and Stanley is the only person killed. Most of his work is recovered from the rubble and, the narrator reports, is still spoken of with high regard, though seldom played.