An author’s New Yorker essay on this novel compared finishing reading it to having “run three miles, eaten my kale, been to the dentist, filed my tax return, or gone to church.” For 10 points each:
[10h] Name this novel about the aspiring painter-turned-forger Wyatt Gwyon. This novel’s length and frustrating prose are compared to its author’s later novel J R in the essay “Mr. Difficult.”
ANSWER: The Recognitions (by William Gaddis)
[10m] This author discussed the rewards of reading The Recognitions and other difficult fiction in the essay “Mr. Difficult,” which was inspired by the perceived difficulty of this author’s 2001 novel about the Lambert family.
ANSWER: Jonathan Franzen (The novel is The Corrections.)
[10e] In “Mr. Difficult,” Franzen notes that he enjoys postmodern fiction not for its prose but for its characters, such as Oedipa Maas, the protagonist of this Thomas Pynchon novel.
ANSWER: The Crying of Lot 49
<HG, American Literature>