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Review
'A swirl of unattributed quotations from other authors, an energising expression of readerly ennui and a meditation on mortality, it felt like a book one had unconsciously been waiting to discover.'
--Geoff Dyer, Guardian Books of the Year 2010
--Geoff Dyer, Guardian Books of the Year 2010
Product Description
Deaths (more than 500); the obsessions and afflictions of a vast number of writers, artists and composers through the centuries; quotations of heart-stopping beauty - and Writer, making of these an echo chamber of the creative life.
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First Sentence
Writer is pretty much tempted to quit writing. Read the first page
Front Cover | Copyright | Excerpt | Back Cover
Writer is pretty much tempted to quit writing. Read the first page
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Front Cover | Copyright | Excerpt | Back Cover
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Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
3 of 3 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
The only--ostensibly--fictional character in this novel is Writer. 'Writer is pretty much tempted to quit writing,' the book begins, and scattered throughout it are Writer's thoughts on novels and writing, which eventually give way to personal information about Writer, information that the reader may already have gathered from the rest of the book.
And the rest of the book is a collection of baldly-stated facts, most of them about writers and particularly about their deaths, brief quotations, and mere phrases. None of these is random nor are they irrelevant to each other and to Writer's situation--in fact, the book is a marvel of organisation--despite appearances:
'Virtually every inadequacy in recent French literature is due to absinthe, Daudet said in the late 1800's.
Annals 165. Where Tacitus actually does, does, call a spade "an implement for digging earth and cutting turf".
Paul Klee died of cardiac arrest after years of enduring scleroderma.
Sarah Orne Jewett died of a cerebral hemmorhage.
Thomas of Celano.
I have wasted all my youth chained to this tomb.
Michelangelo protested to Julius II.
Why hasn't Writer ever known? What is the black liquid that spills out of the dead Emma Bovary's mouth?'
That's most of the page I chanced to open the book to and ought to give a perfect idea of what the writing is like. You could, I suppose, use it as a bedside book of trivia, you Philistine you, but in doing so you'd be losing the novel itself: There is a story here, though it's told in an untraditional way. And it's left me more keen than ever to read all that Markson wrote.
And the rest of the book is a collection of baldly-stated facts, most of them about writers and particularly about their deaths, brief quotations, and mere phrases. None of these is random nor are they irrelevant to each other and to Writer's situation--in fact, the book is a marvel of organisation--despite appearances:
'Virtually every inadequacy in recent French literature is due to absinthe, Daudet said in the late 1800's.
Annals 165. Where Tacitus actually does, does, call a spade "an implement for digging earth and cutting turf".
Paul Klee died of cardiac arrest after years of enduring scleroderma.
Sarah Orne Jewett died of a cerebral hemmorhage.
Thomas of Celano.
I have wasted all my youth chained to this tomb.
Michelangelo protested to Julius II.
Why hasn't Writer ever known? What is the black liquid that spills out of the dead Emma Bovary's mouth?'
That's most of the page I chanced to open the book to and ought to give a perfect idea of what the writing is like. You could, I suppose, use it as a bedside book of trivia, you Philistine you, but in doing so you'd be losing the novel itself: There is a story here, though it's told in an untraditional way. And it's left me more keen than ever to read all that Markson wrote.
Most Helpful Customer Reviews on Amazon.com (beta)
Amazon.com:
15 reviews
10 of 10 people found the following review helpful
This Is Not A Review
22 May 2001
Format:Paperback
How do you review something when you're not quite sure what it is to begin with?
This Is Not A Novel is, in fact, not a novel but what it is is not entirely clear. Throughout his work, Markson runs through details about how famous literary figures have died, what philosophers believed and what artists said. There are no characters except, perhaps, for the elusive "Writer". There is no plot. Nothing thrilling happens. And yet its amazing to me how drawn in to the book I was.
Bottom line: I don't know what it was but I'm glad I read it. Experimental fiction can either be disastrous (see The Castle of Crossed Destinies by Italo Calvino) or monumentally successful (see 253: The Print Remix by Geoff Ryman) - there's usually no middle ground. This Is Not A Novel definitely fits into the latter category.
6 of 6 people found the following review helpful
What's the problem?
5 Oct 2002
Format:Paperback
This reads like a companion volume to "Reader's Block." Like the former book, this is a compilation of often fascinating, curious and humanizing facts and quotations of great artists, writers, philosophers, indirectly limning the "author's" concerns with morality, health, and fame. Irrelevant to its enjoyment are considerations of (a)the amount of work entailed in creating it; (b)its nature as novel or anti-novel; (c)the degree to which all its entries are news ("Wagner was an anti-Semite" was not intended to enlighten the reader, but in that case to reflect the "author's" consciousness); (d) the degree to which the form of the book is ground-breaking. Perhaps because I am in a similar situation to the author's in my own career, I identified and found a wry humor in the proceedings, and a genuine modesty in the economy of its style. (Note: There is a bit of "dumbing down" here compared to "Reader's Block", as if Markson [at the bidding of his editor?] didn't quite trust his audience to figure out what he was about and had to spell it out in a few passages, but that can be easily enough overlooked.) For what it is--which is no less than what it attempts to be--it's a very interesting, instructive read, and well-nigh perfect: hence 5 stars.
5 of 5 people found the following review helpful
leer life
21 April 2003
Format:Paperback
One assumes that fans of David Markson's work will not be too disappointed by this latest book. I was not, though I admit I prefer his other writings to this. The book is structured as a sequence of sentences, often anecdotes describing the creative habits and deaths of an artistic pantheon. Sure, some will consider the book pretentious, but part of its glory is the effort of the writer, the central character, if any, who seems to be more of a reader, Markson, perhaps, and who puzzles and tries to be reconciled with his own impending mortality. Aside from the bounty of names, here and there an uncommon star appears, this book takes less cleverness to resolve into a thoughtful experience than other Markson books. Most dazzling, to be sure, is the variant structure of declarative sentences, often taken for granted. Some structures are continued repetitively, others, strikingly, challenge the rhythm the reader establishes. The sequences have the potential to mesmerize the patient and weary the rushed.
Out of all of the books, anecdotes, and sentences a character of sorts appears, who is not terribly interesting, nor completely capable of engaging the world without thinking through reading. The book is filled with curiosities that will jog to recollection details from a life spent reading. For some it is important to criticize what this book is not. Certainly, the style and approach to the writing of this book does not differ radically from the author's others. Perhaps this one is more refined. Perhaps it is repetitive and parodic. I prefer to recommend its observant and playful stories and structures that emerge from the sentences.
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