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"my copy of white noise apparently used to belong to david markson (who i had to look up). he wrote some notes in the margin: a check mark by some passages, ‘no' by other, ‘bullshit' or ‘ugh get to the point' by others. i wanted to call him up and tell him his notes are funny, but then i realized he DIED A MONTH AGO. bummer."
-Hurry down to the Strand if you want to pick up what's left of David Markson's heavily annotated personal library.
I'm sorry, but David Markson didn't have the right to tell ANYONE (much less DeLillo!) to "get to the point."
DeLillo "getting to the point" is often also "beside the point"!
I like when DeLillo goes off-topic. Also, when he attempts to talk dirty (it's happened)
My favorite part of White Noise is where he talks about having the onion on his belt, which was the style at the time.
This post just gave me so much anxiety! Someone better go there for me NOW. Did he read Nabokov!? ahhhh!
I'M NOW REDUCED TO GROVELING ON THE INTERNET TO STRANGERS…. BUT SOMEONE FOUND MARKSON'S COPY OF MONTAIGNE AND I JUST DIED OF ENVY.
being a noir/private eye novel obsessive and frequent customer of the amazing kayo books in sf, i've only read his two earliest novels and had to check the wikipedia page to confirm that it's the same david markson. i guess this is the equivalent of only listening to the beatles work with tony sheridan and i should probably rectify the situation.
Holy freaking mackerel I am in Los Angeles.
Also: why the hell didn't they sell this stuff to the Ransom Center?
That was my first thought, too. Esp. since I am doing my bi-annual re-read of 'Possession.'
Or, rather, my thought was, "Fuck. This is what happens when things don't get sold to the Ransom Center."
Which is to say, this is both awesome and sad-making at the same time. Guess who's going to the Strand after work?
@elegantfaker, that makes me feel a lot better. Not kidding, there.
MIDWESTERN PRO-TIP: The books of dying Northwestern professors usually end up at Bookman's Alley, which is no The Strand, but coils inward like a nautilus and is bigger than it looks on the outside. I had a brutal professor who died about a year after I left, and now I have the brutal professor's copy of Ulysses (for closure).Â
(Disclaimer: I was bad at graduate school, so it is possible the brutality was justified)
I have to admit, a comment like "Get to the point" does gain significant potency when you know its author has since expired.
WHAT THE FUCK! That's MY facebook status update! I read this blog all the time while I'm supposed to be working (like right now)!
Giovanni, it was Markson's fucking book, he had the right to write whatever he wanted in it. To quote Lou Reed chastising an interviewer complaining about what an injustice it is to the listener that each Byrds album sounds different and you never know what you're gonna get, "You don't own people, maybe you should evolve!" Hi Annecy.
What "happens when things don't get sold to the Ransom Center" is that they end up at the bottom of my purse with tobacco in the spine. What "happens when things don't get sold to the Ransom Center" is that I read them at work whilst eating Indian food. Don't worry everyone. White Noise is now safe on my bookshelf, between Twilight: New Moon and Time Traveler's Wife. Hey Mio!