Reviews

I am a bit ashamed to give only three stars to Wittgenstein's Mistress. In an interview in the afterword Markinson refers to the "C students," and "semiliterates" who rejected the novel 54 times before it was finally accepted. Maybe I’m one of them, or maybe he’s an ass.

colepsmith42's review against another edition

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4.0

3.5. Can't say I was crazy about the book itself. A little repetitive, kind as a purpose, but even still so. The essay by DFW at the end of the new Dalkey print helped put it into perspective a bit. Interesting, and fairly engaging, but I didn't enjoy the experience or feel otherwise challenged by it, so it kinda washed over me.

karp76's review against another edition

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4.0

There is a fine line between art and gimmick. A notion of creativity taken too far becomes tiresome, trite and the purpose is lost. Markson skirts these boundaries but never crosses that deadly line. Largely, it depends on the reader. We must do the heavy lifting. There is no plot. There are no characters. Yet, there is plot. Yet, there are characters. All of these things exist within Kate's mind, so therefore they exist in ours. It does not matter if she is the last person on earth. It does not matter if she is indeed mad. She is lonely and we share in her loneliness. The last twenty pages turns this work into something special.

djflippy's review against another edition

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5.0

Outstanding. I loved every bit of this sad and wonderful tale. What are initially thought to be ramblings of the last woman on earth, through repetition and reflection, become very deep and poignant comments on what it is to be alive - to think and feel and grow and then, ultimately, to disintegrate.

tsharris's review against another edition

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4.0

Experimental novel that is deceptively challenging to read. Almost disappointing that Markson gave more clues to what actually might have happened to Kate as the novel went on, although by the end still a powerful novel about sorrow, despair, and loneliness. Read it literally in one sitting on a long airplane ride.

jestintzi's review against another edition

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5.0

There's a possibility that "Wittgenstein's Mistress" experimental novel was written specifically for me. It is excruciatingly fabulous. Not in a long while have I been so viscerally engrossed in a book, been so anxious while away from it—and especially not so engrossed into a book with almost no 'story' at all. This book is nearly all voice. And like Maggie Nelson, so much of the joy of it comes from the way that Kate—the narrator and apparently, inexplicably, the last person/animal on earth—lives through what she remembers of theory/philosophy. The "problem" with Kate is that she doesn't fact check (she hasn't read at all for some ten years or so previous), easily gets distracted, and swings from talking about metaphysics to the siege of Troy to Rembrandt to a cat that she once thought she saw, in the Colosseum, while she was looking for people across the world. It's circular, intellectual, solitary, but yet somehow so incredibly emotionally satisfying. As David Foster Wallace says of the book, in an essay included as the afterword, the book makes "heads throb heartlike." There's no better way to put it. An instant favourite that I'm almost convinced I should reread instantly.

pino_sabatelli's review against another edition

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4.0

(Quattro stelle e mezza) La prima volta che ho sentito parlare de L’amante di Wittgenstein è stato un paio di anni fa, in un ponderoso saggio di DFW che ne tesseva lodi sperticate. Non contento di averlo analizzato per più di quaranta pagine, dopo nove anni DFW tornò a scriverne, in maniera molto più sintetica, definendolo: “più o meno il punto più alto della narrativa sperimentale di questo paese”.
Non conosco abbastanza la narrativa sperimentale in genere, e tantomeno quella statunitense, per poter confermare questo lapidario giudizio, ma posso dire con certezza che LadW è uno dei libri più belli che ho letto quest’anno, anzi uno dei più belli da molti anni a questa parte, anche se venne rifiutato quarantaquattro volte prima di essere pubblicato nel 1988. Questo non ne fa un caso unico nella storia della letteratura, anzi della miopia editoriale, penso però che le ragioni di tali difficoltà "commerciali" siano stavolta almeno in parte attribuibili al fatto che LadW è un libro davvero particolare, niente affatto facile, uno di quelli che può piacere alla follia o risultare sommamente insopportabile per gli stessi identici motivi.
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