David Markson

David Markson
David Markson

David Markson in September 2007
Born December 20, 1927(1927-12-20)
Albany, New York
Died (body found) June 4, 2010(2010-06-04) (aged 82)
Greenwich Village, New York
Occupation Novelist
Education M.A., Columbia University
Period postmodern
Genres experimental fiction
Notable work(s) Going Down, Springer's Progress, Wittgenstein's Mistress, Reader's Block, This Is Not A Novel, Vanishing Point, The Last Novel

David Markson (December 20, 1927 – c. June 4, 2010)[1] was an American novelist, born David Merrill Markson[2] in Albany, New York.[3] He is the author of several postmodern novels, including Springer's Progress, Wittgenstein's Mistress, and Reader's Block. His final book, 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."[4]

Markson's work is characterized by an unconventional approach to narrative and plot. The late writer David Foster Wallace hailed Wittgenstein's Mistress as "pretty much the high point of experimental fiction in this country."[5] While his early works draw on the modernist tradition of William Faulkner and Malcolm Lowry, his later novels are, in Markson's words, "literally crammed with literary and artistic anecdotes" and "nonlinear, discontinuous, collage-like, an assemblage."[6]

In addition to his output of modernist and postmodernist experimental literature, he has published a book of poetry[3], a critical study of Malcolm Lowry[7], three crime novels, and what's been called an anti-Western.

The movie Dirty Dingus Magee, starring Frank Sinatra, is based on Markson's anti-Western, The Ballad of Dingus Magee.[8].

Contents

Biography

David Merrill Markson was born in Albany, NY, on December 20, 1927.

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.[9]

Though his first novel was published in the late fifties, he didn't gain prominence until the late eighties, when he was over 60 years old, with the publication of Wittgenstein's Mistress. From this point, his fame as an underappreciated writer steadily grew, so much so that he told an interviewer: "One of my friends told me to be careful before I become well known for being unknown."[10]

Markson died in New York City, in his West Village apartment where, according to the author's literary agent and former wife Elaine Markson, Markson's two children found him on June 4, 2010 in his bed.[1][11]

Upon David Markson's death, his entire personal library was donated to the Strand Bookstore, his favorite place in the world, according to his wishes. The fact that his books, many of which were covered in notes and checks and various other marginalia, were now available to the public caused a bit of a stir in literary circles in New York City, and for a couple months many Markson Treasure Hunters searched the store for his books. The press picked it up, seeming to fulfill Markson's prediction that he would be more famous after his death than while he was living.[12]

Wittgenstein's Mistress

Wittgenstein's Mistress, widely considered his masterpiece, was published in 1988 by Dalkey Archive Press. Though Markson's original manuscript was rejected fifty-four times,[13] the book, when finally published, met with critical acclaim. It is a highly stylized, experimental novel in the tradition of Beckett. The novel is mainly a series of statements made in the first person; the protagonist is a woman who believes herself to be the last human on earth. Though her statements shift quickly from topic to topic, the topics are often recurrent, and often reference Western cultural icons, ranging from Zeno to Beethoven to Willem de Kooning. Readers familiar with Ludwig Wittgenstein's Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus will recognize striking stylistic similarities to that work.

In particular, the New York Times Book Review praised it for "address[ing] formidable philosophic questions with tremendous wit." A decade later, David Foster Wallace described it as "pretty much the high point of experimental fiction in this country" in an article for Salon entitled "Five direly underappreciated U.S. novels >1960."[14]

Late novels

Markson's late works further refine the allusive, minimalist style of Wittgenstein's Mistress. In these novels most of the traditional comforts of the form are absent, as an author-figure closely identified with Markson himself[15] considers the travails of the artist throughout the history of culture. In Reader's Block, he is called Reader; in This Is Not A Novel, Writer; Vanishing Point, Author; in Markson's last novel, The Last Novel, he is known as Novelist. Markson described the action of these novels: "I have characters sitting alone in a bedroom with a head full of everything he’s ever read." His working process involved "scribbling the notes on three-by-five-inch index cards" and collecting them in "shoebox tops" until they were ready to be put "into manuscript form."[16] Markson hoped that these four novels might eventually be published together in one volume.[17]

The first in the “personal genre”, Reader's Block, was published by Dalkey Archive Press in 1996. It was followed by This Is Not A Novel (Counterpoint, 2001), Vanishing Point (Shoemaker & Hoard, 2004) and The Last Novel (Shoemaker & Hoard, 2007). Of Reader's Block, fellow writer and friend Kurt Vonnegut wrote, "David shouldn’t thank Fate for letting him write such a good book in a time when large numbers of people could no longer be wowed by a novel, no matter how excellent."

The second book, This Is Not A Novel, describes itself in a number of terms:

  • "A novel"[18]
  • "An epic poem"[19]
  • "A sequence of cantos awaiting numbering"[20]
  • "A mural of sorts"[21]
  • "An autobiography"[22]
  • "A continued heap of riddles"[23]
  • "A polyphonic opera of a kind"[24]
  • "A disquisition on the maladies of the life of art"[25]
  • "An ersatz prose alternative to The Waste Land"[26]
  • "A treatise on the nature of man"[27]
  • "An assemblage [nonlinear, discontinuous, collage-like]"[28]
  • "A contemporary variant on [The Egyptian Book of the Dead]"[29]
  • "A kind of verbal fugue"[30]
  • "A classic tragedy [in many ways]"[31]
  • "A volume entitled 'Writer's Block'"[32]
  • "A comedy of a sort"[33]
  • "His synthetic personal Finnegans Wake"[34]
  • "Nothing more than a fundamentally recognizable genre all the while"[35]
  • "Nothing more or less than a read"[35]
  • "An unconventional, generally melancholy though sometimes even playful now-ending read"[35]

In This Is Not A Novel, the Writer character states, "A novel with no intimation of story whatsoever, Writer would like to contrive." "[36] Reader's Block likewise calls itself "a novel of intellectual reference and allusion, so to speak minus much of the novel."[37] Rather than consisting of a specific plot, they can be said to be composed of "an intellectual ragpicker's collection of cultural detritus.""[38] The seemingly-random set of quotes, ideas and nuggets of information about the lives of various literary, artistic and historical figures cohere to form a new kind of novel.

Bibliography

  • Epitaph for a Tramp. Dell, 1959.
  • Epitaph for a Dead Beat. Dell, 1961.
  • The Ballad of Dingus Magee; Being the Immortal True Saga of the Most Notorious and Desperate Bad Man of the Olden Days, His Blood-Shedding, His Ruination of Poor Helpless Females, & Cetera. Bobbs-Merrill, 1965.
  • Miss Doll, Go Home. Dell, 1965.
  • Going Down. Holt Rinehart Winston, 1970.
  • Springer's Progress. Holt, Rinehart & Winston, 1977.
  • Malcolm Lowry’s Volcano: Myth, Symbol, Meaning. Times Books, 1978.
  • Wittgenstein’s Mistress. Dalkey Archive, 1988.
  • Collected Poems. Dalkey Archive Press, 1993.
  • Reader’s Block. Dalkey Archive Press, 1996.
  • This Is Not a Novel. Counterpoint, 2001.
  • Vanishing Point. Shoemaker & Hoard, 2004.
  • The Last Novel. Shoemaker & Hoard, 2007.[39]

Further reading

  • Francoise Palleau-Papin, Ceci n'est pas une tragédie. L'écriture de David Markson. ENS Editions, 2007. ISBN 978-2-84788-106-6

References

  1. ^ a b Legacy.com Featured Tribute: David Markson as of June 7, 2010, when this article was published, the exact time of Markson's death is not known. This article states that his body was found on June 4, 2010
  2. ^ "David Markson: An Introduction". http://madinkbeard.com/blog/archives/david-markson-an-introduction. 
  3. ^ a b Niagara Falls Reporter
  4. ^ Texier, Catherine (July 8, 2007). "Old. Tired. Sick. Alone. Broke.". New York Times. http://www.nytimes.com/2007/07/08/books/review/Texier.html?ex=1341460800&en=c81acefd1162ef87&ei=5124&partner=permalink&exprod=permalink 
  5. ^ http://www.salon.com/books/bag/1999/04/12/wallace/ Salon, April 12, 1999, "Five direly underappreciated U.S. novels >1960"
  6. ^ "Bookslut interview with David Markson". http://www.bookslut.com/features/2005_07_005963.php. 
  7. ^ "David Markson Bibliography". http://madinkbeard.com/blog/archives/david-markson-a-bibliography. 
  8. ^ "IMDB page for Dirty Dingus Magee". http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0065642/. 
  9. ^ "David Merrill Markson" in Contemporary Authors Online, Thompson Gale, 2007.
  10. ^ "Bookslut interview with David Markson". http://www.bookslut.com/features/2005_07_005963.php. 
  11. ^ Long Island Press: David Markson, postmodern master, dead at age 82
  12. ^ Reading Markson Reading, a collection of Markson marginalia
  13. ^ Reading Markson Reading, The last page of David Markson’s copy of The Failure of Criticism by Henri Peyre
  14. ^ http://www.salon.com/books/bag/1999/04/12/wallace/ Salon, April 12, 1999, "Five direly underappreciated U.S. novels >1960"
  15. ^ Palleau-Papin, Francoise. This Is Not A Tragedy. Dalkey Archive Press, 2011. Pg. xxvii of the Introduction: Markson is quoted as having said: "How much of myself is in there? It’s all me. Especially in Reader’s Block, all that personal stuff re: Reader and/or Protagonist, ex-wife, ex-galfriends, children, lack of money, isolation, messed-up life, and/or some items dictated by novelistic necessity—and of course there is necessary invention there also, e.g., a house at a cemetery—but even little items like a couple of yellow stones from Masada or a reproduction of Giotto’s Dante—I plucked up whatever was ready at hand. Is that laziness, or is it what they speak of as using what one knows? Take your pick." ISBN 1564786072
  16. ^ Markson, David. Vanishing Point. Shoemaker & Hoard, 2004. Pg. 1. ISBN 1593760108
  17. ^ KCRW Bookworm Interview with David Markson:
    "I'm hoping one day--I don't imagine I'll still be here--but these four books, perhaps one more, will be printed in one volume."
  18. ^ Markson, David. This Is Not A Novel. Counterpoint, 2001. Pg. 18. ISBN 1582431338
  19. ^ Markson, David. This Is Not A Novel. Counterpoint, 2001. Pg. 21. ISBN 1582431338
  20. ^ Markson, David. This Is Not A Novel. Counterpoint, 2001. Pg. 23. ISBN 1582431338
  21. ^ Markson, David. This Is Not A Novel. Counterpoint, 2001. Pg. 36. ISBN 1582431338
  22. ^ Markson, David. This Is Not A Novel. Counterpoint, 2001. Pg. 53. ISBN 1582431338
  23. ^ Markson, David. This Is Not A Novel. Counterpoint, 2001. Pg. 70. ISBN 1582431338
  24. ^ Markson, David. This Is Not A Novel. Counterpoint, 2001. Pg. 73. ISBN 1582431338
  25. ^ Markson, David. This Is Not A Novel. Counterpoint, 2001. Pg. 86. ISBN 1582431338
  26. ^ Markson, David. This Is Not A Novel. Counterpoint, 2001. Pg. 101. ISBN 1582431338
  27. ^ Markson, David. This Is Not A Novel. Counterpoint, 2001. Pg. 111. ISBN 1582431338
  28. ^ Markson, David. This Is Not A Novel. Counterpoint, 2001. Pg. 128. ISBN 1582431338
  29. ^ Markson, David. This Is Not A Novel. Counterpoint, 2001. Pg. 147. ISBN 1582431338
  30. ^ Markson, David. This Is Not A Novel. Counterpoint, 2001. Pg. 170. ISBN 1582431338
  31. ^ Markson, David. This Is Not A Novel. Counterpoint, 2001. Pg. 171. ISBN 1582431338
  32. ^ Markson, David. This Is Not A Novel. Counterpoint, 2001. Pg. 173. ISBN 1582431338
  33. ^ Markson, David. This Is Not A Novel. Counterpoint, 2001. Pg. 184. ISBN 1582431338
  34. ^ Markson, David. This Is Not A Novel. Counterpoint, 2001. Pg. 185. ISBN 1582431338
  35. ^ a b c Markson, David. This Is Not A Novel. Counterpoint, 2001. Pg. 189. ISBN 1582431338
  36. ^ Markson, David. This Is Not A Novel. Counterpoint, 2001. Pg. 2. ISBN 1582431338
  37. ^ Markson, David. Reader's Block. Dalkey Archive Press, 1996. Pg. 61. ISBN 1564781321
  38. ^ Reading Markson Reading, Pg. 104 of David Markson’s copy of On the Iliad
  39. ^ "David Markson: A Bibliography". Madinkbeard. 2007-04-20. http://madinkbeard.com/blog/archives/david-markson-a-bibliography. Retrieved 2010-09-19. 

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