The Mumpsimus

The late David Markson did not have a computer. In March 2004, Laura Sims told him that there were things written about him on blogs. He replied: NO, I've no idea what a Blog is. BLOG? Sims sent him print-outs: Hey, thank you for all that blog stuff but forgive me if after a nine-minute glance I have torn it all up. I bless your furry little heart, but please don't send any more. In spite of the lost conveniences, I am all the more glad I don't have a computer. HOW CAN PEOPLE LIVE IN THAT FIRST-DRAFT WORLD? They make a statement about my background, there's an error in it. They quote from a book, and they leave out a key line. They repudiate a statement of fact I've made, without checking, ergo announcing I'm a fake when the statement is 100% correct. Etc., etc., etc. Gawd. I have just taken the sheets out of the trash basket & torn them into even smaller pieces.  From the wonderful little book Fare Forward: Letters from David Markson , edi...

Via the marvelous blog Reading Markson Reading , some words of wisdom from F. Scott Fitzgerald to his daughter: A good style simply doesn’t form unless you absorb half a dozen top-flight authors every year. Or rather it forms but instead of being a subconscious amalgam of all that you have admired, it is simply a reflection of the last writer you have read, a watered-down journalese. Fitzgerald's letter includes some recommended books, and blogger Tyler Malone follows up with a letter from David Markson to his own daughter offering a list of some favorite books. Great stuff.

David Markson reading (or talking) I just got sent a link to a new Tumblr blog, Reading Markson Reading , created by Tyler Malone. You remember, of course, that David Markson died back in June, and then (according to his wishes, it seems) his personal library was discreetly mingled in with all the other books for sale at The Strand . This led to fans collecting them and sharing the marginal notes they found. Tyler Malone describes the purpose of the blog : The Strand is pretty much out of any Markson-owned books now, the hunt is officially over. Not too long ago I was told by a worker at The Strand that he is fairly positive that I own more than double the amount of Markson-owned books of any other Markson Treasure Hunter. I have around 250 or so of his books. And here, once a day, I plan to share some of his marginalia. For those of us who weren't able to join in the hunt, and who now suffer, perhaps, a little bit of envy of those other lucky souls, this blog is a marvel ...

David Markson has died . When I was in my senior year at the University of New Hampshire, having just transferred there from New York University, the library was under a massive renovation that caused most of the books to be locked in storage and only a tiny percentage to be on temporary shelves in a little building at the far end of campus.  At the time, this seemed to me a perfect metaphor for my life and aspirations.  (I was fond, then, of quoting a line from Harry Kondoleon's play Zero Positive : "I used to have desires, dreams, the usual things, they got so banged up and hard to look at I took them out one afternoon and shot them.")  One day, I was looking at the few shelves of contemporary U.S. writers, and there was book called Reader's Block .  I liked the title.  I flipped through the pages.  "What is this?" I thought. Protagonist living near a disused cemetery, perhaps? A sense somehow of total retreat?  Abandonment? Albert Camus'...