Publication
CB editions (2010), Paperback, 174 pages
Physical description
174 p.; 7.8 inches
ISBN
0956107338 / 9780956107336
Language
Collections
Series
Description
This Is Not a Novel is a highly inventive work which drifts "genre-less," somewhere in between fiction, nonfiction, and psychological memoir. In the opening pages of the "novel," a narrator, called only "Writer," announces that he is tired of inventing characters, contemplating plot, setting, theme, and conflict. Yet the writer is determined to seduce the reader into turning pages-and to "get somewhere," nonetheless. What follows are pages crammed with short lines of astonishingly fascinating literary and artistic anecdotes, quotations, and cultural curiosities. This Is Not a Novel is leavened with Markson's deliciously ironic wit and laughter, so that when the writer does indeed finally get us "somewhere" it's the journey will have mattered as much as the arrival.… (more)
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User reviews
LibraryThing member beelzebubba
A series of statements on the causes of death of writers, artists, etc...
As well as quotes and anecdotes.
Names and series of names.
Epithets.
Seeming disjointed and random.
Meaningless?
No, not meaningless. With three words towards the end, Markson ties it all together. And all of a sudden the book
If ever.
As well as quotes and anecdotes.
Names and series of names.
Epithets.
Seeming disjointed and random.
Meaningless?
No, not meaningless. With three words towards the end, Markson ties it all together. And all of a sudden the book
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explodes in your hand, and you understand what it was all about. No, it is not a novel. Few novels could affect me as strongly as this book did. I will not soon forget it.If ever.
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LibraryThing member bluepiano
The only--ostensibly--fictional character in this novel is Writer. 'Writer is pretty much tempted to quit writing,' the book begins, and scattered throughout it are Writer's thoughts on novels and writing, which eventually give way to personal information about Writer, information that the reader
And the rest of the book is a collection of baldly-stated facts, most of them about writers and particularly about their deaths, brief quotations, and mere phrases. None of these is random nor are they irrelevant to each other and to Writer's situation--in fact, the book is a marvel of organisation--despite appearances:
'Virtually every inadequacy in recent French literature is due to absinthe, Daudet said in the late 1800's.
Annals 165. Where Tacitus actually does, does, call a spade "an implement for digging earth and cutting turf".
Paul Klee died of cardiac arrest after years of enduring scleroderma.
Sarah Orne Jewett died of a cerebral hemmorhage.
Thomas of Celano.
I have wasted all my youth chained to this tomb.
Michelangelo protested to Julius II.
Why hasn't Writer ever known? What is the black liquid that spills out of the dead Emma Bovary's mouth?'
That's most of the page I chanced to open the book to and ought to give a perfect idea of what the writing is like. You could, I suppose, use it as a bedside book of trivia, you Philistine you, but in doing so you'd be losing the novel itself: There is a story here, though it's told in an untraditional way. And it's left me more keen than ever to read all that Markson wrote.
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may already have gathered from the rest of the book.And the rest of the book is a collection of baldly-stated facts, most of them about writers and particularly about their deaths, brief quotations, and mere phrases. None of these is random nor are they irrelevant to each other and to Writer's situation--in fact, the book is a marvel of organisation--despite appearances:
'Virtually every inadequacy in recent French literature is due to absinthe, Daudet said in the late 1800's.
Annals 165. Where Tacitus actually does, does, call a spade "an implement for digging earth and cutting turf".
Paul Klee died of cardiac arrest after years of enduring scleroderma.
Sarah Orne Jewett died of a cerebral hemmorhage.
Thomas of Celano.
I have wasted all my youth chained to this tomb.
Michelangelo protested to Julius II.
Why hasn't Writer ever known? What is the black liquid that spills out of the dead Emma Bovary's mouth?'
That's most of the page I chanced to open the book to and ought to give a perfect idea of what the writing is like. You could, I suppose, use it as a bedside book of trivia, you Philistine you, but in doing so you'd be losing the novel itself: There is a story here, though it's told in an untraditional way. And it's left me more keen than ever to read all that Markson wrote.
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LibraryThing member Daedalus
Yeah, so the title doesn't lie. That's part of it's charm (insert modern literary theory commentary here). It's worth reading. It's fascinating. It's fun. Mostly it's fun and fascinating.
LibraryThing member kszym
What this is: a list of short (1-3 line) anecdotes about artists. How they died, where they died, ways they insulted people, with occasional bits from Writer, who seems preoccupied with getting older, as well as the failure of his last book. Despite being devoid of plot and characters, there's
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quite a nice story here - mostly sad, but kind of funny. It's a quick read, and a good one. Show Less
LibraryThing member Charon07
This is not a novel. I'm not sure quite what it is, because I'm not sure how much of it is fiction. Maybe none of it. A collage-style memoir, maybe.
But I liked it. As promised, it kept me turning the pages.
And Markson's style is infectious.
But I liked it. As promised, it kept me turning the pages.
And Markson's style is infectious.
LibraryThing member hatchibombotar
I guess it isn't (a novel, that is), though we manage to learn a lot about the character "Writer" through all the anecdotes he tells concerning artists and writers and their relationships with one another, their critics, and - most of all - their deaths.
LibraryThing member jbushnell
Novelist attempts to write an anti-novel, seeing what survives when you reduce narrative to a cascade of facts (literary anecdotes and gossip, mostly). The experiment yields its most interesting results over the first 40 pages or so, so the remaining 150 serve primarily as feeble inquiries into the
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effects of perserverance and duration, effects explored more intriguingly elsewhere. Show Less
LibraryThing member aliceunderskies
Following the title, I wasn't expecting this to be a novel, but I did hope for some sort of philosophical statement about art & mortality. I found none. Why on earth was this even published? It's just a grocery list of anecdotes. Dull & uninspired.
LibraryThing member JamesPaul977
I did read this mish-mosh of historical/literary details & interspersed commentary fairly quickly, in line with the description of it being a page-turner. However the book's inclination towards the random & obscure, beyond a focus on causes of death, is puzzling.
Original publication date
2001