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12th out of 42 books
—
25 voters
Vanishing Point
In the literary world, there is little that can match the excitement of opening a new book by David Markson. From Wittgenstein’s Mistress to Reader’s Block to Springer’s Progress to This Is Not a Novel, he has delighted and amazed readers for decades. And now comes his latest masterwork, Vanishing Point, wherein an elderly writer (identified only as "Author") sets out to t...more
Paperback, 191 pages
Published
January 1st 2004
by Counterpoint
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I love David Markson. He is the best thing to happen to me this year. I read his "Reader's Block" in spring, which was similar to this and, coming first, bowled me over more. But this is about as good. I don't recommend him to anyone because I am trying to keep him a secret, but hey, if you've read this far, know he's marvelous.
A great novel...unless you're in the mood to read a novel.
4.5 stars
Markson, experimental psalmist, engraves another chorus of art[ist(ic;ry)]-anecdotes in his progressive tetralogy(he dares the word's deployment!).
"Nonlinear. Discontinuous. Collage-like. An assemblage. As is already more than self-evident." (12)
Death floats in and out among the cast of persons, as dates and cities and regrets shimmer briefly, then move on. Then move on. Then move. Then.
"A seminonfictional semifiction. Obstinately cross-referential and of cryptic interconnective synta...more
Markson, experimental psalmist, engraves another chorus of art[ist(ic;ry)]-anecdotes in his progressive tetralogy(he dares the word's deployment!).
"Nonlinear. Discontinuous. Collage-like. An assemblage. As is already more than self-evident." (12)
Death floats in and out among the cast of persons, as dates and cities and regrets shimmer briefly, then move on. Then move on. Then move. Then.
"A seminonfictional semifiction. Obstinately cross-referential and of cryptic interconnective synta...more
Half of this book isn't written down. It's in the reader's head. It is different for each reader. If nothing else, it is certainly more than the sum of its parts. This is not surprising considering its 'parts' are scarcely more than random facts.
The premise is simple: an author is reorganizing a stack of index cards, each of which bears a factoid. He has them pretty much in the order he likes, and this is what you, the reader, are presented with.
But it is what goes on in your head while readin...more
The premise is simple: an author is reorganizing a stack of index cards, each of which bears a factoid. He has them pretty much in the order he likes, and this is what you, the reader, are presented with.
But it is what goes on in your head while readin...more
I'm right in the middle on this one, neither a fan nor a detractor. This is the third of Markson's three non-novels (I haven't the read the first two). It's more of a writer's commonplace book - or according to its author, it's an arrangement of his index cards of Interesting Facts. To his credit, most of the facts are interesting. Certain themes emerge: the envy of artists, the appreciation of artists, education or the lack of it, aging, death, a hardy trio of -isms (antisemitism, racism, sexis...more
A post I wrote on this book for school:
The Artist's Life: Markson as Apologist. This book is awesome. I can see the comparisons to Powell, but actually I did not like the Interrogative Mood that much...I found it tiring and at times arbitrary. But I really liked this book, and it seems to have a throughline. It's melancholy, beautiful, lonely, and strangely crowded as well. In the world that Markson envisions, art is built upon and built upon; nothing is created in a vacuum. Art is a continuing...more
The Artist's Life: Markson as Apologist. This book is awesome. I can see the comparisons to Powell, but actually I did not like the Interrogative Mood that much...I found it tiring and at times arbitrary. But I really liked this book, and it seems to have a throughline. It's melancholy, beautiful, lonely, and strangely crowded as well. In the world that Markson envisions, art is built upon and built upon; nothing is created in a vacuum. Art is a continuing...more
Lest it upset anyone, this won’t reveal an outcome, be a spoiler. Savvy readers may pick up on the drift early, though it’s camouflaged well-enough. Requiescat. In pace. Frankly, no reader needs to care about the end of this David Markson novel. Not that one doesn’t care, but that there’s no real slack, no ‘let-down’ along the way, no final pulse that insists itself – though it does eventually find its final place. We care throughout about all its parts, rising and disappearing, popping in and...more
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A novel that questions the very need for structure in literary form, setting aside plot and narrative in favour of what seem like random pieces of trivia and insights. The story that does exist is ostensibly about Author, who is organizing his boxes of notecards with the intention of writing a novel.
The writing seems awkward at first: rather stilted, with an affectation for dangling prepositions and, to use a word supplied by the novel itself, aposiopeses. Odd though it sounds, the style is uni...more
The writing seems awkward at first: rather stilted, with an affectation for dangling prepositions and, to use a word supplied by the novel itself, aposiopeses. Odd though it sounds, the style is uni...more
2 likes · like · see review
Apr 09, 2012
Mike Puma
rated it
5 of 5 stars
Recommends it for:
the ones what want to
Recommended to Mike by:
no idea, but I owe them
Shelves:
2012
Irony and the failure to recognize what’s important in art.
Authors and their deaths.
Artists who were illegitimate or sired illegitimate children.
Artists who became famous after abandoning other professions.
The friendships of celebrity thinkers (philosophers) and scientists with artists.
Artists and their relationships with lovers or spouses.
Artists and expectations for them given their education or literacy.
Feuds between artists and snarky things said about each other.
“Realizing that all of Byron
...more
23 likes · like · see review
Markson has written a book, entitled "Vanishing Point" composed as though on 3x5 index cards. This is quite different.
What passes for a protagonist, referred to as Author is also writing a book...Also composed on 3x5 index cards.
Reviewer assumes that the technique employed is to be by defining the negative space of a narrative like a M.C. Escher drawing of fish.
Reviewer agrees that this is interesting, but difficult to pull off, and wonders how well it will go.
The cards are little factoids, such...more
What passes for a protagonist, referred to as Author is also writing a book...Also composed on 3x5 index cards.
Reviewer assumes that the technique employed is to be by defining the negative space of a narrative like a M.C. Escher drawing of fish.
Reviewer agrees that this is interesting, but difficult to pull off, and wonders how well it will go.
The cards are little factoids, such...more
1 like · like · see review
c'est fantastique!
but is it really a novel? you think not? well, who died and made you queen of novel demarcation?
novel or not, it is, all the same, a delightful bit of nonfiction fiction: it is, quite literally, little bits of literature and history and art and biography and criticism and philosophy and the classics and life and death and even a well-defined yet subtle tale tucked in amongst all of this
Mr. David Markson, it was so nice to make your brilliant and wise acquaintance; thank you for...more
but is it really a novel? you think not? well, who died and made you queen of novel demarcation?
novel or not, it is, all the same, a delightful bit of nonfiction fiction: it is, quite literally, little bits of literature and history and art and biography and criticism and philosophy and the classics and life and death and even a well-defined yet subtle tale tucked in amongst all of this
Mr. David Markson, it was so nice to make your brilliant and wise acquaintance; thank you for...more
The book is 191 pages long, containing exactly 1927 anecdotes
which happens to be the year Author was born.
Reviewer made that bit up, about the number of anecdotes.
But not the bit about Author being born.
What was it Author quotes Anatole France as having said on page thirty-one?
Brahms was forty-three before he completed his first symphony.
A symphony is no joke--unquote,
says Author on page twenty-four.
Vanishing Point.
This Is Not a Novel.
Reviewer is intrigued that this novel reads like a collection...more
which happens to be the year Author was born.
Reviewer made that bit up, about the number of anecdotes.
But not the bit about Author being born.
What was it Author quotes Anatole France as having said on page thirty-one?
Brahms was forty-three before he completed his first symphony.
A symphony is no joke--unquote,
says Author on page twenty-four.
Vanishing Point.
This Is Not a Novel.
Reviewer is intrigued that this novel reads like a collection...more
7 likes · like · see review
I really don't know what to make of this book. I feel like I should be giving it 4 stars. It's a 3.5 at worst, right now.
When people asked me what I was reading, I found the question hard to answer, in part because I didn't really know what I was reading. The blurb on the back of the book helped, and I had to check goodreads for reviews to help me appreciate _Vanishing Point._ It didn't take much, and once I started to understand, I really enjoyed this book.
The premise is simple enough - the Au...more
When people asked me what I was reading, I found the question hard to answer, in part because I didn't really know what I was reading. The blurb on the back of the book helped, and I had to check goodreads for reviews to help me appreciate _Vanishing Point._ It didn't take much, and once I started to understand, I really enjoyed this book.
The premise is simple enough - the Au...more
Markson was first brought to my attention by a colleague, and then shortly after by stumbling upon one of his novels buried deep within the literary criticism section of our library, presumably because our catalogers had taken the title, 'This Is Not a Novel,' at face value. Not an ironic lot on the whole, catalogers. And finally because I came across him in an utterly different context with the reprint of a pair of old crime thrillers he wrote – Death of a Deadbeat and Death of a …/ I mention m...more
Mar 05, 2007
Ryan Chapman
rated it
5 of 5 stars
Recommends it for:
pomo experimentalists
Shelves:
fiction
Formally innovative and still highly affecting, Markson's recent book is nothing more than two boxes of notes for a novel, with infrequent interjections by "Author" about how to go forward with these notes, and, increasingly, about his own deteriorating health. Thousands of facts about esoteric thinkers' and artists' lives scroll by—"Frozen music, Shilling called architecture," is representative—the accumulated tidbits of years of reading. This then becomes a substitute for traditional content,...more
Ugh, took me forEVER to get through this. I'm all for new and creative kinds of writing, but this feels a little bit like trying to read through a recipe book ingredient by ingredient, it just doesn't hold my attention. The premise of the book is that an author has a shoebox full of index cards with little anecdotes on them. Many of them are related to artists (lots of interesting things about really negative critics of now famous authors and painters, coincidences of various famous people growi...more
This is basically a book of random quotes and trivia. I would've never read it if it weren't in "1001 Books to Read Before You Die." But I did end up enjoying some of the info, like " Anthony Powell, George Orwell, Henry Green, and Cyril Connolly all attended Eton at the same time. Along with Ian Fleming." Or quotes like, "I never found the companion that was so companionable as solitude. We are for the most part more lonely when we are abroad among men than when we stay in our chambers", from "...more
This is my second introduction to Markson (the first was Reader's Block). The anecdotal way of painting a picture of an Author and his thoughts through a story with short-one-to-two-sentence paragraphs in regards to literary, philosophical, musical, and classical people is the same as the previously read book. I loved it and I love that it makes me want to read more... from Markson and many of his sources.
Hard to know what to say about this one. Starts out with 100 pages of little quotes and tidbits about various artists, mostly writers and poets and painters. Then, subtly, turns into a meditation (I hate using that word to describe any book, but here it's appropriate) on both mortality and immortality-through-art. Or, in other words, what is being a genius worth if you still have to die?
6 likes · like · see review
The web of allusions Markson weaves here isn't as taut and doesn't quite sustain the brilliance of "Reader's Block." On the other hand, "Vanishing Point" is funnier and not nearly so difficult to parse. The ending is also effectively devastating. So it's a small step down, but still a brilliant effort. Curious to read the other two books in this loose series, see how they all fit together.
Lucrezia, wife of Andrea del Sarto, model for so many of his exotic Madonnas. Long after his death, a young apprentice is a rendering a copy of one in a Tuscany church when an ancient shawled creature who had been at prayer pauses beside him. At last a hand lifts:
It was I, she says, and shuffles on.
-David Markson, Vanishing Point
It was I, she says, and shuffles on.
-David Markson, Vanishing Point
It's impossible not to admire the unique accomplishment of this book. Markson takes away all that's familiar about form and structure, yet somehow still manages to convey a compelling story. I'm glad that most of the books I read follow a more traditional style, but I'm happy I got to read this unique and strangely haunting book.
Still at a loss when it comes to accurately describing a Markson book, but that didn't get in the way of devouring this one quickly. To quote the book's unnamed Author, a way to describe it would be, "Obstinately cross-referential and of cryptic inter-connective syntax." Sound fun? Then have a go.
Markson's book took an interesting plot and outline style for composing a book. I found the index cards to be funny and witty almost making me second guess if it wasn't fiction at some points. The author within the book seem to mimic the two shoeboxes full of writing but not put together and frantic. The book a whole was great!
I was extremely skeptical but ended up loving this fragmented novel that was full of all kinds of interesting tidbits that made me wonder if they were true or not and that had me writing many, many stories in my head while reading.
Discovered endless cool facts especially about artists of word, image and song, but disappointed by the "answer" to the literary puzzle the book presents. In addition, first person would have worked better than the "author" device and the intrusion of other voices rang false. Still I'm glad I read it and finished it.
I haven't read much experimental fiction - okay, I'll be honest: I'm pretty sure this is the only "experimental fiction" work that I've read - so I don't have much context for my review of Markson's Vanishing Point. With this little caveat in mind, I must say that I found this book, Markson's seventh novel, so riveting, I could hardly put it down. Author, the protagonist of this novel, only rarely shows himself to us, but he is always there, as we are treated to his attempts to write a novel thr...more
By far the bleakest of the four. About getting older and, I guess, getting to the point that you'd previously seen someone disappear at (off in the distance) and finding yourself uncertain about where to go from there.
An interesting puzzle of a novel. Not a straightforward story in any sense and consists of tidbits describing the absurdities (and in a sense the regularities) of the creative process.
I would recommend to individuals with a large knowledge of history, literature, music and art. Nearly every line in this book is a reference.
The end of the book is strangely haunting and really brought all parts previous together in a satisfying conclusion which left me with a good impression upon finishing the n...more
I would recommend to individuals with a large knowledge of history, literature, music and art. Nearly every line in this book is a reference.
The end of the book is strangely haunting and really brought all parts previous together in a satisfying conclusion which left me with a good impression upon finishing the n...more
This novel consists of a bunch of quotes with an occasional comment by the narrator. So I'm not really sure I'd call it a novel--but the quotes were very interesting--so I kept reading.
| topics | posts | views | last activity | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 21st Century Lite...: The Final Pages | 15 | 21 | Dec 22, 2012 06:54am | |
| 21st Century Lite...: The Author | 14 | 44 | Dec 22, 2012 06:42am | |
| 21st Century Lite...: Resources and General Discussion (no spoilers!) | 22 | 45 | Dec 09, 2012 07:35am | |
| 21st Century Lite...: About the first fifty pages | 6 | 33 | Dec 03, 2012 09:48pm | |
| 21st Century Lite...: The Middle (approx. pp. 50-150) | 1 | 10 | Dec 01, 2012 09:57am | |
| 21st Century Lite...: What to Read Dec 2012: Open Pick has been chosen (closed) | 13 | 66 | Nov 23, 2012 09:11pm |
David Markson was an American novelist, born David Merrill Markson in Albany, New York. He is the author of several postmodern novels, including This is Not a Novel, Springer's Progress, and Wittgenstein's Mistress. His most recent work, The Last Novel, was published in 2007 and received a positive review in the New York Times, which called it "a real tour de force."
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