MJ Nicholls's Reviews > Wittgenstein’s Mistress

This is the first Markson I have read with, at least, his own linear sentences (if not structure or plot). As with certain Dalkey Archive titles, it helps to read around the book first (Foster Wallace’s RCF review from 1990 being a good place to start) to understand the technical philosophy being explored alongside the devastating depiction of loneliness and madness that forms the upfront textual heft. On a prose level, each sentence occupies its own little island of significance, standing alone as separate paragraphs, as the memory and trivia flux zigzags along the page, offering rare titbits from the narrator’s past, along with increasingly crazed factual inaccuracies. Namedropped as a former lover is Lucien—the protagonist in Springer’s Progress, perhaps?—and the slight chilling reference to her dead son and arson tendencies add a grave shade to a world of apocalyptic art references and extremely long menstrual cycles. Comparison points might be made with B.S. Johnson’s more basic exploration of grief The Unfortunates or Lynne Tillman’s American Genius: A Comedy, but the novel stands alone as a bewitching original.