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Spoilers for pic related below. Much of what I discuss here is taken from the site containing annotations to the Recognitions.
So how are you supposed to discern that Anselm castrates himself? The text reads: (page 645)
>On all fours, he trotted down the emptied platform. He paused for a moment and raised his head to look round him; then he went on, and bumped open the door to the men's room with his head. It was empty. He rose to his knees and reached into his pocket. The crumpled picture he threw into a toilet. With his other hand he undid his clothes, and opened the razor. He paused so, staring up at the dim illumination of the weak electric bulb, his voice audible only then, -In nomine . . . though his lips continued to move, without a tremor, as his hands worked quickly, with deft certainty, unseen.
There is literally nothing that tells you this is what happened. If you go back to page 103 where Anselm first appears, there is a brief excerpt that reads:
>Slightly offended by Bach and Palestrina, short memories reached back, struggling toward Origen, that most extraordinary Father of the Church, whose third-century enthusiasm led him to castrate himself so that he might repeat the hoc est corpus meum, Dominus, without the distracting interference of the rearing shadow of the flesh.
In addition, right before the castration scene, you get, on page 635,
>Anselm came toward him, crushing the orchid under foot...
Recalling page 201, where Gaddis calls to attention:
>the orchids, blossom, not questioning the distant Greeks on how they got their name, driving innocently from the devil's residence in man: that part which the angels cut from the monk Helias.
Am I missing something obvious on how you were supposed to understand what happens to Anselm without recalling all of these throwaway references? Most of the other major plot points in the book were, though not beat into you, not nearly as subtle as this. In fact, I had actually known of the Anselm castration prior to the book and I still "missed" it when I actually got to it.
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Please come discuss here https://discord.gg/SWkzH7Z
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you must know the saint who shares his name dumbass.
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>>8523705
god why do stupid retards even try to read.
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>>8523705
You're supposed to recall that he was introduced watching over a little girl whose mother expresses doubts over him watching her. And having a bad case of acne as a parallel to the guy who tried to rape that little girl in Spain (pox is an old way of referring to syphilis, and there's an old superstition that raping a virgin cures stds). Also he has weird hangups over women, Max literally says he raped the little girl in one conversation, and he'd just been accused of doing that at the party by her father in a scene before this one. Also he starts reciting the Lord's prayer, which ends with a supplication against temptation, which you should know is a hangup of his from the stuff I just mentioned.
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>>8523756
anselm never got castrated. are you confusing him with abelard? try not to be such a pleb when posturing on 4chan kiddo.
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bump for gaddisposting
cant let bottoms dream and jerusalem get all the meme attention
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>>8524792
I know what you mean, but I think Gaddis' season has turned
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>>8524799
He only wrote five books but I doubt most people here have even read one. Still, a Jerusalem thread today was actually a J R thread so he's not through here yet.
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Can I just throw it out there that Gaddis tends to give you all of the clues to his more erudite jokes. I laughed out loud at the description of the gay blowjob at the party early on.
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>>8524816
yea gaddis definitely demands things from the reader but i don't think he's ever obscurantist.
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the clues are very subtle but it doesn't really matter if you know how he mutilated himself.
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Hannah asks him what has his "balls in an uproar." He's obviously a huge hypocrite about lust and temptation. He walks around crushing orchids (testicles) early on at the party. He also pretends to be a dog, and dogs get neutered. He's even acting like a dog right before he goes into the bathroom.
Not a whole lot to go on, but castration makes perfect sense.
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>>8523705
Well, he undoes his clothes and opens a razor and prays and uses the razor. Next time you see him he's in a monastery.
It is subtle, but why complain about it? It adds meaning to the book, it's way better if he put "and then he castrated himself".
Also, wtf, we also forget how fundamentally hilarious this is when we overanalyze it, there's something really darkly comical in this fucker castrating himself.
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