Reading 1001 discussion

I have been struggling to read Thomas Bernhard’s Correction, so switched to this book instead. There are similarities: the stream of consciousness, the lack of action, the repetition, the references to Wittgenstein and philosophy, and the wondering about whether philosophy is being ridiculed. But the two books are so different. Despite, or probably because of the repetition, this is so readable, so entertaining, just absolutely a pleasure to read. I have not read more than a précis of Wittgenstein and do not understand why the protagonist might have been his mistress, in that Wittgenstein was gay and unlikely to have literally to have had a mistress, but there are similarities to Bernhard’s Wittgenstein’s Nephew, which was published six years earlier. Was Markson mocking that novel? He certainly was making fun of the whole Western cannon from the Trojan Wars to Germaine Greer. And to the twentieth century philosophers Heidegger and Wittgenstein. I may not have understood all the references but it was great fun to read anyway.

Markson, the author, has written a novel that is engaging, quite readable, a gentle mockery on Western culture and a tremendously sad dive into loneliness. Our narrator, Kate, is keeping a diary that reads as stream of consciousness, although every paragraph is only a few sentences and each encapsulated thought stands alone only to be stitched together into a view of her life over time. She works hard at making herself clear, nodding to Wittgenstein's philosophy, and these clear thoughts are what make the novel so very readable. As someone who has studied art and art history, it was a delight to find Kate drawing quite often dubious connections between artists and yet giving one references that pitched some familiar works into new light. One thinks of Wittgenstein's Mistress as being his relationship to words, ("the bewitchment of our intelligence by means of language"). Kate, through words, attempts to investigate artists, greek mythology, philosophy and a few other writers. Kate lives alone in the world. She does not discuss what happened that brought this about but she does discuss more personal aspects of her life that would have caused her to be largely alone, including the death of her son. The irony builds quietly over time as Kate's crisp and clear statements begin to tangle with past renditions of these thoughts. For example, her son's name changes. She talks of the Night Watch being in the Tate (as a national treasure, the Night Watch has never left the Rijksmuseum). She credits Michelangelo with a quote and then later credits Leonardo with the same quote. She believes Anna Karenina's cat is run over by a train, Kate obsesses a bit about cats, when it is Anna herself that suffers that fate. Kate, as the last surviving curator of the world, can not keep her facts straight. She loves the idea of making a new world in any manner that she should wish, but without a culture to surround her and endorse her, what does it matter? The ultimate loneliness is striving toward clear communication when there is no one to communicate with.

I listened to this as an audiobook and loved it. The narrator was great, and the spirals of repetition and elucidation ("that is to say, obviously, to tell the truth...") come across when read aloud like waves lapping on the shores of the Hamptons, NY, where the main character is living completely alone - although she is the unreliable narrator par excellence, because we have nothing but her own words to go on. There are no other characters appearing, except in the past, and those exchange names and characteristics in a very fluid way. Many who do appear are famous or mythical people, from the author William Gaddis whose lap may or may not have once been occupied by the protagonist's cat, to Helen of Troy, who once ran off with a lover, which act has not been forgiven or forgotten in 3000 years, as the protagonist (who has perhaps herself run off with lovers in the past) is at pains to point out. She may be mentally ill - she may be telling the truth (but then how did she get from the museums of Europe to the coast of North America?) - or she may be writing a novel. In the end to me it didn't matter. The cadence of this narrative was enough for me to give it 5 stars.

*** 1/2

That's the kind of twisted, experimental writing I like. The narrator, Kate, has lost the plot and tries to remember a long list of things that have happened recently to prove to us that she is the only person left of earth. In stuttering stream of consciousness, she postulates, retracts, repeats and revisits all the events and places she believes she has experienced or witnessed, some belonging to a broader historical perspective (from the Trojan Wars to the 20th century), others to her personal life, while using at times some of the analytical tools used by Wittgenstein (hello tautologies and contradictions!). It's not that easy to read, but with some effort, you end up catching the rhythm(s).