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David Markson Solitude Issue 1.1 Summer 2015 the Scofield THE SCO FIELD O DAVID MARKSON SOLITUDE ISSUE 1.1 SUMMER 2015 THE SCOFIELD EGON SCHIELE THE SCO FIELD 1.1 “ Was it really some other person I was so anxious to discover, when I did all of that looking, or was it only my own solitude that I could not abide?” DAVID MARKSON, WITTGENSTEIN’S MISTRESS “Markson recognizes the thematic centrality of solitude in his work” Portrait Of Johann Harms JOSEPH TABBI, COGNITIVE FICTIONS DAVID MARKSON SOLITUDE OIL WITH WAX ON CANVAS 55 ½ X 43 5/8 INCHES (141 X 110.8 CM) SOLOMON R. GUGGENHEIM MUSEUM, NEW YORK DIGITAL IMAGE COURTESY OF THE MET OASC PROGRAM PARTIAL GIFT, DR. AND MRS. OTTO KALLIR, 1969 WWW.METMUSEUM.ORG 69.1884 ISSUE 1.1 SUMMER 2015 PAGE 2 THE SCOFIELD TABLE OF CONTENTS TABLE OF CONTENTS Portrait of Johann Harms Pg. 2 Reading David Markson Pg. 16 Painting by Egon Schiele Essay by Joseph Tabbi Scofield Thayer Pg. 2 A Fonder Admission of Other Small Things: Pg. 22 Sculpture by Gaston Lachaise A Conversation with Ann Beattie Interview by Tyler Malone Table of Contents Pg. 3 Pg. 73 of Ann Beattie’s Pg. 27 The First Page of Diane Johnson’s Pg. 7 Picturing Will Terrorists & Novelists Marginalia by David Markson Marginalia by David Markson The from Makes a Pg. 28 A Heavily Populated Solitude Pg. 7 Deal with the Letter from the Editor by Tyler Malone Fiction by Joseph Salvatore David Markson Bibliography Pg. 10 Disaster After Jesse Wong’s Kitchen Pg. 32 List of Works by David Markson Painting by Louis Fratino David Markson Ports of Entry Pg. 11 Nonlinear. Discontinuous. Collage-like. Pg. 32 Recommended Reading by Various Authors An Assemblage: The Architecture of David Markson’s Last Works Proposition 1 from Pg. 14 Essay by Stephen Burn Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus Philosophy Excerpt by Ludwig Wittgenstein Homesick: Pg. 37 A Conversation with Chigozie Obioma Interview by Conor Higgins The Opening Pages of Pg. 14 Wittgenstein’s Mistress DAVID MARKSON SOLITUDE Stanza XC of the Third Canto from Pg. 42 Fiction Excerpt by David Markson Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage Poetry Excerpt by Lord Byron ISSUE 1.1 SUMMER 2015 PAGE 3 THE SCOFIELD TABLE OF CONTENTS TABLE OF CONTENTS Portrait of Anthony Valabrègue Pg. 42 Great Thinkers on Solitude Pg. 64 Painting by Paul Cézanne Quotations from Various Great Thinkers Markson’s Plain White Notecards Part 1 Pg. 43 Markson’s Plain White Notecards Part 2 Pg. 66 Correspondence from David Markson to Laura Sims Correspondence from David Markson to Tyler Malone David Markson Dominates Twitter Pg. 44 In the Beginning, Pg. 67 Essay by Laura Sims Sometimes He Left Messages in the Books Essay by Tyler Malone A Walk at Dusk Pg. 47 Painting by Caspar David Friedrich Pg. 108 of Camille Paglia’s Pg. 83 Sexual Personae Manganese: Pg. 48 Marginalia by David Markson A Conversation with Will Chancellor Interview by Scott Cheshire On Solitude Pg. 84 Photography by Will Chancellor Poetry by John Keats Pg. 94 of Michelangelo’s Pg. 55 I, Michelangelo, Sculptor Judith Pg. 84 Marginalia by David Markson Painting by Louis Fratino He Has Made Facts Sad: Pg. 85 The Bus Has Long Since Pulled Out: Pg. 56 David Foster Wallace & Wittgenstein’s Mistress A Conversation with David Markson Essay by Dustin Illingworth Interview by Joey Rubin Plums Pg. 87 Four Poems Pg. 62 Essay & Photography by Scott David Herman Poetry by Todd Colby DAVID MARKSON SOLITUDE The Opening Pages of Pg. 90 To Edgar Poe (The Eye, Like a Strange Pg. 64 The Last Novel Balloon, Mounts toward Infinity) Fiction Excerpt by David Markson Lithograph by Odilon Redon ISSUE 1.1 SUMMER 2015 PAGE 4 THE SCOFIELD TABLE OF CONTENTS TABLE OF CONTENTS The First Page of Jack Green’s Pg. 93 Like He Was Doing Penance: Pg. 121 Fire the Bastards! A Conversation with David Markson Marginalia by Steven Moore Interview by Charles J. Shields Keeping the Novel Novel: Pg. 93 Markson’s Plain White Notecards Part 3 Pg. 127 A Conversation with Steven Moore Correspondence from David Markson to Charles J. Shields Interview by Tyler Malone Submission; or Thither in the Night Pg. 128 A Selection from Counsels and Maxims Pg. 102 Fiction by Scott Cheshire & Jeffrey Cassvan Philosophy Excerpt by Arthur Schopenhauer Photography by Jeffrey Cassvan Four Stories Pg. 104 Pg. 578 of Joseph Blotner’s Pg. 139 Fiction by Evan Lavender-Smith Faulkner: A Biography Marginalia by David Markson David Markson as the Original Tweeter? Pg. 106 Essay by Matt Bucher Novelist’s Diorama Pg. 140 Essay by Mary Duffy The Killer and the Killed: Pg. 109 A Conversation with Amelia Gray Marksonesque Pg. 143 Interview by Carmiel Banasky Recommended Reading by Various Authors Conversation Pg. 117 Untitled Pg.145 Painting by Louis Fratino Painting by Rebecca Shmuluvitz Exist and Be Shared: Pg. 118 Selections from A Facing Shore Pg. 146 The Meursault Investigation Poetry Excerpt by Matthew Daddona & Tim Wood Review by P. T. Smith Pg. 40 of Ved Mehta’s Pg. 151 DAVID MARKSON SOLITUDE Pg. 41 of Kurt Vonnegut’s Pg. 121 Fly and the Fly-Bottle Timequake Marginalia by David Markson Marginalia by David Markson ISSUE 1.1 SUMMER 2015 PAGE 5 THE SCOFIELD TABLE OF CONTENTS TABLE OF CONTENTS Pursue Whatever Beast is in View: Pg. 151 “We Are All Related” from Good Talk: Pg. 169 A Conversation with Lewis Lapham Conversations I’m Still Confused By Interview by Andrew Mitchell Davenport Graphic Memoir Excerpt by Mira Jacob A Jockey on His Horse Pg. 156 The Last Page of Henri Peyre’s Pg. 170 Drawing by Edgar Degas The Failure of Criticism Marginalia by David Markson A Selection from Pg. 156 We Who Saw Everything Proposition 7 from Pg. 170 Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus Poetry Excerpt by Whit Griffin Philosophy Excerpt by Ludwig Wittgenstein “Solitude” from Walden Pg. 158 Memoir Excerpt by Henry David Thoreau Masthead & Dramatis Personae Pg. 171 Portraits by Tyler Malone Sea by the Sea Pg. 163 Photography by Randall Winston On Our Nightstand Pg. 164 Recommended Reading by Various Authors Pg. 224 of Don DeLillo’s Pg. 166 Mao II Marginalia by David Markson Buenas Noches, Gato Pg. 167 Cocktail Recipe by Jonathan Dale The Panel of Dead Authors Pg. 168 DAVID MARKSON SOLITUDE Comic by Charlie Meyard ISSUE 1.1 SUMMER 2015 PAGE 6 THE SCOFIELD DAVID MARKSON TYLER MALONE A Heavily Populated Solitude Writing is inherently a solitary act. You sit at a desk. You drag a pen or a pencil across some blank paper. You tickle keys that correspond to letters on a typewriter or a computer. However you do it, you do it alone. Reading, too, is a solitary act. Sure, you can read aloud or be read aloud to. Likely that’s how your interaction with words began, with your parents reading you stories. But most of your reading is probably done alone and in silence—the words, your only partner at the dance. This, the first issue of The Scofield, is for you and you alone, you who are alone, you who write and read and love writing and reading. DAVID MARKSON SOLITUDE Our guiding principle here at The Scofieldis to create a place where lovers of literature gather. Of course, we aren’t actually gathering. We are still in solitude, reading these The First Page of Diane Johnson’s words alone. The hope though—as is the hope, I suspect, Terrorists & Novelists with all artistic endeavors—is to transcend our loneliness, ISSUE 1.1 SUMMER 2015 PAGE 7 THE SCOFIELD TYLER MALONE TYLER MALONE to populate our solitude with others. worthy of further exploration and exposure. In doing so, We’ve populated our first issue with a diverse set of we will also dive into a particular theme that the issue’s writers, artists, and thinkers. In that way, we hope to be featured writer wrestled with throughout his or her career. a literary journal in the vein of The Dial. We even took That said, there will be plenty of content in each issue that our name, The Scofield, from Scofield Thayer, The Dial’s doesn’t exactly relate to either the spotlighted author or publisher and editor from 1920 to 1926. Each issue of the explored concept. The two things will act more like a the 1920s version of The Dialseemed to have a who’s focus rather than an all-encompassing thematic totality. who of the arts contributing content. The writers, artists, For our inaugural issue, we have chosen David and thinkers included in the magazine didn’t have the Markson and Solitude. We chose David Markson, I same political ideology, they didn’t share philosophical must confess, because I have long been obsessed with or religious persuasions, and their work often had very his work, especially the late novels. Five years ago, just little in common aesthetically or thematically. Almost after his death, when his personal library was sold off at all of the work was compelling—the quality is beyond the Strand Bookstore, I collected hundreds of his books, belief, especially upon looking back from almost a century posting scans of the pages with marginalia on my tumblr on—but the magazine incorporated a mishmash of world blog Reading Markson Reading. Though his acclaim has views and aesthetic principles. Yet the work was curated certainly risen in recent years, the other editors and I still in such a way that the seemingly disparate pieces were think he is woefully underrated, given how undeniably placed in dialogue with one another. Essays, which on powerful his final five novels are.
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