logo
Wrong email address or username
Wrong email address or username
Incorrect verification code
Wittgenstein's Mistress - David Markson, Steven Moore
Wittgenstein's Mistress
by: (author) (author)
4.17 115
Wittgenstein's Mistress is a novel unlike anything David Markson -- or anyone else -- has ever written before. 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.Presumably she is mad. And yet... show more
Wittgenstein's Mistress is a novel unlike anything David Markson -- or anyone else -- has ever written before. 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.Presumably she is mad. 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. 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."The novel I liked best this year," said the Washington Times upon the book's publication in 1988; "one dizzying, delightful, funny passage after another . . . Wittgenstein's Mistress gives proof positive that the experimental novel can produce high, pure works of imagination."
show less
Format: paperback
ISBN: 9781564782113 (1564782115)
ASIN: 1564782115
Publisher: Dalkey Archive Press
Pages no: 279
Edition language: English
Bookstores:
Community Reviews
Musings/Träumereien/Devaneios
Musings/Träumereien/Devaneios rated it
5.0 Simultaneous Worlds: "Wittgenstein's Mistress" by David Markson
(Original Review, 1990)I think the point—or premise?—of “Wittgenstein's Mistress” is that the monologue of the only person on Earth—necessarily, in the physical sense of "only", a "monologue"—is not actually a monologue. Language itself—emerging or disclosed in and through the concrete words and usa...
Ceridwen
Ceridwen rated it
0.0 Fuck yeah Markson
I ordered myself a copy of this again, because I have a thing where I impress books upon people -- often late at a party, when the confetti has ground in and the eyes water with fatigue and drunk -- and then I never see them again. Or, that's not precisely true. Sometimes they come back years later,...
sarahsar
sarahsar rated it
Kate is the only person living in the world. Well, what I should have said is the only creature living. On my honor, there is nobody else. There are no dogs or cats or seagulls or scorpions. Quite possibly there are no fish either. I did not verify that for certain about the fish, however. ...
nouveau
nouveau rated it
3.0 Wittgenstein's Mistress
I'm on the spot. heavyweights all over the place, professional and published writers alike calling this a touchstone work. gotta justify the 3/5 but off limited wifi. just resist the urge to tap GR, but here we are. can't be making excuses constantly. the 10 second take? it's Markson behind the mask...
Ceridwen
Ceridwen rated it
Cross-posted on Readerling"In the beginning, sometimes I left messages in the street." There's an old saw, deployed in freshman (or maybe more properly sophomore) English classes about first lines. They set the tone, or gesture to the plot. They are a sign pointing off to the castle. "It is a truth ...
Other editions (2)
Books by David Markson
Books by Steven Moore
On shelves
Share this Book
Need help?