Wittgenstein's Mistress by David Markson

'Provocative, learned, wacko, brilliant, and extravangantly comic.a formidable work of art by a writer who kicks tradition out the window, then kicks the window out the window, letting a splendid new light into the room.' -William Kennedy Anyone who reads it can’t think about the world the same way.'- Ann Beattie While Markson himself would deplore the use of a cliche, all I can say is that this book is original, beautiful, and an absolute masterpiece. His wit and awesome power of observation make this fictional world utterly convincing. Markson is as precise and dazzling as Joyce. 'I can’t think of the last time I held my breath when I read a book, waiting for the author to make one slip.

an erudite, breathtakingly cerebral novel whose prose is crystal and whose voice rivets and whose conclusion defies you not to cry.” - David Foster Wallace And as she contemplates aspects of the troubled past which have brought her to her present state-obviously a metaphor for ultimate loneliness-so too will her drama become one of the few certifiably original fictions of our time. And yet so appealing is her character, and so witty and seductive her narrative voice, that we will follow her hypnotically as she unloads the intellectual baggage of a lifetime in a series of irreverent meditations on everything and everybody from Brahms to sex to Heidegger to Helen of Troy. It is the story of a woman who is convinced-and, astonishingly, will ultimately convince the reader as well-that she is the only person left on earth. Wittgenstein's Mistress is a novel unlike anything David Markson-or anyone else-has ever written before.

Wittgenstein's Mistress by David Markson