David Markson - Fare Forward - Letters from David Markson

Yes, I know about that “other woman.” 17In fact she’s already delivered several essays at one conference or another in France. As did someone from Temple U. at an American Lit Ass’n thing in Boston last spring. Plus there’s the hombre presumably doing the one for RCF. So I repeat, kiddo — get to it.

You did see the Markson stuff in a much earlier (1990) RCF, 18 no? If we’ve mentioned this, excuse my ever more pervasive senility, eh?

Otherwise I wish I had some news — or at least something cheerful to say — but my under-the-weatherness is even more pervasive than my empty-headedness. Just awrful. DON’T GET OLD.

Speaking of which, it only lately occurred to me that tomorrow, around lunchtime, will be fifty years to the hour since Dylan Thomas died about four blocks from where I now sit. He was in a coma for approx. five days, and it was about three before that when I last chatted with him at the White Horse 19(also four blocks off). But good gawd — a half century ago?! Old, did I say?

Thine—

David

14 This was his first use of this nickname for me; for some reason he alternates, from here on out, between two spellings: “Simsy” and “Symsy.”

15 “Diane Williams.” RCF, Vol. XXIII, No. 3.

16 Diane Williams, American fiction writer, author of Romancer Erector and Vicky Swanky Is a Beauty.

17 FranÇoise Palleau-Papin, the French scholar who published This Is Not a Tragedy, the first book-length study on David Markson, in 2011 (Dalkey Archive Press).

18 “John Barth/David Markson.” RCF , Vol. X, No. 2.

19 The White Horse Tavern, at Hudson & 11 thStreet, was a popular Greenwich Village gathering-place for writers and artists (including David, Dylan Thomas, Bob Dylan, James Baldwin, and Norman Mailer) during the 1950s and 60s.

Dear Laura:

Do forgive the silence. I appear to have gone to 938,627 MDs since my last. No, only a few, just seems that way. // You’d never told me you were a poet, you know? 20So how’d I know? I sure do wish you luck on placing a book. // I just saw a first pre-pub review of my own new book, 21only Kirkus, but it appears I am single-handedly keeping American lit significant. I wonder if guys like Roth or Barth or DeLillo know that, poor deluded souls.

Meantime I turn 76 on 12/20. About eighteen months ago I was 27.

Thine—

David

20 I had, in my very first letter.

21 Vanishing Point.

Dear Symso—

Your cards numbered 1 and 2 actually arrived on consecutive days — in proper order. Occult activity at the PO.

I love it when galleys turn up in bookstores. 22The SOBs are supposed to be reviewing the books, not peddling them! But I’m pleased you got an early look — and hope you approve.

De Chirico is gone, however. 23At the very last minute they couldn’t get permission. Now a Ross Bleckner that looks like a seersucker jacket that ran in the wash, alas. 24But some folks seem to admire it, quien sabe?

I hope you had a well-celebrated birthday out there (I’m assuming you’re back — or surely en route). Thirty’s nice, all good things still ahead. (Would you believe Eisenhower was only halfway through his presidency when I hit 30 myself?)

Anyhow, all belated cheers — and my very best to you both.

Thine—

David

22 I told him I’d just stumbled on a galley of Vanishing Point at Green Apple Books in San Francisco. I was thrilled — he, less so.

23 The copy of Vanishing Point I’d found had a de Chirico painting on the cover.

24 The piece is called “The Arrangement of Things (1982).”

Syms-o—

Book en route to you from publisher. 25Indeed, it may get to you before this card, since with the wind-chill here well below zero, God knows when I’ll mail it. Ain’t goin’ out no matter what.

I’m pleased for you that Review 26is interested. Write nice. Spell good. Punctuate proper, etc.

And don’t comment on the damned misplaced modifier I let go by right at the beginning of the novel — which two beloved chums have already pointed out.

Onward—

Thine—

David

25 An official copy of Vanishing Point.

26 He means Chicago Review, which initially expressed interest in my essay on Markson. I used this early version as a template for the essay that would ultimately appear in The New England Review in 2008.

Simsy—

NO, I’ve no idea what a Blog is. 27BLOG? Do I want to see printouts or not? Nothing that will upset/annoy/distress me, pls., eh? Only if they truly make nice.

Hey, forgive the brevity, eh?

Thine,

David

27 I’d found a lot of interest in Markson on various blogs and had offered to send printouts.

Dear Symsy—

Hey, thank you for all that blog stuff but forgive me if after a nine-minute glance I have torn it all up. I bless your furry little heart, but please don’t send any more. In spite of the lost conveniences, I am all the more glad I don’t have a computer.

HOW CAN PEOPLE LIVE IN THAT FIRST-DRAFT WORLD?

They make a statement about my background, there’s an error in it. They quote from a book, and they leave out a key line. They repudiate a statement of fact I’ve made, without checking, ergo announcing I’m a fake when the statement is 100 % correct. Etc., etc., etc. Gawd.

I have just taken the sheets out of the trash basket & torn them into even smaller pieces.

Last week two several-hour-long hospital medical tests. Plus more MD visits to come. But I am also WORKING. I would rather spend an hour and a half trying to solve the roughest first draft of a note for the new book — that will eventually be endlessly rewritten — than ever ever ever read another word of the Internet.

Don’t be sore. 28

Thine—

David

28 In my response to this letter, I wrote: “I’m so sorry to have tortured you that way — I had second thoughts but went ahead and sent the blog printouts. I have to say it was worth it to get your wittily enraged letter. Those ‘semi-literate’ bloggers were praising you, you know. They did get something right — the most important thing, in fact. Be well and light those toxic shreds of paper on fire if need be!”

Dear Symsy—

Spectacular! 29You can even take the tour, 30up the rickety stairway to the shabby flat where Raskolnikov did in the old pawnbroker lady and her sister with the ax — and even though there never was a Raskolnikov, or an old lady, or her sister (named Lizaveta), they will tell you, that’s the place!

Hey, seriously, I think it’s wonderful, a great break from the Amerikansky routine, an experience to feed off for years — even later, when you’ll think you’ve mostly forgotten it. Lotsa pomes 31too, betcha.

But in the meantime, I demand more and more work on your Markson paper, hear? Every minute, until!

Hey, all cheers, mazel tov, congrats, etc.

Thine—

David

29 His reaction to news that I’d be spending a month in St. Petersburg (Russia) as a participant in the Summer Literary Seminars.

30 The Crime & Punishment Tour.

31 This is not a typo; he explains the spelling in a later letter.

Dear Simsy—

Someone just sent me a 90-page densely written Master’s essay on This Is Not a Novel. Someone else, a Lit Seminar MFA final paper on Wittgenstein’s Mistress. Yet one more, a chapter on Going Down, for a book being done in France.