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Going Down
Unlike David Markson's most recent works in experimental writing, Going Down is a more traditional effort, a dark and masterfully plotted narrative of passion and violence set in Mexico in the 1960s. Three Americans, a man and two women, are living together in obvious intimacy. Their habits, strange to the Mexicans, are strangest of all to themselves. When Fern Winters' at...more
Paperback, 278 pages
Published
March 4th 2005
by Shoemaker & Hoard
(first published January 1st 1970)
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Markson is a writer's writer...
This book is a curious transition in the point where he wrote pulp to when he did more experimental fiction. Wanting to earn the reader's trust at the beginning, it is droll story telling and who-dunnit crime nonsense.... gutless and not worth reading. Unless you're a reader and not a writer and one of those readers that likes plot and "Golly gee, what will happen next?! The characters are developing so well!" types of stories... then you may l...more
This book is a curious transition in the point where he wrote pulp to when he did more experimental fiction. Wanting to earn the reader's trust at the beginning, it is droll story telling and who-dunnit crime nonsense.... gutless and not worth reading. Unless you're a reader and not a writer and one of those readers that likes plot and "Golly gee, what will happen next?! The characters are developing so well!" types of stories... then you may l...more
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I am really glad I didn’t read a book description or sum-up before reading the actual book. Even the GoodReads synopsis I think gives too much away. One of the coolest things for me about Going Down was how it leads you to discover things piece-by-piece – relationships between different characters, details about their pasts, how distinct events fit together – everything is revealed in dribs and drabs. And not in that annoying way where you feel like the writer is just trying to keep you confu...more
I am normally a real flag-waving fanboy of David Markson. I like all of his recent(ish) novels (or whatever they are), from Wittgenstein's Mistress on to the present. But this? This is. Well.
Well, you might call it a prelude to Wittgenstein's Mistress, actually. At least parts of it. There is a character (Fern) in this book who is mad (intermittently in the early chapters and stark-raving in the later ones) and who confuses Classical and Renaissance history and literature with what ...more
Well, you might call it a prelude to Wittgenstein's Mistress, actually. At least parts of it. There is a character (Fern) in this book who is mad (intermittently in the early chapters and stark-raving in the later ones) and who confuses Classical and Renaissance history and literature with what ...more
Intense, well-written. Captures Mexico extremely well. I was impressed.
five stars for atmosphere... would make a nice double bill with Under the Volcano, as it's obviously influenced by it but is still excellent in its own right
strange how no one finishes their sentences. when the racy middle was over, i didn't care how it ended.
I'm sure there are worse ways to pay for college, but I can't think of any.
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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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