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A review by ibartleby
Wittgenstein's Mistress by David Markson
challenging
reflective
sad
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? N/A
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
5.0
If Ludwig Wittgenstein's philosophical ideas (or, at least, David Markson's interpretations of Wittgenstein's ideas) were joined and incarnated, you'd have Kate, the narrator of this book. David Foster Wallace sums it up best, I think, in his afterword when he says, Wittgenstein's Mistress is "an imaginative portrait of what it would be like actually to live in the sort of world the logic & metaphysics of Wittgenstein's Tractatus posits."
I have no doubt DFW is right (I have to trust him here since I'm not a Wittgenstein expert). It's difficult for me to imagine anyone actually enjoying Markson's book without having at least a faint familiarity with Wittgenstein's philosophy. I mean, there's no traditional plot—again citing DFW, "concentric circularity" replaces linear plot, and whatever character development you do get is buried in pages upon pages of gossipy "facts" about famous artists and fictional characters. And facts is an inappropriate word to describe the things Kate writes because Kate is an unreliable narrator who consistently confuses names (of people and places—including the names of her husband and dead son), relies on faulty memories, and may or may not be "mad" (crazy, not angry) and displays some symptoms of early stages of dementia. So basically everything she says is in quotation marks, even when she uses the words/phrases "doubtless" or "as a matter of fact" (and oh boy does she like those qualifiers).
What's brilliant about this book is how Markson manages to convince the reader to care about Kate even though he ignores traditional storytelling techniques. Wittgentstein's Mistress really is an empathy test, I think.
The book is also about language, specifically about how imprecise language is, despite the heavy burden it carries in trying to connect the metaphysical and the physical, the vast and endless nothingness of our minds to the vast somethingness of the world. As Kate often repeats, it's a miracle that we're able to understand eachother, what with one's language being so imprecise. And in connecting these two things (mind & world), language also connects us to one another, temporarily relieving us from feeling the existential aloness Kate experiences in the book. (Hence why Kate has decided to type out her thoughts, because somehow in the conversion of mind to paper there's also an affirmation of existence.) Though, as Kate points out, sometimes that very connector only amplifies the aloness we feel. And I'm not sure which is worse: literally being alone (like Kate) or feeling alone in a world full of people.
Reading Wittgenstein's Mistress wasn't pleasant, but in the end, like a long hike on a hot day, I'm glad I did it.
I have no doubt DFW is right (I have to trust him here since I'm not a Wittgenstein expert). It's difficult for me to imagine anyone actually enjoying Markson's book without having at least a faint familiarity with Wittgenstein's philosophy. I mean, there's no traditional plot—again citing DFW, "concentric circularity" replaces linear plot, and whatever character development you do get is buried in pages upon pages of gossipy "facts" about famous artists and fictional characters. And facts is an inappropriate word to describe the things Kate writes because Kate is an unreliable narrator who consistently confuses names (of people and places—including the names of her husband and dead son), relies on faulty memories, and may or may not be "mad" (crazy, not angry) and displays some symptoms of early stages of dementia. So basically everything she says is in quotation marks, even when she uses the words/phrases "doubtless" or "as a matter of fact" (and oh boy does she like those qualifiers).
What's brilliant about this book is how Markson manages to convince the reader to care about Kate even though he ignores traditional storytelling techniques. Wittgentstein's Mistress really is an empathy test, I think.
The book is also about language, specifically about how imprecise language is, despite the heavy burden it carries in trying to connect the metaphysical and the physical, the vast and endless nothingness of our minds to the vast somethingness of the world. As Kate often repeats, it's a miracle that we're able to understand eachother, what with one's language being so imprecise. And in connecting these two things (mind & world), language also connects us to one another, temporarily relieving us from feeling the existential aloness Kate experiences in the book. (Hence why Kate has decided to type out her thoughts, because somehow in the conversion of mind to paper there's also an affirmation of existence.) Though, as Kate points out, sometimes that very connector only amplifies the aloness we feel. And I'm not sure which is worse: literally being alone (like Kate) or feeling alone in a world full of people.
Reading Wittgenstein's Mistress wasn't pleasant, but in the end, like a long hike on a hot day, I'm glad I did it.