I finished reading VANISHING POINT a few days ago, and I enjoyed reading it. It's not really a novel, but maybe it's at least somewhat novel. Markson continually lists a lot of (famous people) deaths along with where they occurred (which I found oddly akin to listing (famous people) deaths and when they occurred). VANISHING POINT and THE ODDS OF OTTOPIA make nice companion pieces for books written in 2004, although ODDS's style is somewhat in advance of VANISHING's--ODDS is a novel and is also novel.
The notion of Markson finally getting around to sorting out and using all the individual notes he's collected in a couple of shoeboxes (as expressed on the back cover) immediately reminded me of LUDWIG WITTGENSTEIN: ZETTEL (1967)--from it's back cover: "The paragraphs in this volume . . . were collected in a box file by Wittgenstein from a period beginning in 1929, though the bulk of them come from typescripts dictated between 1945 and 1948 . . ." (I've never read all of ZETTEL, and I probably haven't read any of it since the early 1990s, though I just found two bookmarks in it, at pages 67 and 121.)
I found I could relate to almost all of the "occidental high culture context" Markson "decapitates," so VANISHING POINT did make some sense to me. Markson does tell a story, one that's on a wavelength a bit dislocated from life, and Markson's/Author's own real dislocated footsteps that have started to occur (like when he walks down the hall he's walked down hundreds of times before) act as tiny signs of his (and all our) own ultimate dislocation from life.
I think I'll read VANISHING POINT again, like maybe next weekend. Hey, any book that mentions Thackeray, as a young boy, sailing from India to England, who is told by his guardian to take note of the man in the garden on the island west of Africa where the ship stopped for provisions, is certainly worth my reading again. Yes, VANISHING POINT and THE ODDS OF OTTOPIA are very likely the only two 2004 novels to note Napoleon at St. Helena.
ps
I was somewhat surprised to not find any mention of LIFE-SAVERS in VANISHING POINT, but not as surprised as when I, after the fact, realized that I twice wrote about "life savers" on 27 June 2005, first here at design-l at 11:49, and then at archinect.com (as Rita Novel) at 12:32 --
http://www.archinect.com/forum/threads.php?id=20987_0_42_0_C . Life Savers really do come in all kinds of flavors.
The notion of Markson finally getting around to sorting out and using all the individual notes he's collected in a couple of shoeboxes (as expressed on the back cover) immediately reminded me of LUDWIG WITTGENSTEIN: ZETTEL (1967)--from it's back cover: "The paragraphs in this volume . . . were collected in a box file by Wittgenstein from a period beginning in 1929, though the bulk of them come from typescripts dictated between 1945 and 1948 . . ." (I've never read all of ZETTEL, and I probably haven't read any of it since the early 1990s, though I just found two bookmarks in it, at pages 67 and 121.)
I found I could relate to almost all of the "occidental high culture context" Markson "decapitates," so VANISHING POINT did make some sense to me. Markson does tell a story, one that's on a wavelength a bit dislocated from life, and Markson's/Author's own real dislocated footsteps that have started to occur (like when he walks down the hall he's walked down hundreds of times before) act as tiny signs of his (and all our) own ultimate dislocation from life.
I think I'll read VANISHING POINT again, like maybe next weekend. Hey, any book that mentions Thackeray, as a young boy, sailing from India to England, who is told by his guardian to take note of the man in the garden on the island west of Africa where the ship stopped for provisions, is certainly worth my reading again. Yes, VANISHING POINT and THE ODDS OF OTTOPIA are very likely the only two 2004 novels to note Napoleon at St. Helena.
ps
I was somewhat surprised to not find any mention of LIFE-SAVERS in VANISHING POINT, but not as surprised as when I, after the fact, realized that I twice wrote about "life savers" on 27 June 2005, first here at design-l at 11:49, and then at archinect.com (as Rita Novel) at 12:32 --
http://www.archinect.com/forum/threads.php?id=20987_0_42_0_C . Life Savers really do come in all kinds of flavors.