In this spellbinding, utterly unconventional fiction, an aging author who is identified only as Reader contemplates the writing of a novel. As he does, other matters insistently crowd his mind - literary and cultural anecdotes, endless quotations attributed and not, scholarly curiosities - the residue of a lifetime's reading which is apparently all he has to show for his decades on earth. Out of these unlikely yet incontestably fascinating materials - including innumerable details about the madness and calamity in many artists' and writers' lives, the eternal critical affronts, the startling bigotry, the countless suicides - David Markson has created a novel of extraordinary intellectual suggestiveness. But while shoring up Reader's ruins with such fragments, Markson has also managed to electrify his novel with an almost unbearable emotional impact. Where Reader ultimately leads us is shattering.
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Stunning . . . one of the strangest, most compelling books you will ever read. --Rikki Ducornet
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Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
7 of 10 people found the following review helpful
By A Customer
Format:Paperback
If you read one book this year, read David Markson's new
novel. Whether or not you've read any of his previous
novels--which, by the way, represent one of the finest
and most innovative bodies of work of the last thirty
years--Reader's Block will astound you. A beautifully
crafted condensation of language, Reader's Block is the
poetic novel for century's end, recalling those great
Modernist novels at century's beginning. Concerning
the struggles of a writer named Reader, who tries to
write about a character named Protagonist, Reader's
Block is Markson's most refined example of his
telescopic and allusive style. The reader enjoys an
indelible language, told in terse, paratactic
sentences, and it is my opinion that Markson has
always written an absolutely tactile prose. I felt
each word with my fingers. I found myself eating
this novel. The book is also downright fun--for
it is a collage of anecdotes from literary and
art history, anecdotes that reveal the struggles
of ALL writers and artists. This business of art
is not a casual affair. Reader's Block is one of
the purest books ever written, not a novel to
taste but to ingest. We owe Markson everything,
for he is more than gifted and we, struggling
readers, are more than blessed.
novel. Whether or not you've read any of his previous
novels--which, by the way, represent one of the finest
and most innovative bodies of work of the last thirty
years--Reader's Block will astound you. A beautifully
crafted condensation of language, Reader's Block is the
poetic novel for century's end, recalling those great
Modernist novels at century's beginning. Concerning
the struggles of a writer named Reader, who tries to
write about a character named Protagonist, Reader's
Block is Markson's most refined example of his
telescopic and allusive style. The reader enjoys an
indelible language, told in terse, paratactic
sentences, and it is my opinion that Markson has
always written an absolutely tactile prose. I felt
each word with my fingers. I found myself eating
this novel. The book is also downright fun--for
it is a collage of anecdotes from literary and
art history, anecdotes that reveal the struggles
of ALL writers and artists. This business of art
is not a casual affair. Reader's Block is one of
the purest books ever written, not a novel to
taste but to ingest. We owe Markson everything,
for he is more than gifted and we, struggling
readers, are more than blessed.
0 of 1 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
Zadie Smith loved this. I hate Zadie Smith. (Can one say that?) Or maybe the title worked on me subliminally..
Most Helpful Customer Reviews on Amazon.com (beta)
Amazon.com:
4.2 out of 5 stars
14 reviews
11 of 11 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars
The best piece of American fiction in ten years.
15 Nov 1996
By A Customer
- Published on Amazon.com
Format:Paperback
If you read one book this year, read David Markson's new
novel. Whether or not you've read any of his previous
novels--which, by the way, represent one of the finest
and most innovative bodies of work of the last thirty
years--Reader's Block will astound you. A beautifully
crafted condensation of language, Reader's Block is the
poetic novel for century's end, recalling those great
Modernist novels at century's beginning. Concerning
the struggles of a writer named Reader, who tries to
write about a character named Protagonist, Reader's
Block is Markson's most refined example of his
telescopic and allusive style. The reader enjoys an
indelible language, told in terse, paratactic
sentences, and it is my opinion that Markson has
always written an absolutely tactile prose. I felt
each word with my fingers. I found myself eating
this novel. The book is also downright fun--for
it is a collage of anecdotes from literary and
art history, anecdotes that reveal the struggles
of ALL writers and artists. This business of art
is not a casual affair. Reader's Block is one of
the purest books ever written, not a novel to
taste but to ingest. We owe Markson everything,
for he is more than gifted and we, struggling
readers, are more than blessed.
novel. Whether or not you've read any of his previous
novels--which, by the way, represent one of the finest
and most innovative bodies of work of the last thirty
years--Reader's Block will astound you. A beautifully
crafted condensation of language, Reader's Block is the
poetic novel for century's end, recalling those great
Modernist novels at century's beginning. Concerning
the struggles of a writer named Reader, who tries to
write about a character named Protagonist, Reader's
Block is Markson's most refined example of his
telescopic and allusive style. The reader enjoys an
indelible language, told in terse, paratactic
sentences, and it is my opinion that Markson has
always written an absolutely tactile prose. I felt
each word with my fingers. I found myself eating
this novel. The book is also downright fun--for
it is a collage of anecdotes from literary and
art history, anecdotes that reveal the struggles
of ALL writers and artists. This business of art
is not a casual affair. Reader's Block is one of
the purest books ever written, not a novel to
taste but to ingest. We owe Markson everything,
for he is more than gifted and we, struggling
readers, are more than blessed.
17 of 19 people found the following review helpful
3.0 out of 5 stars
The Culture of Death
22 Jun 2000
By R. W. Rasband
- Published on Amazon.com
Format:Paperback
Markson's remarkable book is a novel in disguise. It resembles Julian Barnes' "Flaubert's Parrot." That novel was supposedly an encyclopedia of trivia about Gustave Flaubert, but if you read between the lines, you could discern that the narrator was describing his betrayal by his own wife. Here the Reader (the narrator's only name) is, behind a screen of quotations and historical detail, depicting his own threadbare life and contemplating suicide. The remarkable thing is that Reader assembles hundreds of facts that only convince him that he should kill himself. Markson seems to be saying that the whole literature of the West, which is thoroughly represented in the collage-like body of the novel, is a tale of despair and death. This is certainly a gloomy conclusion and not really warranted, in my opinion. But Markson tells his dark tale with style.
7 of 7 people found the following review helpful
4.0 out of 5 stars
Looking for a new/ancient genre?
24 Sep 2001
By Jason Edwards
- Published on Amazon.com
Format:Paperback
"Reader's Block" somehow manages to pick up where "This Is Not a Novel" left off, even though the latter was written later. This is managed by TINaN being more polished, more reader-ready, more "practiced," and is thus a good introduction to the genre; but Reader's Block is more true to the genre by being less "produced" and therefore more "honest." And yet, if you go back even further to "Wittgenstein's Mistress," the genre is exploited in the form of actual fiction-- biographical fiction, to be sure, but fiction nevertheless-- so that if one needs fiction as an introduction to the genre, one has it available, and again, Reader's Block will pick up where W'sM leaves off.
I can't speak to still earlier works by Markson, but I can say the "adventurous reader," the literary equivalent of the day-walker who sets out in strange cities with nothing more than a bottle of water and power-bar, will enjoy the adventure of discovering this genre. "This Is Not a Novel" is the packaged tour; "Reader's Block" is the nitty gritty.
Oh, by the way, the genre is called "zuihitsu." It's Japanese.
›
Go to Amazon.com to see all 14 reviews
4.2 out of 5 stars
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