People You May Know: David Markson

[Bill Floyd]

That, having grown weary of the formalism of plot devices and character shadings, he attempted to pioneer a new way of writing fiction that blurred the hard and fast lines between invention and history and criticism and personal essay.

And succeeded.

The mind-boggling fact that he assembled these broad, ranging surveys pre-Internet, collating from index cards filled with at-first-glance random factoids about important but often forgotten figures in the studies of arts and philosophy and politics.

The idea that he started out as a genre writer, penning noir crime novels and Westerns before wading into experimental fiction, and that Wittgenstein's Mistress was rejected fifty-four times before being published.

And so he took all these real-world anecdotes and then he worked himself into the mesh as Author, Reader, Writer--although Compiler might've seemed like a more precise name for what he was doing, and maybe for what all of us are trying to do, limning the details of the people and the world we know and then arranging them so as to suggest aspects that are new or dangerous or wondrous about them (although some do their job better than others!) and to thereby illuminate the ways we choose to spend our lives while we yet have a say in the matter.  

That his last novel was called The Last Novel.

 

[Brittany]

54 times?! wow. One more writer to add to the Floyd list! I am definitely impressed by his ability to categorize that much information and then write about it.

[Joey Delgado]

And my wishlish continues to grow because of you, Bill. Mr. Markson sounds like a brilliant writer. Can't wait to dive into his work. Again, thanks for this. (Plus, all your mini-biographies/tributes are so beautifully written.)

[Cita]

What T said.  And I am not poorer for it, but richer, in fact.

David means "beloved."

[Jeanette Cheezum]

Sounds like he was a fascinating man.

[Teresa]

I'm in love with him.  Damn you, Bill.  Do you know how much money you've cost me at Amazon?  Do you?

[Paul de Denus]

I'm not familiar with his work though the obit mentioned about his writing, "reviewers almost always found themselves succumbing to what many referred to as a cumulative, hypnotic effect." Sounds very much like what happens here at 6S:) also congratulations on this enlightening series.

[Bill Floyd]

@G: I'm actually not nearly good enough to pull off Markson's style, but here's a link to a blog that does it rather well. 

[Gita]

I don't give a fig if you used a concept someone developed before you. All our best ideas were ripped off by our ancestors, damn them.

This piece has a strange syntax, to me. I am a simple woman with a linear mind. Sentences 3 and 4 made me itch for a resolution to the opening words "The idea that" and "The mind-boggling fact that" ... .... I waited for something to complete the thoughts in all six sentences, come to read it again. I know you chose this style of presenting Markson to us (and it's cool that you call him David which tells me you feel close to your subject).  He did some pioneering work. I am sad to learn that the series ends tomorrow.  

[Bill Floyd]

I swear I didn't realize I'd ripped off the concept for this series wholesale until I was about a third of the way into it.

Read David's obit here.  And check out a story about the beguiling dispersal of his library here.

Series ends tomorrow.  Thanks for hanging with me.