David Markson
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."
Markson's work is characterized by an unconventional approach to narration and plot. While his early works may draw on the modernist tradition of William Faulkner and Malcolm Lowry, Markson says his later novels are "literally crammed with literary and artistic anecdotes" and "nonlinear, discontinuous, collage-like, an assemblage."
Dalkey Archive Press has published several of his novels. In December 2006, publishers Shoemaker & Hoard republished two of Markson's early crime novels Epitaph for a Tramp and Epitaph for a Dead Beat in one volume.
In addition to his novels, he has published a book of poetry and a critical study of Malcolm Lowry.
The movie Dirty Dingus Magee, starring Frank Sinatra, is based on Markson's first novel, The Ballad of Dingus Magee, an anti-Western. He wrote three crime novels early in his career.
Educated at Union College and Columbia University, Markson began his writing career as a journalist and book editor, periodically taking up work as a college professor at Columbia University, Long Island University, and The New School.
Markson died in his New York City, West Village apartment.
“Tolstoy's wife copied out the entire manuscript of War and Peace in longhand seven times.”
“If forced to choose, Giacometti once said, he would rescue a cat from a burning building before a Rembrandt.”
“In fact one frequently seemed to gather all sorts of similar information about subjects one had less than profound interest in.”
“On the other hand it is probably safe to assume that Rembrandt and Spinoza surely would have at least passed on the street, now and again.Or even run into each other quite frequently, if only at some neighborhood shop or other.And certainly they would have exchanged amenities as well, after a time.Good morning, Rembrandt. Good morning to you, Spinoza.I was extremely sorry to hear about your bankruptcy, Rembrandt. I was extremely sorry to hear about your excommunication, Spinoza.Do have a good day, Rembrandt. Do have the same, Spinoza.All of this would have been said in Dutch, incidentally.I mention that simply because it is known that Rembrandt did not speak any other language except Dutch.Even if Spinoza may have preferred Latin. Or Jewish.”
“I also believe I met William Gaddis once. He did not look Italian.”
“Or was it possibly...nothing more than a read?”
“Doubtless these are inconsequential perplexities. Still, inconsequential perplexities have now and again been known to become the fundamental mood of existence, one suspects.”
“Tennessee Williams choked to death on the plastic cap of a nasal spray.”
“How can I tell what I think until I see what I say?”
“Can Protagonist think of a single film that interests him as much as the three-hundredth best book he ever read?”
“The eternal silence of these infinite spaces frightens me.”
“Was it really some other person I was so anxious to discover...or was it only my own solitude that I could not abide?”
“Once, Turner had himself lashed to the mast of a ship for several hours, during a furious storm, so that he could later paint the storm. Obviously, it was not the storm itself that Turner intended to paint. What he intended to paint was a representation of the storm. One's language is frequently imprecise in that manner, I have discovered.”
“Have I ever said that Turner once actually had himself lashed to the mast of a ship, to be able to later do a painting of a storm? Which has never failed to remind me of the scene in which Odysseus does the identical thing, of course, so that he can listen to the Sirens singing but will stay put.”
“You will say that I am old and mad, was what Michaelangelo wrote, but I answer that there is no better way of being sane and free from anxiety than by being mad.”
“He had a face roughly the shape and color of a clumsily peeled Idaho potato, and he had a jaw like the end of a cigarette carton. ”
“You can learn more by going to the opera than you ever can by reading Emerson. Like that there are two sexes.”