Read Ebook {PDF EPUB} Springer’s Progress by David Markson Springer’s Progress by David Markson. Completing the CAPTCHA proves you are a human and gives you temporary access to the web property. What can I do to prevent this in the future? If you are on a personal connection, like at home, you can run an anti-virus scan on your device to make sure it is not infected with malware. If you are at an office or shared network, you can ask the network administrator to run a scan across the network looking for misconfigured or infected devices. Another way to prevent getting this page in the future is to use Privacy Pass. You may need to download version 2.0 now from the Chrome Web Store. Cloudflare Ray ID: 65fc02d93a1e2bb9 • Your IP : 116.202.236.252 • Performance & security by Cloudflare. MadInkBeard by DerikBadman. The Last Novel. 1st ed. Emeryville, CA: Shoemaker & Hoard, 2007. Vanishing Point : A Novel. 1st ed. Washington, D.C.: Shoemaker & Hoard, 2004. This Is Not a Novel. 1st ed. Washington, D.C.: Counterpoint, 2001. Reader’s Block. 1st ed. Normal, IL: Dalkey Archive Press, 1996. Collected Poems. 1st ed. Normal, IL: Dalkey Archive Press, 1993. “Be All My Sins Remembered.” Review of Contemporary Fiction 10.2 (1990): 145-56. “Reviewers in Flat Heels: Being a Postface to Several Novels.” Review of Contemporary Fiction 10.2 (1990): 124-30. Wittgenstein’s Mistress. 1st ed. Elmwood Park, IL: Dalkey Archive, 1988. 1st pbk ed. Elmwood Park, IL: Dalkey Archive, 1990. 2nd pbk ed. Normal, IL: Dalkey Archive, 1995. “Healthy Kate.” Confrontation.33-34 (1986): 145-58. Rpt. in Review of Contemporary Fiction 10.2 (1990): 131-44. “[John O’hara].” John O’Hara Journal 3.1-2 (1980): 166. Malcolm Lowry’s Volcano : Myth, Symbol, Meaning. New York: Times Books, 1978. Springer’s Progress. 1st ed. New York: Holt Rinehart and Winston, 1977. 1st pbk. ed. Elmwood Park, IL: Dalkey Archive, 1990. Normal, IL: Dalkey Archive, 1999. “A Day for Addie Joss.” Atlantic Monthly 236.2 (1975): 36-40. Going Down. 1st ed. New York: Holt Rinehart Winston, 1970. New York: Belmont Tower, 1970. Ft. Lee, NJ: Herodias, 2002. Washington, D.C.: Shoemaker & Hoard, 2005. (See my review.) Miss Doll, Go Home. 1st ed. New York: Dell, 1965. The Ballad of Dingus Magee; Being the Immortal True Saga of the Most Notorious and Desperate Bad Man of the Olden Days, His Blood- Shedding, His Ruination of Poor Helpless Females, & Cetera. 1st ed. Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill, 1965. New York: Dell, 1967. Blond, 1967. Mayflower, 1968. Oakland Park, FL: VYTIS, 1996. Boca Raton, FL: Skyline Publications, 1997. “Myth in ‘Under the Volcano’.” Prairie Schooner 37 (1963): 339-46. Epitaph for a Dead Beat. 1st ed. New York: Dell, 1961. New York: Belmont Tower, 1972. Epitaph for a Tramp. 1st ed. New York: Dell, 1959. New York: Belmont, 1974. Fannin. Original title: Epitaph for a tramp. New York: Modern Promotions, 1959. New York: Belmont, 1971. “White Apache.” Saturday Evening Post 229.13 (29 Sep 1956): 30, 135-39. “Malcolm Lowry : A Study of Theme and Symbol in under the Volcano.” M.A. Columbia University, 1952. Works by Other Authors: Boccia, Michael, and Joseph Tabbi. “John Barth/David Markson Number.” Review of Contemporary Fiction 10.2 (1990): 91-254. —. “Books by David Markson.” Review of Contemporary Fiction 10.2 (1990): 254. Butscher, Edward. “David Markson’s Volcano: Going Down.” Review of Contemporary Fiction 10.2 (1990): 187-91. Costa, Richard Hauer. “Unsafe Sex and Contraceptive Aesthetics in David Markson’s Springer’s Progress.” Review of Contemporary Fiction 10.2 (1990): 202-06. Dempsey, Peter. “Novelist of shreds and patches: the fiction of David Markson.” Hollins Critic 42.4 (Oct 2005). Elias, Camelia. “The Graveyard of Genre: David Markson’s Postmodern Epitaphs.” Reconstruction 5.1 (Winter 2005). Available: http://www.reconstruction.ws/051/elias.shtml. Feldman, Burton. “Markson’s New Way.” Review of Contemporary Fiction 10.2 (1990): 157-63. Gessen, Keith. “Writing for No One.” Feed Magazine (March 2001). Reprinted at Kraus99: http://www.kraus99.com/nr5/ingen/ingeneng.pdf. Grace, Sherrill E. “Messages: Reading Wittgenstein’s Mistress.” Review of Contemporary Fiction 10.2 (1990): 207-16. Green, Daniel. “Postmodern American Fiction.” Antioch Review 61.4 (2003): 729-41. Honig, David. “Markson’s Progress.” Review of Contemporary Fiction 10.2 (1990): 249-53. Krim, Seymour. “A Letter to Holt, Rinehart and Winston.” Review of Contemporary Fiction 10.2 (1990): 192-94. McCourt, James. “Come Back, Harry Fannin!” Review of Contemporary Fiction 10.2 (1990): 184-86. McEvoy, Dermot. “Wittgenstein’s Author.” Publishers Weekly 1 Mar 2004: 44-45. McGonigle, Thomas. “Knowing a Writer.” Review of Contemporary Fiction 10.2 (1990): 247-48. Moore, Steven. “David Markson and the Art of Allusion.” Review of Contemporary Fiction 10.2 (1990): 164-78. —. “Afterword.” Wittgenstein’s Mistress. Normal, IL: Dalkey Archive, 1999. 243-48. Rubin, Joey. “An Interview with David Markson.” Bookslut.com July 2005. Available: http://www.bookslut.com/features/2005_07_005963.php. Rubinstein, Raphael. “Gathered, Not Made: A Brief History of Appropriative Writing.” American Poetry Review 28.2 (1999): 31-34. Severs, Jeff. “Author! Author!”. Texas Observer 27 Feb 2004. Available: http://www.texasobserver.org/showArticle.asp?ArticleID=1584 (Review-essay on Vanishing Point.) Sullivan, Evelin E. “Love and the Married Writer: Springer’s Progress.” Review of Contemporary Fiction 10.2 (1990): 195-201. —. “Wittgenstein’s Mistress and the Art of Connections.” Review of Contemporary Fiction 10.2 (1990): 240-46. Tabbi, Joseph. “David Markson: An Introduction.” Review of Contemporary Fiction 10.2 (1990): 91-103. —. “An Interview with David Markson.” Review of Contemporary Fiction 10.2 (1990): 104-17. Available: http://www.centerforbookculture.org/interviews/interview_markson.html. —. “Solitary Inventions: David Markson at the End of the Line.” MFS: Modern Fiction Studies 43.3 (1997): 745-72. —. “Reading David Markson.” Context 1 (1999): http://www.centerforbookculture.org/context/no1/tabbi.html. Wallace, David Foster. “The Empty Plenum: David Markson’s Wittgenstein’s Mistress.” Review of Contemporary Fiction 10.2 (1990): 216-39. Whitten, Leslie H., Jr. “Markson and Lowry: Proximity and Distance.” Review of Contemporary Fiction 10.2 (1990): 179-83. Reviews: Anon. “Reader’s Block (Book Review).” Ploughshares 23.1 (1997): 214-5. Anon. “Vanishing Point (Book Review).” Publishers Weekly 26 Jan 2004: 231-2. Anon. “Vanishing Point (Book Review).” Kirkus Reviews 1 Dec 2003: 1374. Boylan, Michael. “Reader’s Block (Book Review).” Library Journal 15 Oct 1996: 91. Burn, Stephen. “Narratives of Information.” American Book Review 26.1 (Nov/Dec 2004): 25, 29. (Review of Vanishing Point) Cannizzaro, Michael. “Journey through an Empty World.” The Washington Post 17 July 1988: X11. (Review of Wittgenstein’s Mistress) Davenport, Guy. “This is Not a Novel (Book Review).” Harper’s Magazine Aug 2001: 63-4. Epstein, Perle. “Going Down (Review).” Village Voice 28 MAY 1970: 6. Ferguson, William. “Reader’s Block (Book Review).” New York Times 12 Jan 1997: 21. Frank, Sheldon. “Minor Minor and Major Minor.” New York Times Book Review 7 Aug 1977: 14. (Review of Springer’s Progress.) Gillespie, William. “Reader’s Block (Book Review).” Spineless Books undated. Available: http://www.spinelessbooks.com/bookviews/MarksonD_RB.html. Grace, Sherrill E. “Malcolm Lowry’s Volcano (Book Review).” Canadian Literature/Littérature canadienne: a quarterly of criticism and review 84 (1980): 111. Hangen, William M. “Malcolm Lowry’s Volcano (Book Review).” Studies in the Novel 11.1 (1979): 121-2. Harris, Robert R. “Springer’s Progress (Book Review).” Library Journal 1 May 1977: 1044. Hempel, Amy. “Home is Where the Art is.” New York Times 22 May 1988: 12. (Review of Wittgenstein’s Mistress.) Howard, Maureen. “The Way We Live Now.” Partisan Review 37.4 (1970): 564-9. (Review of Going Down.) Kaganoff, Penny. “Collected Poems (Book Review).” Publishers Weekly 9 Aug 1993: 472. Kellman, Steven G. “Half in Love with Easeful Death.” Michigan Quarterly Review 36.3 (1997): 520. (Review of Reader’s Block.) Kloszewski, Marc. “Vanishing Point (Book Review).” Library Journal 15 June 2004: 158-9. Lehmann-Haupt, Christopher. “Mexico Underdone and done to Death.” New York Times 24 April 1970: 33. (Review of Going Down that lead to the poem “Daily Reviewer-Haupt”.) Malin, Irving. “Wittgenstein’s Mistress (Book Review).” Hollins Critic 25.4 (1988): 15-6. Maliszewski, Paul. “This is Not a Novel (Book Review).” Review of Contemporary Fiction 21.2 (2001): 158. Miller, Laura. “But this is a Review.” New York Times 1 Apr 2001: 16. (Review of This is Not a Novel.) Mitchelmore, Stephen. “What is the Point?” Spike Magazine (2001): http://www.spikemagazine.com/0601thisisnotanovel.htm Also at: http://www.morose.fsnet.co.uk/reviews/markson.htm (Review of This is Not a Novel.) Nussbaum, Emily. “Experimental Fiction’s Test Pilot.” New York Times 22 Feb 2004: 16. (Review of Vanishing Point.) Orthofer, M.A. “Collected Poems (Book Review).” The Complete Review undated. Available: http://www.complete- review.com/reviews/marksond/poems.htm. —. “Reader’s Block (Book Review).” The Complete Review undated. Available: http://www.complete- review.com/reviews/marksond/readersb.htm. —. “This is Not a Novel (Book Review).” The Complete Review undated. Available: http://www.complete- review.com/reviews/marksond/notnovel.htm. —. “Vanishing Point (Book Review).” The Complete Review 2004. Available: http://www.complete-review.com/reviews/marksond/vpoint.htm. Rogers, M. “Classic Returns (Springer’s Progress Book Review).” Library Journal 1 Aug 1990: 149. Rogers, Michael. “Classic Returns (the Ballad of Dingus Magee Book Review).” Library Journal 1 June 1997: 160. Russo, Maria. “‘This is Not a Novel’ by David Markson.” Salon.com 19 April 2001. Available: http://archive.salon.com/books/review/2001/04/19/markson/ Schork, Joe. “”This Strangely Neglected Topic . . .”.” James Joyce Literary Supplement 12.1 (1998): 17. (Review of Reader’s Block.) Seaman, Donna. “This is Not a Novel (Book Review).” Booklist 15 Apr 2001: 1535. Simson, Maria, and Sybil S. Steinberg. “Reader’s Block (Book Review).” Publishers Weekly 12 Aug 1996: 79-80. Smith, Damon. “”This is Not a Novel’ An Ambitious Defiance of Literary Convention.” The Boston Globe 2 May 2001: F10. St. John, Janet. “Vanishing Point (Book Review).” Booklist 1 Jan/15 Jan 2004: 824-5. Tabbi, Joseph. “The Baggage in One’s Head.” San Francisco Review of Books Summer 1988: 32. (Review of Wittgenstein’s Mistress.) Tosswill, T. O. “MALCOLM LOWRY’S VOLCANO (Book Review).” West Coast Review 13.3 (1979): 44-5. Walters, Colin. “When is a Novel Not a Novel?” The Washington Times 15 Apr 2001: B6. (Review of This is Not a Novel.) Weller, Sheila. “Can a Man Write a Feminist Novel?” Ms. Mar 1978: 35,36, 38. (Review of Springer’s Progress.) Zaleski, Jeff. “This is Not a Novel (Book Review).” Publishers Weekly 19 Mar 2001: 74-5. Zorn, Jean G., and William Ferguson. “Reader’s Block (Book Review).” New York Times 12 Jan 1997: 21. MadInkBeard by DerikBadman. “Nonlinear. Discontinuous. Collage-like. An assemblage. Or of no describable genre? A seminonfictional semifiction? Cubist? Also in part a distant cousin innumerable times removed of A Skeleton’s Key to Finnegans Wake? Obstinately cross-referential and of cryptic interconnective syntax in any case.” – Reader’s Block , p.140. David Markson’s novels are an erudite labyrinth of intertextuality, filled with allusions and references to literature, art history, philosophy, and the creators thereof. As his novels progress, they explore the theme of artistic (literary) creation and the isolation of the artist, through an increasingly abstract interior monologue. Having produced six novels in the past 35 years, Markson is by no means a prolific novelist, but he more than makes up for quantity with quality. Direct biographical information on Markson is scarce. He was born David Merrill Markson on December 20, 1927 in Albany, NY. Son of a newspaper editor and a school teacher, one gets the idea that he was exposed to a lot of reading when young. He spent two years in the U.S. army and earned a B.A. from Union College in Schenectady, NY in 1950. He has taught at a number of schools, including Columbia University, and, except for some time spent in Mexico and Spain, has lived most of his life in New York. While working for his Master’s degree at Columbia University in 1952, Markson wrote his thesis on Malcolm Lowry’s Under the Volcano , the first major study of the novel. He began corresponding with Lowry while working on the thesis (which was later expanded and published as Malcolm Lowry’s Volcano: Myth, Symbol, Meaning in 1978), and they continued their friendship until Lowry’s death (a testament to their close friendship: Markson gave his daughter the middle name Lowry). Markson’s other literary acquaintances included Conrad Aiken, Jack Kerouac, and Dylan Thomas, all of whom have appeared in subsequent poems, essays, or novels. Through the late 50’s and early 60’s Markson wrote, to support himself, three novels that he calls “entertainments.” All three ( Epitaph for a Tramp (1959), Epitaph for a Dead Beat (1961), and Miss Doll, Go Home (1965)) are genre fictions concerning a detective in a New York’s artist community. He first had success with The Ballad of Dingus Magee (1966), a parodic western that was later made into a movie starring Frank Sinatra ( Dirty Dingus Magee (1970)). The success of Dingus Magee (the money from the movie), helped Markson afford to rewrite a novel on which he had been working for many years. Published in 1970, Going Down began exploring the themes he would return to in subsequent works: artistic creation, and its despair, isolation, and anguish. A gothic mystery set in a village in Mexico (Markson lived in Mexico for a time), the plot revolves around an American painter, Fern Winters (a name that later appears in Reader’s Block as a former love interest of the narrator), and her lover, a non-writing poet, Steve Chance (who is named after a baseball player, true to Markson’s love of the game). Very much a novel of darkness and despair, it was called “pretentious” by many critics for its use of different narrative modes and styles (showing the influence of Joyce and Faulkner). Reviewer Christopher Lehmann-Haupt said of it: “…a novelist, with nothing to say, trying to tell a story he doesn’t believe for a minute.” (Markson’s poem, “Daily Reviewer-Haupt,” (see below) seems to have been written in rebuke.) Lowry’s influence is immediately obvious to a reader of both Under the Volcano and Going Down . Though the books are quite different, comparisons are unavoidable. “There’s Springer, sauntering though the wilderness of the world. Lurking anent the maidens’ shittery, more the truth of it. Eye out for this wench, who’s just ducked inside, this clodhopper Jessica Cornford.” – Springer’s Progress , p.3. Markson’s follow up novel is Springer’s Progress (1977) a rampant, bawdy, playfully funny novel about a middle-aged, unproductive writer, Lucien Springer (Lucien appears again in Wittgenstein’s Mistress as a former love interest of the narrator), his extramarital affair with a much younger aspiring novelist, Jessica Cornford, and his subsequent return to novel writing. Stylistically, Springer’s Progress is written in short choppy paragraphs (a style that was further refined by Markson is his later works) that express Springer’s thoughts, fantasies, and peculiar mental ticks (such as his habit of recalling art historical facts when nervous, “Michelangelo slept in his boots.”) The novel is filled with literary and art historical allusions (as mentioned) as well as puns, wordplay (Springer engages in a whole page of acrostics, spelling out J-E-S-S-I-C-A with the names of novelists and artists), and a prodigious vocabulary that will cause even the most well read to have a dictionary at hand. As Springer begins to write again, the novel he writes becomes the novel that is being read, creating an overlapping circularity that can only end one way… “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.” – Wittgenstein’s Mistress , p.12. Wittgenstein’s Mistress (1988) is Markson’s most critically acclaimed and well-known novel. Taking the style of Springer’s Progress even further, this novel is made of the one or two sentence paragraph thoughts of Kate (whose name also appears later in Reader’s Block ), a painter who is, or believes herself to be, the last woman (or man, or animal) on earth. Amongst recollections of her travels (in search of any other people) and her life in a beach house, Kate struggles with the concept of language and how it can adequately represent our thoughts. The novel is brimming with references to art historical figures (more about the artists themselves, than their work), Greek drama, philosophers, writers, and the connections between (some real, some made up by the narrator), as Kate recalls things she has read or learned, sometimes inaccurately (though she does not always realize this). Throughout, an element of despair and loneliness pervades the text. Wittgenstein’s Mistress is a novel unlike any other, vast in its erudition and touching in its sadness. “Daily Reviewer-Haupt” (from the Collected Poems) What bile must rise within his throat O’er all those books, not one he wrote! Ah, let the wretch our spawn berate: The bold make love; some masturbate. In 1993, Markson’s Collected Poems was released. It spans a long period of time, and addresses some familiar themes: art history, literary lives (particularly Dylan Thomas, Malcolm Lowry, and Jack Kerouac), love and sex (among them, two poems that originally appeared in Springer’s Progress ), as well as more personal issues. In his introduction, Markson writes them off as less than serious and berates his own love of rhyme and out of style rhythm, but the poems work well, on the whole, containing a certain sense of anachronism in their forms and styles. “Reader and his mind full of clutter. What is a novel in any case? Or is he in some peculiar way thinking of an autobiography?” – Reader’s Block , p. 13. Markson’s most recent three novels: Reader’s Block (1996), This is Not a Novel (2001), and Vanishing Point (2004) can be considered a kind of trilogy. They share the same “discontinuous, nonlinear, collage-like” form. Each even repeats in some form the quotes that begin and end this introduction. The skeletal narrative that runs through each progresses from the “Reader” in RB, to “Writer” in TiNaN, to “Author” in VP. Like Wittgenstein’s Mistress they consist of short, one or two sentence paragraphs narrated with an interior monologue that is constantly mulling over bits of information (mostly artistic/literary) but take the idea even further from a conventional narrative. The books contain three main foci: pieces of information about artists, writers, musicians, and philosophers (which in the different volumes revolve around a changing set of foci: suicides, anti-semitics, sexual oddities, insanities, deaths, quotes, responses to criticism, and other often depressing or tragic features of the artistic life); unattributed quotations; and the more direct voice of the protagonist (Reader, Writer, Author) as he struggles both with his writing and life. Reader’s Block , the one that contains the most of what could more conventionally be considered a narrative, that of Reader trying to construct his novel about “Protagonist”, ends with the phrase “Wastebasket.” Giving up on this narrative construction, the latter two novels are even more sparse in their narrative structure. This “trilogy” creates meaning like a collage through juxtaposition and the rhythm that comes with the short passages rather than through the coherence of any set of characters, settings, or plot. Regardless of these conventional lacks, all three works are highly readable (the rhythmic aspect gives the books a pleasant pace) and emotionally powerful (particularly by the time one reaches the end of Vanishing Point . In these works Markson has created his own unique form of the novel. The novels of David Markson, at least the serious ones, form a consistent oeuvre. Like many authors, Markson struggles with the same themes in his works, returning to them anew with each novel. The progress of his distinctive style is also very much in evidence from Going Down through to Vanishing Point . Reveling in the connections of life, art, and thought, Markson’s novels also connect with each other. Markson has been, for the most part, ignored in literary circles. One can find few to no articles about his work, except for reviews and an excellent issue of The Review of Contemporary Fiction (Vol. X, Number 2, 1990, a split issue on Markson and John Barth) that contains articles on his work previous to Reader’s Block . One hopes that with time his work will be appreciated for what it has to say. “A novel of intellectual reference and allusion, so to speak minus much of the novel?” [Quoted from Reader’s Block . Also appearing in Vanishing Point with a period instead of a question mark.] SPRINGER'S PROGRESS. The minifinneganswake of vodka-sozzled Greenwich Village prose-lush Lucien (""Loosh"") Springer--a prince of writer's block (""I'm experimenting in a new genre. Empty pages"") and equipped with an angelic doormat-wife who blesses and supports him, even when he's abroad with a broad. The current broad is budding young novelist Jessica Cornford, provider of healing adulation and coitus noninterruptus. (Forgive him! Hasn't his old flame, a famed poetess, just pilled out to the big time? Just after giving him a lemony snows-of-yesteryear crotch farewell?) Yes, Jessica has Loosh gasping like Humbert Humbert, but let the punhappy fellow tell it himself: ""Sorcery thereafter, headlong into lubricious delirium she'll spirit him. Malleus Maleficarum. Casuistical scoundrel named Urbain Grandier Springer's become, all the demoniac nuns of Loudun he's copulating with at once. . . ."" As you'll have guessed, our splatteringly allusive hero has apparently read everything worth reading (""I'm nine years older than Leopold Bloom. . . I've even got hemorrhoids""). Loosh's own readership is. . . well, a cult of perhaps eleven or twelve happy few. The cult for over-writing like David Markson's may be somewhat larger. Springer's Progress. Here comes Lucien Springer. Age: forty-seven. Still handsome though muchly vodka'd novelist, currently abashed by acute creative dysfunction. Sole preoccupation amid these artistic doldrums: pursuit of fair women. Springer is a randy incorrigible who is guided by only one inflexible precept: no protracted affairs. And thus he has slyly sustained eighteen years of marriage. Enter, then, Jessica Cornford. Age: almost half of Lucien's. Lush of body and roguish of mind. Whereupon what begins as bawdy interlude becomes perhaps the most untidy extramarital letch in literature. Rabelaisian yet uncannily wise, both ribald and bittersweet, Springer's Progress is that rarest of gifts, a mature love story. It is an also exuberant linguistic romp, a novel saturated with irrepressible wordplay and outrageous literary thieveries. Contemplating his own work, Lucien Springer modestly restricts his ambition to "a phrase or three worth some lonely pretty girl's midnight underlining." For the discerning reader, David Markson has contrived a hundred of them. Genre: Literary Fiction.