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Notecard Quartet
Vanishing Point
In the literary world, there is little that can match the excitement of opening a new book by David Markson. From Wittgenstein’s Mistress to Reader’s Block to Springer’s Progress to This Is Not a Novel, he has delighted and amazed readers for decades. And now comes his latest masterwork, Vanishing Point, wherein an elderly writer (identified only as "Author") sets out to transform shoeboxes crammed with notecards into a novel — and in so doing will dazzle us with an astonishing parade of revelations about the trials and calamities and absurdities and often even tragedies of the creative life — all the while trying his best (he says) to keep himself out of the tale. Naturally he will fail to do the latter, frequently managing to stand aside and yet remaining undeniably central throughout — until he is swept inevitably into the narrative’s startling and shattering climax. A novel of death and laughter both — and of extraordinary intellectual richness.
191 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 2004
24 people are currently reading
6917 people want to read
About the author
David Markson
24 books349 followersDavid Markson was an American novelist, born David Merrill Markson in Albany, New York. He is the author of several postmodern novels, including This is Not a Novel, Springer's Progress, and Wittgenstein's Mistress. His most recent work, The Last Novel, was published in 2007 and received a positive review in the New York Times, which called it "a real tour de force."
Markson's work is characterized by an unconventional approach to narration and plot. While his early works may draw on the modernist tradition of William Faulkner and Malcolm Lowry, Markson says his later novels are "literally crammed with literary and artistic anecdotes" and "nonlinear, discontinuous, collage-like, an assemblage."
Dalkey Archive Press has published several of his novels. In December 2006, publishers Shoemaker & Hoard republished two of Markson's early crime novels Epitaph for a Tramp and Epitaph for a Dead Beat in one volume.
In addition to his novels, he has published a book of poetry and a critical study of Malcolm Lowry.
The movie Dirty Dingus Magee, starring Frank Sinatra, is based on Markson's first novel, The Ballad of Dingus Magee, an anti-Western. He wrote three crime novels early in his career.
Educated at Union College and Columbia University, Markson began his writing career as a journalist and book editor, periodically taking up work as a college professor at Columbia University, Long Island University, and The New School.
Markson died in his New York City, West Village apartment.
Markson's work is characterized by an unconventional approach to narration and plot. While his early works may draw on the modernist tradition of William Faulkner and Malcolm Lowry, Markson says his later novels are "literally crammed with literary and artistic anecdotes" and "nonlinear, discontinuous, collage-like, an assemblage."
Dalkey Archive Press has published several of his novels. In December 2006, publishers Shoemaker & Hoard republished two of Markson's early crime novels Epitaph for a Tramp and Epitaph for a Dead Beat in one volume.
In addition to his novels, he has published a book of poetry and a critical study of Malcolm Lowry.
The movie Dirty Dingus Magee, starring Frank Sinatra, is based on Markson's first novel, The Ballad of Dingus Magee, an anti-Western. He wrote three crime novels early in his career.
Educated at Union College and Columbia University, Markson began his writing career as a journalist and book editor, periodically taking up work as a college professor at Columbia University, Long Island University, and The New School.
Markson died in his New York City, West Village apartment.
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September 24, 2022
Vanishing point is a point at which parallel lines receding from an observer seem to converge.
Vanishing point is a point at which a thing disappears or ceases to exist.
Vanishing Point is a collage of thoughts, opinions and observations of artistes about life, arts and other artistes…
And David Markson arranges this artful stuff into extravagant daisy chains and curious varicoloured arrays…
As long as there are adorers of arts, there will be artistes… As long as there are artistes, there will be adorers of arts…
Poets especially admire each other…
But in the end every artiste finds one’s admirer… Every fancier finds one’s idol.
Vanishing point is a point at which a thing disappears or ceases to exist.
Vanishing Point is a collage of thoughts, opinions and observations of artistes about life, arts and other artistes…
Author had been scribbling the notes on three-by-five-inch index cards. They now come close to filling two shoebox tops taped together end to end.
And David Markson arranges this artful stuff into extravagant daisy chains and curious varicoloured arrays…
As long as there are adorers of arts, there will be artistes… As long as there are artistes, there will be adorers of arts…
A seascape by Henri Matisse was once hung upside down in the Museum of Modern Art in New York – and left that way for a month and a half…
One hundred and sixteen thousand viewers had strolled past Le Bateau, the upside-down Matisse, without comment, before it was rehung correctly.
Poets especially admire each other…
Byron, briefly, on Southey: Twaddle.
On Wordsworth: Drivel.
On Keats: Flay him alive.
But in the end every artiste finds one’s admirer… Every fancier finds one’s idol.
February 3, 2024
It begins with the “Author has finally started to put his notes in manuscript form.”
“At the age of eight or nine, Richard Brautigan once returned home from school and found that his entire family had moved away without a word.”
The vanishing point, the point where two receding imaginary parallel lines, in a two dimensional perspective, converge. The spot where the parallel lines disappear.
“The one experience I shall never describe, Virginia Woolf called her intended suicide. I have the feeling that I shall go mad. I hear voices and cannot concentrate on my work. I have fought against it, but cannot fight any longer.
The morning’s recollection of the emptiness of the day before. It’s anticipation of the emptiness of the day to come.”
The notes are on index cards in “two shoebox tops taped together end to end” that the Author proceeds to type out. The notes, a collection of facts and observations, that reads like the Author’s thoughts, wandering from one topic to the next.
“Billie Holiday’s bank balance at her death registered a total of seventy cents. Though hospital attendants found $750 taped to her leg.”
The Author mentions that he was tired, repeatedly. The work goes slowly.
“I ain’t got no quarrel with the Viet Cong. No Viet Cong ever called me n*gger.
Said Muhammad Ali.
What cause have I to war at thy decree? The distant Trojans never injured me.
Says Achilles, in Pope’s translation of the Iliad.”
Was the Author simply tired? Or was the lack of progress due to procrastination? Even worse, was he ill?
“The legend that Mozart, dying, asked that a canary be removed from his room- unable to abide its song.
And Author’s shoulder smacking against the corridor wall again?
A passage he has normally navigated ten thousand times without a second thought?”
The book comes to a close with the Hebrew word Selah, found in the book of Psalms. Selah may simply mean pause or possibly rest. Rest in peace.
“At the age of eight or nine, Richard Brautigan once returned home from school and found that his entire family had moved away without a word.”
The vanishing point, the point where two receding imaginary parallel lines, in a two dimensional perspective, converge. The spot where the parallel lines disappear.
“The one experience I shall never describe, Virginia Woolf called her intended suicide. I have the feeling that I shall go mad. I hear voices and cannot concentrate on my work. I have fought against it, but cannot fight any longer.
The morning’s recollection of the emptiness of the day before. It’s anticipation of the emptiness of the day to come.”
The notes are on index cards in “two shoebox tops taped together end to end” that the Author proceeds to type out. The notes, a collection of facts and observations, that reads like the Author’s thoughts, wandering from one topic to the next.
“Billie Holiday’s bank balance at her death registered a total of seventy cents. Though hospital attendants found $750 taped to her leg.”
The Author mentions that he was tired, repeatedly. The work goes slowly.
“I ain’t got no quarrel with the Viet Cong. No Viet Cong ever called me n*gger.
Said Muhammad Ali.
What cause have I to war at thy decree? The distant Trojans never injured me.
Says Achilles, in Pope’s translation of the Iliad.”
Was the Author simply tired? Or was the lack of progress due to procrastination? Even worse, was he ill?
“The legend that Mozart, dying, asked that a canary be removed from his room- unable to abide its song.
And Author’s shoulder smacking against the corridor wall again?
A passage he has normally navigated ten thousand times without a second thought?”
The book comes to a close with the Hebrew word Selah, found in the book of Psalms. Selah may simply mean pause or possibly rest. Rest in peace.
September 22, 2023
https://kansasbooks.blogspot.com/2023...
“Si quieres saber qué sientes realmente por una persona, toma nota de la impresión que una carta inesperada suya te provoca cuando la ves en el buzón.
Dijo Schopenhauer."
Empezar este año 2023 con la experiencia de leer a David Markson y su Cuarteto en torno al arte y a lo que supone su concepción en su forma más descarnada, está siendo una de las experiencias inmersivas literarias más fascinantes que he tenido en mucho tiempo. Con Vanishing Point (Punto de Fuga), Markson vuelve a lanzar un libro con una estructura similar a los dos anteriores sin embargo la narración subterránea, la verdadera finalidad de este experimento suyo, se atreve a dar un paso más en ahondar en esta creación artistica en todo el sentido de la palabra. En La soledad del lector está narración subyacente estaba protagonizada por El Lector, que se convirtió en Escritor en Esto No es una novela, y ya en esta tercera entrega, David Markson lo ha convertido en El Autor, firmemente asentado en crearse una identidad propia.
"Este libro con el que me he ido consumiendo a lo largo de todos estos años, dice Dante."
A mi me resulta casi como un hechizo la forma en que Markson ha construido esta tetralogía, y como ya venía diciendo en las dos anteriores reseñas, resulta hasta adictiva cómo se entrelazan las historias en forma de pequeños párrafos. Breves anécdotas sobre pintores, filósofos, escritores, amantes y amigos también de ellos, hijos ilegítimos, padres y madres de hombres que cambiaron el mundo y que que fueron analfabetos , que se van encadenando en una sucesión de historias en forma de pequeños puzzles. Markson lanza algunos esbozos y ahí los deja para que el lector, especialmente curioso, los retome, alargando la vida de este libro más allá de sus páginas, los explore y rellene los huecos, como por ejemplo:
"Las cartas de Clara Schumann a Brahms:
Más interesantes que las de Brahms a ella."
[...]
"Cuando Langston Hughes era ayudante de camarero en un hotel de Washington, olvidó tres poemas al lado del plato de Vachel Lindsay; lo que dio lugar a su primera publicación en los periódicos de blancos."
[...]
"Su pensamiento y su mano iban juntos; y lo que él pensaba lo escribía con tal facilidad que apenas nos dejó un tachón en sus apuntes."
[…]
"El recuerdo de Anna Ajmatova, cincuenta y cuatro años después de su affair con Modigliani en 1911: en los jardines de Luxemburgo, sentados bajo la lluvia, cubiertos por una vieja sombrilla, recitándose a Verlaine, incapaces de darse nada mejor."
[…]
"El dibujo de Jesús crucificado vistiendo máscara de gas y botas de comate, y titulado Shut up and carry out your orders, de George Grosz.
Fechado en 1928.
La pintura de Max Ernst dónde la virgen Maria da una tunda al niño Jesús."
Hay temas recurrentes a los que David Markson vuelve una y otra vez relacionándolos con esta narración escondida referida a sí mismo como Autor. En las dos entregas anteriores estos temas giraban sobre todo en torno a la locura, al suicidio, la mortalidad, y aquí en Punto de Fuga todo está más enfocada en torno a la brevedad o la pobreza de sus vidas, a la enfermedad y a la vejez en la que se encuentra sumergido el mismo Autor. Se ha hecho viejo y ve próximo su final: "¿Es morirse tan duro trabajo? ¿Tan duro trabajo?"
"Si estás solo, eres solo tuyo.
Dijo Leonardo."
Por ejemplo en algunos de estos temas que se repiten continuamente, está la soledad en la que se encuentran algunos de estos autores a la hora de su muerte, incomprendidos:
“Blake tuvo un funeral de gente pobre.
Y fue enterrado sin lápida.”
[...]
“Dickens fue el último en dejar la tumba de Thackeray.
Y se fue solo.”
Otras veces, Markson salpica el texto de citas sin nombrar al autor, algunas resultan evidentes, otras estarán enlazadas con su autor que ya ha aparecido o aparecerá durante el texto:
“Sé de una ribera donde sopla el tomillo silvestre”.
[...]
"Tengo el presentimiento de que me volveré loca. Escucho voces y no me puedo concentrar en mi obra. He luchado contra esto, pero ya no puedo seguir luchando más."
[...]
"Pues mira, tan triste, dónde va leyendo el pobre infeliz."
Otros temas por los que pasa una y otra vez Markson, es la injusticia racial, el Holocausto, la misoginia y la religión en su acepción más aberrante:
"La policia dejó que quince jóvenes musulmanas se calcinaran en una escuela en la Meca y prohibieron cualquier tipo de ayuda, porque habían sido vistas por hombres cuando no portaban su velo.
En 2002.
La mujer que fue violada en Pakistán; y que una ley musulmana condenó por adulterio y sentenció a morir lapidada.
En 2002."
[…]
"Lutero. Erasmo. Thomas More. John Wesley. Calvino.
Todos creían absolutamente en los poderes de las brujas; y la mayoría aprobó su ejecución.
De hecho, Lutero quemó a varias en Wittenberg."
[...]
"Donde quemen libros, terminarán quemando personas. Dijo Heine."
Hay también momentos en los que David Markson enumera momentos, fechas, lugares, en apenas una línea y ahí también va dando pistas enlazando información, y como es casi imposible controlar tanta erudición, tendremos echar mano de la wikipedia, por lo menos para completar la conexión. Es una especie de juego que el autor establece con el lector y que convierte esta conexión en una especie de intimidad y complicidad, que admito, me han hecho disfrutar de lo lindo de este texto:
“Edificio Cahuenga, 615
Bulevar Hollywood.”
[…]
"Hawthorne Parsonage, Yorkshire, 2:00 p.m., 19 de diciembre de 1848."
Y llegamos a esta narración subterránea que es la que sale a flote continuamente entre tanto dato erudito. El Autor está trabajando en una novela que está construyendo a partir de estas anécdotas y párrafos y poco a poco iremos siendo conscientes de que este Autor que va asomando casi inconscientemente es ya un hombre viejo, lleno de achaques, a quién le cuesta a veces hasta mantenerse en pie:
“Persistentemente agotado. Continúa con ese vértigo tan peculiar, tiene la sensación de que algo le hace señas más allá de los límites de la visión.”
De alguna manera aunque Punto de Fuga, al igual que los dos anteriores titulos de este ciclo, aunque sean textos experimentales donde no veamos una ficción prototípica, ni incluso una linea argumental consolidada, se puede decir que Markson también está queriendo decir lo contrario porque SI que hay un protagonista y un argumento totalmente autobiográfico solo que hay que ir buscándolo e ir formándolo como si fuera un puzzle, porque este ya anciano Autor, está haciendo un esfuerzo por construir su historia, solo que dependerá de nosotros, del lector, convertirla en una novela, eso sí... solo si nos implicamos lo suficiente y encontramos las piezas para formarlo, de lo contrario continuará siendo solo un texto adictivo sobre anécdotas. ¡Leed a David Markson, no os arrepentiréis!!!
“Trece páginas en siete semanas. Cinco días en una página.
Tres días en ocho líneas.
Dicen esporádicas notas en las cartas de Flaubert sobre el avance de Madame Bovary.”
“Si quieres saber qué sientes realmente por una persona, toma nota de la impresión que una carta inesperada suya te provoca cuando la ves en el buzón.
Dijo Schopenhauer."
Empezar este año 2023 con la experiencia de leer a David Markson y su Cuarteto en torno al arte y a lo que supone su concepción en su forma más descarnada, está siendo una de las experiencias inmersivas literarias más fascinantes que he tenido en mucho tiempo. Con Vanishing Point (Punto de Fuga), Markson vuelve a lanzar un libro con una estructura similar a los dos anteriores sin embargo la narración subterránea, la verdadera finalidad de este experimento suyo, se atreve a dar un paso más en ahondar en esta creación artistica en todo el sentido de la palabra. En La soledad del lector está narración subyacente estaba protagonizada por El Lector, que se convirtió en Escritor en Esto No es una novela, y ya en esta tercera entrega, David Markson lo ha convertido en El Autor, firmemente asentado en crearse una identidad propia.
"Este libro con el que me he ido consumiendo a lo largo de todos estos años, dice Dante."
A mi me resulta casi como un hechizo la forma en que Markson ha construido esta tetralogía, y como ya venía diciendo en las dos anteriores reseñas, resulta hasta adictiva cómo se entrelazan las historias en forma de pequeños párrafos. Breves anécdotas sobre pintores, filósofos, escritores, amantes y amigos también de ellos, hijos ilegítimos, padres y madres de hombres que cambiaron el mundo y que que fueron analfabetos , que se van encadenando en una sucesión de historias en forma de pequeños puzzles. Markson lanza algunos esbozos y ahí los deja para que el lector, especialmente curioso, los retome, alargando la vida de este libro más allá de sus páginas, los explore y rellene los huecos, como por ejemplo:
"Las cartas de Clara Schumann a Brahms:
Más interesantes que las de Brahms a ella."
[...]
"Cuando Langston Hughes era ayudante de camarero en un hotel de Washington, olvidó tres poemas al lado del plato de Vachel Lindsay; lo que dio lugar a su primera publicación en los periódicos de blancos."
[...]
"Su pensamiento y su mano iban juntos; y lo que él pensaba lo escribía con tal facilidad que apenas nos dejó un tachón en sus apuntes."
[…]
"El recuerdo de Anna Ajmatova, cincuenta y cuatro años después de su affair con Modigliani en 1911: en los jardines de Luxemburgo, sentados bajo la lluvia, cubiertos por una vieja sombrilla, recitándose a Verlaine, incapaces de darse nada mejor."
[…]
"El dibujo de Jesús crucificado vistiendo máscara de gas y botas de comate, y titulado Shut up and carry out your orders, de George Grosz.
Fechado en 1928.
La pintura de Max Ernst dónde la virgen Maria da una tunda al niño Jesús."
Hay temas recurrentes a los que David Markson vuelve una y otra vez relacionándolos con esta narración escondida referida a sí mismo como Autor. En las dos entregas anteriores estos temas giraban sobre todo en torno a la locura, al suicidio, la mortalidad, y aquí en Punto de Fuga todo está más enfocada en torno a la brevedad o la pobreza de sus vidas, a la enfermedad y a la vejez en la que se encuentra sumergido el mismo Autor. Se ha hecho viejo y ve próximo su final: "¿Es morirse tan duro trabajo? ¿Tan duro trabajo?"
"Si estás solo, eres solo tuyo.
Dijo Leonardo."
Por ejemplo en algunos de estos temas que se repiten continuamente, está la soledad en la que se encuentran algunos de estos autores a la hora de su muerte, incomprendidos:
“Blake tuvo un funeral de gente pobre.
Y fue enterrado sin lápida.”
[...]
“Dickens fue el último en dejar la tumba de Thackeray.
Y se fue solo.”
Otras veces, Markson salpica el texto de citas sin nombrar al autor, algunas resultan evidentes, otras estarán enlazadas con su autor que ya ha aparecido o aparecerá durante el texto:
“Sé de una ribera donde sopla el tomillo silvestre”.
[...]
"Tengo el presentimiento de que me volveré loca. Escucho voces y no me puedo concentrar en mi obra. He luchado contra esto, pero ya no puedo seguir luchando más."
[...]
"Pues mira, tan triste, dónde va leyendo el pobre infeliz."
Otros temas por los que pasa una y otra vez Markson, es la injusticia racial, el Holocausto, la misoginia y la religión en su acepción más aberrante:
"La policia dejó que quince jóvenes musulmanas se calcinaran en una escuela en la Meca y prohibieron cualquier tipo de ayuda, porque habían sido vistas por hombres cuando no portaban su velo.
En 2002.
La mujer que fue violada en Pakistán; y que una ley musulmana condenó por adulterio y sentenció a morir lapidada.
En 2002."
[…]
"Lutero. Erasmo. Thomas More. John Wesley. Calvino.
Todos creían absolutamente en los poderes de las brujas; y la mayoría aprobó su ejecución.
De hecho, Lutero quemó a varias en Wittenberg."
[...]
"Donde quemen libros, terminarán quemando personas. Dijo Heine."
Hay también momentos en los que David Markson enumera momentos, fechas, lugares, en apenas una línea y ahí también va dando pistas enlazando información, y como es casi imposible controlar tanta erudición, tendremos echar mano de la wikipedia, por lo menos para completar la conexión. Es una especie de juego que el autor establece con el lector y que convierte esta conexión en una especie de intimidad y complicidad, que admito, me han hecho disfrutar de lo lindo de este texto:
“Edificio Cahuenga, 615
Bulevar Hollywood.”
[…]
"Hawthorne Parsonage, Yorkshire, 2:00 p.m., 19 de diciembre de 1848."
Y llegamos a esta narración subterránea que es la que sale a flote continuamente entre tanto dato erudito. El Autor está trabajando en una novela que está construyendo a partir de estas anécdotas y párrafos y poco a poco iremos siendo conscientes de que este Autor que va asomando casi inconscientemente es ya un hombre viejo, lleno de achaques, a quién le cuesta a veces hasta mantenerse en pie:
“Persistentemente agotado. Continúa con ese vértigo tan peculiar, tiene la sensación de que algo le hace señas más allá de los límites de la visión.”
De alguna manera aunque Punto de Fuga, al igual que los dos anteriores titulos de este ciclo, aunque sean textos experimentales donde no veamos una ficción prototípica, ni incluso una linea argumental consolidada, se puede decir que Markson también está queriendo decir lo contrario porque SI que hay un protagonista y un argumento totalmente autobiográfico solo que hay que ir buscándolo e ir formándolo como si fuera un puzzle, porque este ya anciano Autor, está haciendo un esfuerzo por construir su historia, solo que dependerá de nosotros, del lector, convertirla en una novela, eso sí... solo si nos implicamos lo suficiente y encontramos las piezas para formarlo, de lo contrario continuará siendo solo un texto adictivo sobre anécdotas. ¡Leed a David Markson, no os arrepentiréis!!!
“Trece páginas en siete semanas. Cinco días en una página.
Tres días en ocho líneas.
Dicen esporádicas notas en las cartas de Flaubert sobre el avance de Madame Bovary.”
January 10, 2024
Third book in Markson’s Notecard Quartet. “Author” is thinking about writing a book, going about organizing his notes, and dealing with the fact that he is aging beyond the point of control. When death had come up in the previous books, there was at first an obsession with suicide, and then an obsession with mode of death. Here, we concentrate on place of death, mostly.
Here are some of my favourite bits from the book:
Werner Heisenberg was thirty-one when he won the Nobel Prize.
And nine years earlier had been given a grade of C on his doctoral examinations.
At the age of seven or eight, Sigmund Freud once deliberately urinated on the floor of his parents’ bedroom.
Mark Twain forgot Becky Thatcher’s name in the eight years between Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn. And called her Bessie Thatcher in the later book.
Thomas Hardy’s anecdote about looking up a word in the dictionary because he wasn’t certain it existed—and finding that he himself was the only authority cited for its usage.
Tolstoy, to Chekhov:
You know I can’t stand Shakespeare’s plays, but yours are worse.
Victor Hugo could never get past page four of Le Rouge et le Noir.
January 1889, in Turin. Nietzsche, weeping, throws his arms around the neck of a mare being beaten by a coachman and then collapses in the street. Essentially the point of no return into his final madness.
A volume of Sherlock Holmes, which fictional Leopold Bloom has borrowed from a Dublin library and which is thirteen days overdue on fictional June 16, 1904, was listed as missing by the actual library in 1906.
Vaslav Nijinsky spent the last thirty-two years of his life in an insane asylum.
Thirty-two.
From a Hemingway letter, on T. S. Eliot:
A damned good poet and a fair critic; but he can kiss my ass as a man.
Keep apart, keep apart and preserve one’s soul alive—that is the teaching for the day. It is ill to have been born in these times, but one can make a world within a world.
Wrote George Gissing.
The curiosity that Jesus never appears to condemn slavery, though mentioning it in passing more than once.
Hobbes. Descartes. Pascal. Spinoza. Locke. Leibniz. Hume. Kant. Schopenhauer. Kierkegaard. Nietzsche. Santayana. Wittgenstein.
Not one of whom ever married.
Sigmund Freud was one of those who categorically refused to allow that the William Shakespeare of Stratford-upon-Avon could have been the author of the plays.
And told Arnold Zweig that it almost made him angry that Zweig believed otherwise.
Hermann Hesse was at one time a patient of Jung’s.
William Faulkner once allowed himself to be interviewed on radio during a University of Virginia football game.
And was introduced as a winner of the Mobil Prize.
Wondering if youngsters still read The Count of Monte Cristo.
Dickens’ best friend when, at twelve, he worked in the blacking factory: A boy named Bob Fagin.
I don’t understand them. To me that’s not literature. Said Cormac McCarthy of Henry James and Marcel Proust.
In 1817, being sent at the age of five from India to England for schooling, Thackeray was on a ship that stopped for provisions at an island west of Africa. A servant led him to a garden and impressed upon him to remember the man they saw strolling there.
The island being St. Helena.
At the age of eight or nine, Richard Brautigan once returned home from school and found that his entire family had moved away without a word.
Brautigan lived alone in an empty house for a week before neighbors tracked down an address and took up a collection for bus fare.
Reichenbach Falls.
I never found the companion that was so companionable as solitude. We are for the most part more lonely when we are abroad among men than when we stay in our chambers.
Says Walden.
The greatest artist who has ever written, George Eliot called Jane Austen.
To write only according to the rules laid down by previous classics signifies that one is not a master but a pupil.
Said Prokofiev.
To spend too much time in Studies is Sloth; To use them too much for Ornament is Affectation.
Said Bacon.
The only thing that we learn from history—is that we never learn anything from history.
Hegel said.
From far back in dimmest childhood he had been my ideal Elder Brother, and I still, through the years, saw in him, even as a small timorous boy yet, my protector, my backer, my authority and my pride.
Said Henry James, at the death of William.
Without music, life would be a mistake.
Said Nietzsche.
Age.
Dammit.
No one truly believes in his own death.
Said Freud.
Here are some of my favourite bits from the book:
Werner Heisenberg was thirty-one when he won the Nobel Prize.
And nine years earlier had been given a grade of C on his doctoral examinations.
At the age of seven or eight, Sigmund Freud once deliberately urinated on the floor of his parents’ bedroom.
Mark Twain forgot Becky Thatcher’s name in the eight years between Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn. And called her Bessie Thatcher in the later book.
Thomas Hardy’s anecdote about looking up a word in the dictionary because he wasn’t certain it existed—and finding that he himself was the only authority cited for its usage.
Tolstoy, to Chekhov:
You know I can’t stand Shakespeare’s plays, but yours are worse.
Victor Hugo could never get past page four of Le Rouge et le Noir.
January 1889, in Turin. Nietzsche, weeping, throws his arms around the neck of a mare being beaten by a coachman and then collapses in the street. Essentially the point of no return into his final madness.
A volume of Sherlock Holmes, which fictional Leopold Bloom has borrowed from a Dublin library and which is thirteen days overdue on fictional June 16, 1904, was listed as missing by the actual library in 1906.
Vaslav Nijinsky spent the last thirty-two years of his life in an insane asylum.
Thirty-two.
From a Hemingway letter, on T. S. Eliot:
A damned good poet and a fair critic; but he can kiss my ass as a man.
Keep apart, keep apart and preserve one’s soul alive—that is the teaching for the day. It is ill to have been born in these times, but one can make a world within a world.
Wrote George Gissing.
The curiosity that Jesus never appears to condemn slavery, though mentioning it in passing more than once.
Hobbes. Descartes. Pascal. Spinoza. Locke. Leibniz. Hume. Kant. Schopenhauer. Kierkegaard. Nietzsche. Santayana. Wittgenstein.
Not one of whom ever married.
Sigmund Freud was one of those who categorically refused to allow that the William Shakespeare of Stratford-upon-Avon could have been the author of the plays.
And told Arnold Zweig that it almost made him angry that Zweig believed otherwise.
Hermann Hesse was at one time a patient of Jung’s.
William Faulkner once allowed himself to be interviewed on radio during a University of Virginia football game.
And was introduced as a winner of the Mobil Prize.
Wondering if youngsters still read The Count of Monte Cristo.
Dickens’ best friend when, at twelve, he worked in the blacking factory: A boy named Bob Fagin.
I don’t understand them. To me that’s not literature. Said Cormac McCarthy of Henry James and Marcel Proust.
In 1817, being sent at the age of five from India to England for schooling, Thackeray was on a ship that stopped for provisions at an island west of Africa. A servant led him to a garden and impressed upon him to remember the man they saw strolling there.
The island being St. Helena.
At the age of eight or nine, Richard Brautigan once returned home from school and found that his entire family had moved away without a word.
Brautigan lived alone in an empty house for a week before neighbors tracked down an address and took up a collection for bus fare.
Reichenbach Falls.
I never found the companion that was so companionable as solitude. We are for the most part more lonely when we are abroad among men than when we stay in our chambers.
Says Walden.
The greatest artist who has ever written, George Eliot called Jane Austen.
To write only according to the rules laid down by previous classics signifies that one is not a master but a pupil.
Said Prokofiev.
To spend too much time in Studies is Sloth; To use them too much for Ornament is Affectation.
Said Bacon.
The only thing that we learn from history—is that we never learn anything from history.
Hegel said.
From far back in dimmest childhood he had been my ideal Elder Brother, and I still, through the years, saw in him, even as a small timorous boy yet, my protector, my backer, my authority and my pride.
Said Henry James, at the death of William.
Without music, life would be a mistake.
Said Nietzsche.
Age.
Dammit.
No one truly believes in his own death.
Said Freud.
March 5, 2013
Simple idea executed devastatingly well; quixotically morbid and intriguingly stimulating - altered-state inducing. I love it to death.
August 20, 2021
88th book of 2021.
Have wanted to read David Markson for a long old time but being fairly niche, super-experimental, I haven't had much luck finding his books for reasonable prices, or at all. This is the sort of novel where you ask yourself, How do I rate this?: fascinating and suddenly, at the end, heartbreaking. Quite the accomplishment but in the end this is a novel of factoids endless listed for 200 pages. Whilst reading I was asking myself, But why? Where is this going? The facts were enough to keep me reading as a lover of facts. Most of them revolve around writers/composers/painters/etc. I suppose it is clear through the novel who Markson favours, there are numerous facts about Joyce and Ulysses. I wouldn't say it's a necessity to read it first, but there are facts about characters in it and they are not signposted as being from Ulysses, so you'd wonder who they were. Then again, there were a few names in here I hadn't heard of anyway, real or fictional. A few Dante ones which I liked. Actually, a lot of writers. The pages are fast moving, filled with facts as short as 'Joyce said he spent twenty thousand hours writing Ulysses.' That's it, new paragraph, another single line fact or quote. Quote example: 'To write only according to the rules laid down by previous classics signifies that one is not a master but a pupil. Said Prokofiev.' But it isn't only facts, it couldn't be, as a novel. There are infrequent interruptions by simply 'Author'; example: 'What Balzac would make of a novel of Author's.'
First and foremost I would say if you have interest in spending several hours reading 200 pages of facts and quotes about writers and artists, then read this. If not, then don't. The payoff, however, is surprisingly sudden and painful, because in the end this novel is about death, the loss of memory, about how tiny we really are in our universe. I'll probably add some more of my favourite facts and quotes from this novel in due time. Now the hunt begins, again, to find Markson's other novels from this series (thematic series, I think).
Have wanted to read David Markson for a long old time but being fairly niche, super-experimental, I haven't had much luck finding his books for reasonable prices, or at all. This is the sort of novel where you ask yourself, How do I rate this?: fascinating and suddenly, at the end, heartbreaking. Quite the accomplishment but in the end this is a novel of factoids endless listed for 200 pages. Whilst reading I was asking myself, But why? Where is this going? The facts were enough to keep me reading as a lover of facts. Most of them revolve around writers/composers/painters/etc. I suppose it is clear through the novel who Markson favours, there are numerous facts about Joyce and Ulysses. I wouldn't say it's a necessity to read it first, but there are facts about characters in it and they are not signposted as being from Ulysses, so you'd wonder who they were. Then again, there were a few names in here I hadn't heard of anyway, real or fictional. A few Dante ones which I liked. Actually, a lot of writers. The pages are fast moving, filled with facts as short as 'Joyce said he spent twenty thousand hours writing Ulysses.' That's it, new paragraph, another single line fact or quote. Quote example: 'To write only according to the rules laid down by previous classics signifies that one is not a master but a pupil. Said Prokofiev.' But it isn't only facts, it couldn't be, as a novel. There are infrequent interruptions by simply 'Author'; example: 'What Balzac would make of a novel of Author's.'
First and foremost I would say if you have interest in spending several hours reading 200 pages of facts and quotes about writers and artists, then read this. If not, then don't. The payoff, however, is surprisingly sudden and painful, because in the end this novel is about death, the loss of memory, about how tiny we really are in our universe. I'll probably add some more of my favourite facts and quotes from this novel in due time. Now the hunt begins, again, to find Markson's other novels from this series (thematic series, I think).
August 19, 2024
Markson takes the same approach as in his previous two (anti-)novels in the Notecards series, primarily consisting of the list of anecdotes and factoids, and every once in a while following the thought process of Reader (Reader’s Block), Writer (This Is Not a Novel), and now Author in Vanishing Point. The factoids are not random but rather linked by the common themes, giving us insights into Reader’s/Writer’s/Author’s personal obsessions. Intelligently and playfully Markson uses this mosaic of numerous trivia (probably thousands) to build his principal and only “character” (except in Reader’s Block with a Protagonist as the second character). As many of the themes/obsessions are recurring in all three anti- (non-)novels and some are uncannily autobiographical, it gradually becomes evident that it is a self-portrait of Markson himself.
Some obsessions are permanent. There is always Death hovering over him, this time wondering where he will die,
Stratford-upon-Avon. Hour unrecorded. April 23, 1616.
Madrid. Hour unrecorded. Identical with the foregoing.
What else? That he is Jewish, reminding himself (and us) of many who were anti-Semites in Reader’s Block (though he was wrong about Richard Strauss) while also noticing the ever-present sightings of the Wandering Jew in Western civilization and (being proud of) his kinship with a great few, such as Freud
Freud waved his rights to royalties on translations of his work into Hebrew or Yiddish.
or
Emile Durkheim was the son of a rabbi.
Claude Levi-Strauss was the grandson of a rabbi.
(and later not forgetting that)
Isaac Bashevis Singer’s father was a rabbi.
who avoids inserting politics except that he is:
decidedly NOT a conservative,
The Republicans are as wicked as they are stupid, which is saying a great deal.
Said Bertrand Russell after a visit.
outraged by racism,
Bessie Smith may have been left to bleed to death at a Mississippi roadside after an automobile accident when an ambulance first took away a less severely injured white woman.
Or did she die en route to a second hospital after having been refused admittance at a first?
the history of slavery,
All four of Richard Wright’s grandparents were former slaves.
also troubled that many talented women are still obscure, such as
Emily Sarah Sellwood.
and writing his first (anti-)novel in the aftermath of 9/11,
They were overjoyed when the first plane hit the building; so I said to them: Be patient.
That he is a writer, usually ignored or belittled by critics,
Schopenhauer on critics:
Mistaking their own toy trumpets for the trombones of fame.
not making much money from his book sales,
Edgar Allan Poe’s wife Virginia, dying of tuberculosis in their Fordham cottage—and having to be swaddled in his old army greatcoat because Poe could not afford firewood.
The same coat Poe then wore to the funeral.
wondering why publish anything,
I do at least three paintings a day in my head. What’s the use of spoiling canvas when nobody will buy anything?
Said Modigliani, penniless in Paris in his mid-twenties.
nonetheless treasuring comradery,
The brownstone in Brooklyn Heights where Auden, Benjamin Britten and Peter Pears, Carson McCullers, Paul and Jane Bowles, and Gypsy Rose Lee all once shared boardinghouse style meals—with Auden performing as housemother.
and friendships, no matter how rocky at times,
Dickens was the last mourner to turn aside from Thackeray’s grave.
And then walked off alone.
but mostly being lonely (as he was ever since his Reader’s Block, still the same… verbatim),
Nobody comes. Nobody calls.
sometimes feeling,
The morning’s recollection of the emptiness of the day before.
Its anticipation of the emptiness of the day to come.
and then finding solace in personal passions for opera,
The Aegean, Callas’s ashes were scattered in.
except for Wagner,
Richard Wagner's pink underwear.
and classical music,
Brahms so respected Dvorak as a colleague that he several times willingly assumed the chore of reading proofs of his scores for him.
because
Without music, life would be a mistake.
Said Nietzsche.
also loving Greek classics,
The extent to which Aristophanes quotes or parodies Euripides—so that he appears to know much of the work by heart.
The extraordinary implication that the audience is thus assumed to know it too.
baseball,
Why is it said of a batter in baseball that he fled out rather than that he flew out?
painting and arts,
Delacroix posed for one of the figures in Gericault’s Raft of the Medusa.
and perhaps regretting not learning more foreign languages
Elizabeth Barrett Browning’s fluency in as many as eight languages, including Hebrew.
Including Portuguese.
And that he likes to break the rules…
linguistic,
What did you bring that book I didn't want to be read to out of up for?
logical,
Absence of evidence is not necessarily evidence of absence.
sometimes using
Aposiopesis.
because
To write only according to the rules laid down by previous classics signifies that one is not a master but a pupil.
Said Prokofiev.
so, as also reminding verbatim a reader in the previous two (anti-)novels, he writes this book that is
Nonlinear. Discontinuous. Collage-like. An assemblage.
and
A seminonfictional semifiction.
and
Obstinately cross-referential and of cryptic interconnective syntax.
Probably by this point more than apparent—or surely for the attentive reader. (this is the fourth novel of yours that I’m reading, I better do, Mr. Markson),
and that is dark, witty, immensely sad yet the reader also senses a boyish twinkle in the eye, a playful smirk, until denouement is reached (ah, that vanishing point!) more powerfully than can be found in most novels despite all their finely crafted characters, structure, style, and plots.
Selah.
(what's that, you may ask? why? well, a sort of spoiler so you'll have to read it...)
Some obsessions are permanent. There is always Death hovering over him, this time wondering where he will die,
Stratford-upon-Avon. Hour unrecorded. April 23, 1616.
Madrid. Hour unrecorded. Identical with the foregoing.
What else? That he is Jewish, reminding himself (and us) of many who were anti-Semites in Reader’s Block (though he was wrong about Richard Strauss) while also noticing the ever-present sightings of the Wandering Jew in Western civilization and (being proud of) his kinship with a great few, such as Freud
Freud waved his rights to royalties on translations of his work into Hebrew or Yiddish.
or
Emile Durkheim was the son of a rabbi.
Claude Levi-Strauss was the grandson of a rabbi.
(and later not forgetting that)
Isaac Bashevis Singer’s father was a rabbi.
who avoids inserting politics except that he is:
decidedly NOT a conservative,
The Republicans are as wicked as they are stupid, which is saying a great deal.
Said Bertrand Russell after a visit.
outraged by racism,
Bessie Smith may have been left to bleed to death at a Mississippi roadside after an automobile accident when an ambulance first took away a less severely injured white woman.
Or did she die en route to a second hospital after having been refused admittance at a first?
the history of slavery,
All four of Richard Wright’s grandparents were former slaves.
also troubled that many talented women are still obscure, such as
Emily Sarah Sellwood.
and writing his first (anti-)novel in the aftermath of 9/11,
They were overjoyed when the first plane hit the building; so I said to them: Be patient.
That he is a writer, usually ignored or belittled by critics,
Schopenhauer on critics:
Mistaking their own toy trumpets for the trombones of fame.
not making much money from his book sales,
Edgar Allan Poe’s wife Virginia, dying of tuberculosis in their Fordham cottage—and having to be swaddled in his old army greatcoat because Poe could not afford firewood.
The same coat Poe then wore to the funeral.
wondering why publish anything,
I do at least three paintings a day in my head. What’s the use of spoiling canvas when nobody will buy anything?
Said Modigliani, penniless in Paris in his mid-twenties.
nonetheless treasuring comradery,
The brownstone in Brooklyn Heights where Auden, Benjamin Britten and Peter Pears, Carson McCullers, Paul and Jane Bowles, and Gypsy Rose Lee all once shared boardinghouse style meals—with Auden performing as housemother.
and friendships, no matter how rocky at times,
Dickens was the last mourner to turn aside from Thackeray’s grave.
And then walked off alone.
but mostly being lonely (as he was ever since his Reader’s Block, still the same… verbatim),
Nobody comes. Nobody calls.
sometimes feeling,
The morning’s recollection of the emptiness of the day before.
Its anticipation of the emptiness of the day to come.
and then finding solace in personal passions for opera,
The Aegean, Callas’s ashes were scattered in.
except for Wagner,
Richard Wagner's pink underwear.
and classical music,
Brahms so respected Dvorak as a colleague that he several times willingly assumed the chore of reading proofs of his scores for him.
because
Without music, life would be a mistake.
Said Nietzsche.
also loving Greek classics,
The extent to which Aristophanes quotes or parodies Euripides—so that he appears to know much of the work by heart.
The extraordinary implication that the audience is thus assumed to know it too.
baseball,
Why is it said of a batter in baseball that he fled out rather than that he flew out?
painting and arts,
Delacroix posed for one of the figures in Gericault’s Raft of the Medusa.
and perhaps regretting not learning more foreign languages
Elizabeth Barrett Browning’s fluency in as many as eight languages, including Hebrew.
Including Portuguese.
And that he likes to break the rules…
linguistic,
What did you bring that book I didn't want to be read to out of up for?
logical,
Absence of evidence is not necessarily evidence of absence.
sometimes using
Aposiopesis.
because
To write only according to the rules laid down by previous classics signifies that one is not a master but a pupil.
Said Prokofiev.
so, as also reminding verbatim a reader in the previous two (anti-)novels, he writes this book that is
Nonlinear. Discontinuous. Collage-like. An assemblage.
and
A seminonfictional semifiction.
and
Obstinately cross-referential and of cryptic interconnective syntax.
Probably by this point more than apparent—or surely for the attentive reader. (this is the fourth novel of yours that I’m reading, I better do, Mr. Markson),
and that is dark, witty, immensely sad yet the reader also senses a boyish twinkle in the eye, a playful smirk, until denouement is reached (ah, that vanishing point!) more powerfully than can be found in most novels despite all their finely crafted characters, structure, style, and plots.
Selah.
(what's that, you may ask? why? well, a sort of spoiler so you'll have to read it...)
January 24, 2024
"از نظر رمی دوگورمون دو نوع نویسنده وجود دارد: نویسندههایی که میتوانند بنویسند و نویسندههایی که نمیتوانند بنویسند."
از متن کتاب
مواجهه با کتابی چنین غریب و رادیکال واقعا سخت است. "لحظه زوال" عاری از هرگونه معنای تثبیتشده یا مفهومی است. متنی که نه زمان میشناسد، نه شخصیت دارد(نویسنده تنها شخصیت کتاب است که گاهوبیگاه در خطوطی از کتاب ظاهر میشود اما به معنی واقعی کلمه شخصیت نیست)، نه رویدادی در آن اتفاق میافتد و نه در پی رسیدن به معنایی است. یک کلاژ هزارتکه از تکجملاتی که به انسانهای بیربط یا موقعیتهای غریب ارجاع میدهد و فرم بیپلاتش از خلال همین جملات بیربط شکل میگیرد.
خواندنش تجربه متفاوتی است.
از متن کتاب
مواجهه با کتابی چنین غریب و رادیکال واقعا سخت است. "لحظه زوال" عاری از هرگونه معنای تثبیتشده یا مفهومی است. متنی که نه زمان میشناسد، نه شخصیت دارد(نویسنده تنها شخصیت کتاب است که گاهوبیگاه در خطوطی از کتاب ظاهر میشود اما به معنی واقعی کلمه شخصیت نیست)، نه رویدادی در آن اتفاق میافتد و نه در پی رسیدن به معنایی است. یک کلاژ هزارتکه از تکجملاتی که به انسانهای بیربط یا موقعیتهای غریب ارجاع میدهد و فرم بیپلاتش از خلال همین جملات بیربط شکل میگیرد.
خواندنش تجربه متفاوتی است.
May 30, 2011
The book is 191 pages long, containing exactly 1927 anecdotes
which happens to be the year Author was born.
Reviewer made that bit up, about the number of anecdotes.
But not the bit about Author being born.
What was it Author quotes Anatole France as having said on page thirty-one?
Brahms was forty-three before he completed his first symphony.
A symphony is no joke--unquote,
says Author on page twenty-four.
Vanishing Point.
This Is Not a Novel.
Reviewer is intrigued that this novel reads like a collection of tweets.
A novel which was written by hand on notecards.
Then after many revisions, typewritten.
Seven wealthy towns contend for Homer dead,
Through which the living Homer begged his bread.
quotes Author on page eighty-three.
The thought occurs to Reviewer that he has read the words of this book many times before.
Just not in this order.
Witter Gitter Man, Prof, Vicky, Herr Sinckel-Winckel.
Names Wittgenstein was called.
Death and art and petty egos, this book is about.
And grammatical inversions.
The mackerel-crowded seas
mentioned on page one-eighteen.
Wittgenstein's Vienna. Wittgenstein's Nephew. Wittgenstein's Ladder. Wittgenstein's Poker.
Recites Author on page one-seventy-five.
He forgot Wittgenstein's Mistress .
What was it Marianne Moore said about omissions?
A great novel...unless you're in the mood to read a novel.
Says one Goodreads reviewer.
Henry James Salon, on Peachtree Street, Atlanta GA.
Artists and madness, artists and death, artists and money, artists and myth
Is it only this Reviewer’s wish that Author was less preoccupied with artists?
Or is the artist some kind of representative?
Vanishing Point.
Not a Memoir.
Echoes. Reverberations.
For pointillism to work, some of the points must be less pronounced.
Virginia Woolf’s quote about her intended suicide on page one-sixty-eight.
Anecdote about Kurt Vonnegut’s cunning on page one-seventy-one.
Praise on the back cover, Vonnegut’s.
The fact that Ingmar Bergman and Michelangelo Antonioni died the same day.
Voice of Author in Reviewer’s head.
Reviewer wonders if he’ll be able to think again in non-discreet units.
Reviewer is illiterate.
In all languages but one.
Charles Darwin was known to slice a fat book in half, to make it easier to handle.
Or to rip out any sections he was not interested in.
That lump, Ezra Pound called Robert Lowell.
Why is it Reviewer can’t keep himself out of this review
As much as Author can’t keep himself out of this book?
We can say nothing but what has been said; the composition and method is ours only.
Author says Burton says.
You mean Wally wrote poetry?
A colleague of Wallace Stevens’ remarked upon the poet’s death.
Far off I heard the orchestra tuning their instruments.
Says someone.
Selah.
which happens to be the year Author was born.
Reviewer made that bit up, about the number of anecdotes.
But not the bit about Author being born.
What was it Author quotes Anatole France as having said on page thirty-one?
Brahms was forty-three before he completed his first symphony.
A symphony is no joke--unquote,
says Author on page twenty-four.
Vanishing Point.
This Is Not a Novel.
Reviewer is intrigued that this novel reads like a collection of tweets.
A novel which was written by hand on notecards.
Then after many revisions, typewritten.
Seven wealthy towns contend for Homer dead,
Through which the living Homer begged his bread.
quotes Author on page eighty-three.
The thought occurs to Reviewer that he has read the words of this book many times before.
Just not in this order.
Witter Gitter Man, Prof, Vicky, Herr Sinckel-Winckel.
Names Wittgenstein was called.
Death and art and petty egos, this book is about.
And grammatical inversions.
The mackerel-crowded seas
mentioned on page one-eighteen.
Wittgenstein's Vienna. Wittgenstein's Nephew. Wittgenstein's Ladder. Wittgenstein's Poker.
Recites Author on page one-seventy-five.
He forgot Wittgenstein's Mistress .
What was it Marianne Moore said about omissions?
A great novel...unless you're in the mood to read a novel.
Says one Goodreads reviewer.
Henry James Salon, on Peachtree Street, Atlanta GA.
Artists and madness, artists and death, artists and money, artists and myth
Is it only this Reviewer’s wish that Author was less preoccupied with artists?
Or is the artist some kind of representative?
Vanishing Point.
Not a Memoir.
Echoes. Reverberations.
For pointillism to work, some of the points must be less pronounced.
Virginia Woolf’s quote about her intended suicide on page one-sixty-eight.
Anecdote about Kurt Vonnegut’s cunning on page one-seventy-one.
Praise on the back cover, Vonnegut’s.
The fact that Ingmar Bergman and Michelangelo Antonioni died the same day.
Voice of Author in Reviewer’s head.
Reviewer wonders if he’ll be able to think again in non-discreet units.
Reviewer is illiterate.
In all languages but one.
Charles Darwin was known to slice a fat book in half, to make it easier to handle.
Or to rip out any sections he was not interested in.
That lump, Ezra Pound called Robert Lowell.
Why is it Reviewer can’t keep himself out of this review
As much as Author can’t keep himself out of this book?
We can say nothing but what has been said; the composition and method is ours only.
Author says Burton says.
You mean Wally wrote poetry?
A colleague of Wallace Stevens’ remarked upon the poet’s death.
Far off I heard the orchestra tuning their instruments.
Says someone.
Selah.
May 26, 2023
رمانی در سبک پست مدرنیسم و آوانگارد ،کتاب لحظه زوال سبک خطی و معمول داستان ها رو نداره و در واقع داستان به شکل کلاژگونه روایت میشه،مارکسون در این کتاب فکت هایی از نویسنده ها و هنرمندان مختلف میاره و برای هر کدوم با گفتن یک جمله ازش عبور میکنه و خواننده رو در این ابهام که کتاب قراره چه جوری پیش بره و با گفتن این فکت ها قراره به چه چیزی برسیم رها میکنه تا پایان کتاب که به زیبایی با مسئله مرگ و نیستی تموم میشه .
خیلی از فکت ها خیلی جالب هستن و معنی اسم کتاب که همون لحظه زوال هست درش دیده میشه ،انگار نویسنده فکت هایی رو آورده که لحظه زوالی رو در خودشون جای داده بودند،فکر میکنم برای کسی که به خوندن داستان به سبک روایت خطی علاقه دارند زیاد جالب نیست ،اما من لذت بردم و شیفته این نویسنده شدم.
خیلی از فکت ها خیلی جالب هستن و معنی اسم کتاب که همون لحظه زوال هست درش دیده میشه ،انگار نویسنده فکت هایی رو آورده که لحظه زوالی رو در خودشون جای داده بودند،فکر میکنم برای کسی که به خوندن داستان به سبک روایت خطی علاقه دارند زیاد جالب نیست ،اما من لذت بردم و شیفته این نویسنده شدم.
December 27, 2017
Titbits and Trifles
David Markson wrote four novels purporting to consist of collections of one or two sentence aphorisms, anecdotes and facts that he had “scribbled on three-by-five-inch index cards”.
The facts in this novel relate to artists, composers, musicians, performers, philosophers, sculptors and writers (including their time, place and circumstances of death - perhaps their vanishing point?).
If the writer known as Author can be believed, it reminds me of the days before the Interweb thingie, when some readers might cut quotations out of newspapers (nowadays, I only cut out quotations from unpurchased Vollmann or Gass novels I find in bookshops, so if you ever find a space in one of their books where there was once an unclipped clipping, you know it was me).
I still have all of these clippings stored in manila folders. Some of the later folders contain print-outs of web pages, when I was afraid I might lose them due to their ephemerality, not realising that cyberspace might actually be forever. This was obviously in the days before you could save web pages into another app, even if you could bookmark them.
I doubt whether I’ve ever re-read more than a dozen out of my hundreds of clippings. Theoretically, there is an entire intellectual history of my post-adolescence sitting in the folders, that will just be thrown out or burned when or before I die.
Funny how I was trying to guard against the ephemerality of inspiration, but ultimately recognised that the clippings were part and parcel of my own sense of mortality.
It's hard to work out whether David Markson found his facts in books or reviews of books. He obviously read a lot of books and/or newspapers.
Author gives the impression that he resorted to typing up his notes when he “seems not to have had much energy lately, to tell the truth...Author assumes that much of his lack of energy is simply a matter of age…”
Either a writer's block or Author's sense of mortality encouraged him to type up his notes and pass them off as a novel.
Markson says of the last of his novels that 98.5% of it consisted of these notes, while the remaining 1.5% (no more than three pages) consisted of authorial interstitials, which might be the only things that he has written, as opposed to simply re-typing. He regards the real act of creativity as being in the rearrangement of his notes:
Ross Bleckner's "The Arrangement of Things"
“My Schtick Weighs a Ton”
Soon afterwards, Author refers to what has started to emerge as “Nonlinear. Discontinuous. Collage-like. An assemblage...a novel of intellectual reference and allusion, so to speak minus much of the novel.”
In an age of appropriation, re-appropriation and misappropriation, this suggests that we might be little more than the sum of our allusions.
Author then describes his novel as “a seminonfictional semifiction.” It’s also Author’s “experiment to see how little of his own presence he can get away with throughout.”
This last comment might be disingenuous. How concerted was Author’s attempt to totally remove himself from the text? Did he only do so in the hope or expectation that some aspect of the Author might emerge in the text, whether by some act, omission or insertion by the Author or Markson himself, or by inference by us, the readers?
This begs a larger question: is any novel only that which we readers infer? How much does the Author have to do with what we infer? How much is the Author responsible (or irresponsible)?
Conversely, how much credit for the above ideas is owed to Author or David Markson?
Is the novel his book? Is it any more aesthetically rewarding than a dictionary of quotations or a concordance of references to death in the books or newspapers that Markson sought out and read?
After all, it has been argued in courts of law that:
There is no copyright in facts.
There is no copyright in lists.
There is no copyright in lists of facts.
If it can be said that this is an experiment by David Markson, does it remain an experiment, when he repeats the experiment for the first, second or third time? When does an innovation cease to be innovative? Can Author breach his own copyright? If so, can he sue himself? Does an Author’s originality survive its repetition? By himself or by another writer? Is Author only innovative, if he can find a critic who will assert and promote the fact of his innovation? Does Author remain innovative, when he is dead? Does Author survive the death of David Markson? Does his novel? Whose novel is it anyway?
I hasten on to the next and final instalment.
SOUNDTRACK:
David Markson wrote four novels purporting to consist of collections of one or two sentence aphorisms, anecdotes and facts that he had “scribbled on three-by-five-inch index cards”.
The facts in this novel relate to artists, composers, musicians, performers, philosophers, sculptors and writers (including their time, place and circumstances of death - perhaps their vanishing point?).
If the writer known as Author can be believed, it reminds me of the days before the Interweb thingie, when some readers might cut quotations out of newspapers (nowadays, I only cut out quotations from unpurchased Vollmann or Gass novels I find in bookshops, so if you ever find a space in one of their books where there was once an unclipped clipping, you know it was me).
I still have all of these clippings stored in manila folders. Some of the later folders contain print-outs of web pages, when I was afraid I might lose them due to their ephemerality, not realising that cyberspace might actually be forever. This was obviously in the days before you could save web pages into another app, even if you could bookmark them.
I doubt whether I’ve ever re-read more than a dozen out of my hundreds of clippings. Theoretically, there is an entire intellectual history of my post-adolescence sitting in the folders, that will just be thrown out or burned when or before I die.
Funny how I was trying to guard against the ephemerality of inspiration, but ultimately recognised that the clippings were part and parcel of my own sense of mortality.
It's hard to work out whether David Markson found his facts in books or reviews of books. He obviously read a lot of books and/or newspapers.
Author gives the impression that he resorted to typing up his notes when he “seems not to have had much energy lately, to tell the truth...Author assumes that much of his lack of energy is simply a matter of age…”
Either a writer's block or Author's sense of mortality encouraged him to type up his notes and pass them off as a novel.
Markson says of the last of his novels that 98.5% of it consisted of these notes, while the remaining 1.5% (no more than three pages) consisted of authorial interstitials, which might be the only things that he has written, as opposed to simply re-typing. He regards the real act of creativity as being in the rearrangement of his notes:
“...he’s done a good deal of shuffling and re-arranging of the index cards. Author is pretty sure that most of them are basically in the sequence he wants…
“Not that rearranging his notes means that Author has any idea where the book is headed, on the other hand. Ideally, in fact, it will wind up someplace that will surprise even Author himself.”
Ross Bleckner's "The Arrangement of Things"
“My Schtick Weighs a Ton”
Soon afterwards, Author refers to what has started to emerge as “Nonlinear. Discontinuous. Collage-like. An assemblage...a novel of intellectual reference and allusion, so to speak minus much of the novel.”
In an age of appropriation, re-appropriation and misappropriation, this suggests that we might be little more than the sum of our allusions.
Author then describes his novel as “a seminonfictional semifiction.” It’s also Author’s “experiment to see how little of his own presence he can get away with throughout.”
This last comment might be disingenuous. How concerted was Author’s attempt to totally remove himself from the text? Did he only do so in the hope or expectation that some aspect of the Author might emerge in the text, whether by some act, omission or insertion by the Author or Markson himself, or by inference by us, the readers?
This begs a larger question: is any novel only that which we readers infer? How much does the Author have to do with what we infer? How much is the Author responsible (or irresponsible)?
Conversely, how much credit for the above ideas is owed to Author or David Markson?
Is the novel his book? Is it any more aesthetically rewarding than a dictionary of quotations or a concordance of references to death in the books or newspapers that Markson sought out and read?
After all, it has been argued in courts of law that:
There is no copyright in facts.
There is no copyright in lists.
There is no copyright in lists of facts.
If it can be said that this is an experiment by David Markson, does it remain an experiment, when he repeats the experiment for the first, second or third time? When does an innovation cease to be innovative? Can Author breach his own copyright? If so, can he sue himself? Does an Author’s originality survive its repetition? By himself or by another writer? Is Author only innovative, if he can find a critic who will assert and promote the fact of his innovation? Does Author remain innovative, when he is dead? Does Author survive the death of David Markson? Does his novel? Whose novel is it anyway?
I hasten on to the next and final instalment.
SOUNDTRACK:
January 15, 2012
Hard to know what to say about this one. Starts out with 100 pages of little quotes and tidbits about various artists, mostly writers and poets and painters. Then, subtly, turns into a meditation (I hate using that word to describe any book, but here it's appropriate) on both mortality and immortality-through-art. Or, in other words, what is being a genius worth if you still have to die?
November 26, 2013
A wonderful dance around Death, with the smoke from the twin towers traced through it. It is not just the choices of the biographical details which are so perfect, but the language used to express them is often dazzling - the chosen word order of the sentences is particularly impressive. And, once again, we sense a man, and a life, and sorrow, in the gaps and the whispers.
April 18, 2008
A great novel...unless you're in the mood to read a novel.
July 18, 2012
I love David Markson. He is the best thing to happen to me this year. I read his "Reader's Block" in spring, which was similar to this and, coming first, bowled me over more. But this is about as good. I don't recommend him to anyone because I am trying to keep him a secret, but hey, if you've read this far, know he's marvelous.
September 2, 2017
From Wiki DM's style described as: '.. his later novels are, in Markson's words, "literally crammed with literary and artistic anecdotes" and "nonlinear, discontinuous, collage-like, an assemblage."
Yep, that's aptly put and let me tell ya these books (several in this style) are delightful to read! It's easy to finish in one or two sittings, EASY. True also does this style resemble what Wittgenstein did in his book(s). Style-wise that is AND Ludwig DID also make landfall a few times as anecdote himself in "Vanishing Point" - as did numerous other philosophers going back to ancients. It comes to mind now too that Simon Chritchley's "The Book of Dead Philosophers" also used this chopped format of anecdotal squibs to make fun (I suppose) of the whacky way so many bigtop circus thinkers met their demise. I think these books' style might be good to entice "non-readers" to join ranks, step out on the plank and plunge into what we all hold as "passion ground" for the soul. It fits to the current mindset of limited concentration, of needy stimulus to engage prolonged fixation upon subject. I think I shall test this theory on some one whose not read a book in years; will let you know if it works!
Yep, that's aptly put and let me tell ya these books (several in this style) are delightful to read! It's easy to finish in one or two sittings, EASY. True also does this style resemble what Wittgenstein did in his book(s). Style-wise that is AND Ludwig DID also make landfall a few times as anecdote himself in "Vanishing Point" - as did numerous other philosophers going back to ancients. It comes to mind now too that Simon Chritchley's "The Book of Dead Philosophers" also used this chopped format of anecdotal squibs to make fun (I suppose) of the whacky way so many bigtop circus thinkers met their demise. I think these books' style might be good to entice "non-readers" to join ranks, step out on the plank and plunge into what we all hold as "passion ground" for the soul. It fits to the current mindset of limited concentration, of needy stimulus to engage prolonged fixation upon subject. I think I shall test this theory on some one whose not read a book in years; will let you know if it works!
Read
January 23, 2018David Markson is a writer who writes like this.
They remind you of haikus, often-times with Yoda-esque syntax.
Unlike other haiku writers, he never wrote a formal death poem, Basho didn't.
And sometimes it gets obnoxious, after all it is easy to parody.
But sometimes it haunts you.
Like the ending of Vanishing Point does, which is as graceful as a perfect 10 gymnastic landing.
And you realize that they're not just gimmicks, these little lines.
They remind you of haikus, often-times with Yoda-esque syntax.
Unlike other haiku writers, he never wrote a formal death poem, Basho didn't.
And sometimes it gets obnoxious, after all it is easy to parody.
But sometimes it haunts you.
Like the ending of Vanishing Point does, which is as graceful as a perfect 10 gymnastic landing.
And you realize that they're not just gimmicks, these little lines.
March 23, 2017
This is an interesting novel which stylewise reminded me of Invisible Cities and 1913 - Der Sommer des Jahrhunderts, both fantastic books. It consists of a huge number of anecdotes, facts, quotes etc. but what I was missing a bit was the story. It exists, but there is so very little of it that you could almost miss it. If you want to understand this book at all you have to read it from beginning to end and not just parts of it because otherwise you won't understand the end. Like in Invisible Cities it would be very interesting to do some research on some of the epigraphs, take a closer look at the structure etc.
Thsi book is not for everyone because you often need quite a broad education to understand what the author is talking about. It's an interesting experiment but still readable.
Thsi book is not for everyone because you often need quite a broad education to understand what the author is talking about. It's an interesting experiment but still readable.
June 13, 2008
Same sort of thing sort of suggesting things about aging avant-garde Author via quotes and factoids re: superfamous artists throughout time, though this one maybe focuses more on one famous artist calling another famous artist a hack and therefore suggests a certain bitterness on behalf of Author, who clearly associates himself with the exulted, underrecognized-in-their-time geniuses who died poor, like William Blake, El Greco, et al. Always worthwhile to read now and again in small doses till you reach a point 3/4ths through and need to finish in one sitting, or lying in bed, in my case. Nothing like Markson.
Read
May 27, 2025I've reviewed a different edition here .
October 3, 2015
Markson's books work best in retrospect. This is now the second of his I've read, and both times, I felt baffled and confused and a little bit angry as I was reading through them, although I was more receptive to this than I was to Wittgenstein's Mistress because a) I knew I liked Wittgenstein's Mistress a lot once I got through it and b) the little anecdotes about famous painters, sculptors philosophers, composers, writers, and just a few filmmakers were often fascinating. Even in those cases where I didn't recognize the names - often of mathematicians and critics of bygone days - I was still interested in how they related to each other. He humanizes these legendary figures, emphasizing not their massive achievements but rather their quirks and failings and petty little feuds.
Which is all good and fine, but might not add up to a novel. I read this for grad school, and half of the fiction workshop we discussed it in thought it was unbearable shit and insisted they "didn't and would never get it," which to me is the cop-out to end all cop-outs. One of the big criticisms was that it didn't feel like a novel at all, but rather like a collection of random anecdotes about famous people (the "I-could've-done-that" card, which I never approve of, was pulled by at least two students) slopped together. That was sort of my perspective at first, but as I read and as I've reflected, the thematic clusters and inevitable destination of these anecdotes have emerged. I wonder what would've happened if Markson had arranged them in such a way that they tell a clearer narrative - would it make a stronger novel, would it make more of a novel to begin with, or would it upset the balancing act between writing and destroying a novel that Markson pulls here, and what's more pulls like a total pro? I don't know. I still have more questions about this book than answers, and I'm definitely open to rereading it.
Bottom line: it's a selection of anecdotes that are less random and more connected than you might think. If you remove the famous people from the equation and just consider the events themselves, you really are granted a clear picture of a character and a somewhat fuzzy but still extant picture of his life's story. The windswept loneliness of the last ten pages rival the ending of Wittgenstein's Mistress in terms of sheer existential dread, and I might like this as a whole more. Don't be surprised if this ends up with a five before too long. Not bad for a book I'd initially given a three to.
Which is all good and fine, but might not add up to a novel. I read this for grad school, and half of the fiction workshop we discussed it in thought it was unbearable shit and insisted they "didn't and would never get it," which to me is the cop-out to end all cop-outs. One of the big criticisms was that it didn't feel like a novel at all, but rather like a collection of random anecdotes about famous people (the "I-could've-done-that" card, which I never approve of, was pulled by at least two students) slopped together. That was sort of my perspective at first, but as I read and as I've reflected, the thematic clusters and inevitable destination of these anecdotes have emerged. I wonder what would've happened if Markson had arranged them in such a way that they tell a clearer narrative - would it make a stronger novel, would it make more of a novel to begin with, or would it upset the balancing act between writing and destroying a novel that Markson pulls here, and what's more pulls like a total pro? I don't know. I still have more questions about this book than answers, and I'm definitely open to rereading it.
Bottom line: it's a selection of anecdotes that are less random and more connected than you might think. If you remove the famous people from the equation and just consider the events themselves, you really are granted a clear picture of a character and a somewhat fuzzy but still extant picture of his life's story. The windswept loneliness of the last ten pages rival the ending of Wittgenstein's Mistress in terms of sheer existential dread, and I might like this as a whole more. Don't be surprised if this ends up with a five before too long. Not bad for a book I'd initially given a three to.
August 31, 2011
The web of allusions Markson weaves here isn't as taut and doesn't quite sustain the brilliance of "Reader's Block." On the other hand, "Vanishing Point" is funnier and not nearly so difficult to parse. The ending is also effectively devastating. So it's a small step down, but still a brilliant effort. Curious to read the other two books in this loose series, see how they all fit together.
October 14, 2021
Cheeky/clever novel posing as a series of facts about creative types (scientists/artists/writers) from classical times to present (2004 - there are some 9/11 references). Gradually though 'author' inserts himself into the lines, and you become intrigued by what's happening 'underneath' the steady accumulation of information. To enjoy you have to like learning obscure facts such as Mallarme brought a 'nodding bunch of violets' to the funeral of Verlaine - there's a lot on where people died and who attended their funerals - or that Eliot, John Reed, Alan Seeger and Walter Lippmann were in the same class at Harvard - or that Leonardo at the end of his life said he had wasted his hours. I do.
April 11, 2012
Half of this book isn't written down. It's in the reader's head. It is different for each reader. If nothing else, it is certainly more than the sum of its parts. This is not surprising considering its 'parts' are scarcely more than random facts.
The premise is simple: an author is reorganizing a stack of index cards, each of which bears a factoid. He has them pretty much in the order he likes, and this is what you, the reader, are presented with.
But it is what goes on in your head while reading these 'cards' that makes the book. Weirdly, it is every bit as addictive as it is plotless. By some mystery of literary mastery, it all makes perfect and coherent sense in the end. The truth you are left with is long-lasting, and would shake even the stoniest of hearts.
It is a credit to the author-- the book's true author-- that he has accomplished so much with little more than what seems to be an experiment in the employment of excessive non-sequitors. However, I suppose that in order to be a master of prose as Markson is hailed, one would have to be a master in its deconstruction as well.
The premise is simple: an author is reorganizing a stack of index cards, each of which bears a factoid. He has them pretty much in the order he likes, and this is what you, the reader, are presented with.
But it is what goes on in your head while reading these 'cards' that makes the book. Weirdly, it is every bit as addictive as it is plotless. By some mystery of literary mastery, it all makes perfect and coherent sense in the end. The truth you are left with is long-lasting, and would shake even the stoniest of hearts.
It is a credit to the author-- the book's true author-- that he has accomplished so much with little more than what seems to be an experiment in the employment of excessive non-sequitors. However, I suppose that in order to be a master of prose as Markson is hailed, one would have to be a master in its deconstruction as well.
February 26, 2020
thoroughly enjoyable and educational. the best art / lit / music history course i’ve ever taken. something to be reread every few years.
January 6, 2023
Markson ya me sorprendió gratamente con La amante de Wittgenstein, en Punto de fuga no hace otra cosa que confirmar mis sospechas. Un escritor muy especial.
November 23, 2015
A great message is hidden in this amazing book!
December 15, 2023
I'm just fascinated reading these books by David Markson. I started with This is Not a Novel, now finished Vanishing Point, and have started the third, The Last Novel. A compilation of information, about writers, philosophers, painters, about art, life, deaths, about work and ambition and gossip, with the "Author" figuring in rarely, sporadically, but enough to get a small sense of him, his aging, his exhaustion, his desire to write a novel free from all that we consider comprises a novel. The connections made between all these pieces of information, back to antiquity, is really wholly dependent on the reader. The books are bracing, odd reading palate cleansers, you don't, or I don't always know, who I'm reading about, but it doesn't really matter at all.
January 28, 2008
Markson was first brought to my attention by a colleague, and then shortly after by stumbling upon one of his novels buried deep within the literary criticism section of our library, presumably because our catalogers had taken the title, 'This Is Not a Novel,' at face value. Not an ironic lot on the whole, catalogers. And finally because I came across him in an utterly different context with the reprint of a pair of old crime thrillers he wrote – Death of a Deadbeat and Death of a …/ I mention my oblique and happenstance approach to the writer because it seems to mirror his own approach to the novel. Here is the novel fully deconstructed: fragments and scraps, facts, jottings and bits of trivia. (Is everything trivial? Is anything?) This assemblage of quotes and quips from myriad sources is far more inviting than some other experimental authors, having the compulsive readability of, say, that old ‘Book of Lists’ or Paul Harvey’s compilations of ‘The Rest of the Story,’ both of which I can recall reading with one hand as I delivered papers with the other in my youth. I have always enjoyed the fragmentary and aphoristic, from Georg Lichtenberg’s The Waste Books to Antonio Porchia’s Voices to Felix Feneon’s Novels in Three Lines, and this fits right in. Themes and patterns emerge, and death stalks the card file. Great men’s deaths: the locations of. The mutability of fate, the fragility of fame; not surprising topics for an author setting forth on his eighth decade. And the author himself does interject from time to time, at first seeming no more authorial than we the reader, which may ultimately be the point of the exercise. Or is there something else in control of these notes? Whatever its point, the experience is great. Here are the footnotes of a life. And in the end we find, as Randall Jarrell wrote (and Markson repeats) “The ways we miss our life are life.”
November 26, 2012
A novel that questions the very need for structure in literary form, setting aside plot and narrative in favour of what seem like random pieces of trivia and insights. The story that does exist is ostensibly about Author, who is organizing his boxes of notecards with the intention of writing a novel.
The writing seems awkward at first: rather stilted, with an affectation for dangling prepositions and, to use a word supplied by the novel itself, aposiopeses. Odd though it sounds, the style is unique enough that it honestly felt like a literary work rather than a simple rhyming off of facts. The sum was much more than the parts.
Both epic and intimate, ribald and delicate, ebullient and morose—Vanishing Point packed an incredibly diversified reading experience into a surprisingly slim package. It's not a book I would recommend to many people, but I certainly appreciated Markson's unusual blend of art and erudition.
The writing seems awkward at first: rather stilted, with an affectation for dangling prepositions and, to use a word supplied by the novel itself, aposiopeses. Odd though it sounds, the style is unique enough that it honestly felt like a literary work rather than a simple rhyming off of facts. The sum was much more than the parts.
Both epic and intimate, ribald and delicate, ebullient and morose—Vanishing Point packed an incredibly diversified reading experience into a surprisingly slim package. It's not a book I would recommend to many people, but I certainly appreciated Markson's unusual blend of art and erudition.
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