Markson's Late Works

Joanna Scott in The Nation:

Markson’s final books have an astonishing fluidity despite their staccato rhythm. But what really sets them apart is the complex portrait of the fictional writer who lies at their center. There’s no one like him elsewhere in literature. He is an old man who is trying to figure out what his life adds up to. He makes some disclosures about his struggles and ambition, but mostly he reveals himself in his selections, his syntax, the arrangement of quotations. His personality is immediately discernible yet continues to develop as he keeps on with his encyclopedic efforts. He has a dependable cohesiveness yet keeps us guessing about what he will come up with next. He is as hilarious as he is melancholy. He is cranky yet easily delighted. He has been brutally treated by the world, yet he can’t stop loving it. He’s dying, but he’s not ready to die. There’s so much he doesn’t know, so much he wants to remember and admire. Time is running out for him, and he’s trying to understand who he is before he’s gone altogether. He is fading before our eyes. And yet over the course of these four books, the narrator manages to emerge as one of contemporary fiction’s most vivid and enthralling characters—a Reader, Author, Writer, Novelist—with an essential story to tell.

Full article here. Also see Derik Badman’s review of The Last Novel at The Quarterly Conversation.

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