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A review by darren_cormier
The Last Novel by David Markson
4.0
Markson seems to write his own review of this novel midway through:
"Reviewers who protest that Novelist has lately appeared to be writing the same book over and over.
Like their grandly perspicacious uncles--who groused that Monet had done those damnable water lilies nine dozen times already also." (p. 104)
There is beauty and depth in repetition. And, like Monet's water lilies, or the morning corner photographs of Augie Wren, each is slightly different, each is a moment of reflection about the impermanence of time: which seems to be at the heart of this final volume of Markson's discontinuous, collage-like, assemblage meditations of artistic success, failure, virtue, and life.
In The Last Novel, Novelist is near the end of his life, trying to write one final book, trying to insert the thousands of pieces of information he has assembled and compiled, chronicling every aspect of the artistic life into one final tome, while aware that his life is nearing its end:
"Old. Tired. Sick. Alone. Broke." (p. 3)
"His last book. All of which also then gives Novelist carte blanche to do anything here he damned well pleases.
Which is to say, writing in his own personal genre, as it were." (p.4)
Staring into his own mortality, through the lives of others, Markson has a liberty to address any idea that wanders into the script, to pursue any tangent for as long as he likes. He also shows shocking vulnerability in detailing his own situation, channeling Gogol's Akaky Akakievich in his meanderings to an inconveniently located convenience store. He has to walk an extra fifteen minutes to this store, because their goods are cheaper: it's what he can afford. And he has to rest twice on the walk over because of his failing health.
A large focus of the literary and cultural snippets are on the end of lives of the subjects, a reflection of our time here, and our works. Two of the most poignant come in rapid succession near the end of the book:
"A man may know that he is going to die, but be can never know that he is dead.
Said Samuel Butler.
Death is not an event in life; we do not live to experience death.
Said Wittgenstein." (p. 173)
All of which is a reminder that we should experience life, enjoy it for what it has to offer. Before we know it, it's over.
It seems that Markson enjoyed his, in the ways he wanted to.
"Reviewers who protest that Novelist has lately appeared to be writing the same book over and over.
Like their grandly perspicacious uncles--who groused that Monet had done those damnable water lilies nine dozen times already also." (p. 104)
There is beauty and depth in repetition. And, like Monet's water lilies, or the morning corner photographs of Augie Wren, each is slightly different, each is a moment of reflection about the impermanence of time: which seems to be at the heart of this final volume of Markson's discontinuous, collage-like, assemblage meditations of artistic success, failure, virtue, and life.
In The Last Novel, Novelist is near the end of his life, trying to write one final book, trying to insert the thousands of pieces of information he has assembled and compiled, chronicling every aspect of the artistic life into one final tome, while aware that his life is nearing its end:
"Old. Tired. Sick. Alone. Broke." (p. 3)
"His last book. All of which also then gives Novelist carte blanche to do anything here he damned well pleases.
Which is to say, writing in his own personal genre, as it were." (p.4)
Staring into his own mortality, through the lives of others, Markson has a liberty to address any idea that wanders into the script, to pursue any tangent for as long as he likes. He also shows shocking vulnerability in detailing his own situation, channeling Gogol's Akaky Akakievich in his meanderings to an inconveniently located convenience store. He has to walk an extra fifteen minutes to this store, because their goods are cheaper: it's what he can afford. And he has to rest twice on the walk over because of his failing health.
A large focus of the literary and cultural snippets are on the end of lives of the subjects, a reflection of our time here, and our works. Two of the most poignant come in rapid succession near the end of the book:
"A man may know that he is going to die, but be can never know that he is dead.
Said Samuel Butler.
Death is not an event in life; we do not live to experience death.
Said Wittgenstein." (p. 173)
All of which is a reminder that we should experience life, enjoy it for what it has to offer. Before we know it, it's over.
It seems that Markson enjoyed his, in the ways he wanted to.