A review by konniecanread
Wittgenstein's Mistress by David Markson

challenging funny mysterious reflective slow-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Strong character development? It's complicated
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

Very strange, very funny, and very, very good. About a woman who is the last animal on earth. Probably. She claims she is, but she's also completely insane, so we really can't be sure. She chooses to spend this book writing about... everything, really. She covers Homeric myth, a book in her house called The Life of Brahms which has been warped by moisture, Wittgenstein's early philosophy of language, a piece of tape which, when blown by the wind, sounds a bit like a cat, which she then names after Van Gogh (the cat, that is), Nietzsche, Kierkegaard, Heidegger (none of whom she has read a single word of), Spanish castles, and bricolage. Throughout this there's also a more genuine metatextual discussion of loneliness, truth, and language.

The writing is completely non-linear. Her thoughts do not follow from each other (if you are sane), she frequently comes back to the same stories and ideas she has already discussed, often misremembers stories and facts, sometimes returns to these 200 pages later to correct them, otherwise leaves them standing. She makes up stories, then later forgets she made them up, she tells real stories, then later decides she made them up.

If this all sounds very pretentious - that's because it is. But it's also continuously hilarious, thought provoking, and managed to completely subvert how I think about storytelling. Very likely my new favourite book.