Wittgenstein's Mistress

A post-modern interpretation of a post-modern novel.

[onthisbeach]

Although one curious thing that might sooner or later cross the woman's mind would be that she had paradoxically been practically as alone before all of this had happened as she was now, incidentally. Well, this being an autobiographical novel I can categorically verify that such a thing would sooner or later cross her mind, in fact. One manner of being alone simply being different from another manner of being alone, being all that she would finally decide that this came down to, as well. Which is to say that even when one's telephone still does function one can be as alone as when it does not.

[onthisbeach]

Something on David Markson's Wittgenstein's Mistress, Shamelessly Plagiarized and Rearranged from One-Star Amazon Reviews

[onthisbeach]

“Once, somebody asked Robert Schumann to explain the meaning of a certain piece of music he had just played on the piano. 

What Robert Schumann did was sit back down at the piano and play the piece of music again.” 

[onthisbeach]

“You will say that I am old and mad, was what Michaelangelo wrote, but I answer that there is no better way of being sane and free from anxiety than by being mad.” 

[onthisbeach]

David Markson's library for sale, and going fast

When David Markson, author of the postmodern classic "Wittgenstein's Mistress," died in New York in June at age 82, he left behind a vast library of books. In the dissolution of Markson's worldly possessions, more than 50 cartons -- holding...

Somewhat painfully ironic, given that the protagonist of Wittgenstein's Mistress spends a fair amount of time considering stored cartons of books in the house where she resides. 

[onthisbeach]

“Have I ever said that Turner once actually had himself lashed to the mast of a ship, to be able to later do a painting of a storm?  Which has never failed to remind me of the scene in which Odysseus does the identical thing, of course, so that he can listen to the Sirens singing but will stay put.”

[onthisbeach]

“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.” 

[onthisbeach]

[via Pop Chart Lab]

[onthisbeach]

I felt Wittgenstein's predicted social media - that Twittering status update - but I didn't consider fan fiction. Oh my god. 

[onthisbeach]

“In fact one frequently seemed to gather all sorts of similar information about subjects one had less than profound interest in.”

[onthisbeach]

The world is everything that is the case.

I have no idea what I mean by the sentence I have just typed, by the way.

For some reason I seem to have had it in my head all day, however, although without the vaguest notion about where it might have come from.

[onthisbeach]

Don't bother to get up, I would have been delighted to insist. 

[onthisbeach]

As a matter of fact people had probably been driving William Gaddis to distraction for years, by asking him if he were aware that there had been a painter named Thaddeo Gaddi. 

[onthisbeach]

All of this was some time before I rolled the tennis balls down the Spanish Steps in Rome, by the way.

I make the connection between getting rid if the watches and rolling the tennis balls down the Spanish Steps because I positive that getting rid of the watches also occurred before I saw the cat, which was likewise in Rome. 

[onthisbeach]

[onthisbeach]