A fiction made of remarks

 I have started David Markson’s Reader’s Choice and am wondering whether it makes sense to think of it as a fiction made up of remarks.

I find the book intriguing. A couple of specimens will probably help more than a stab at a summary:

 

The eulogy at Puccini’s funeral was delivered by Mussolini.

 

Bertrand Russell, re having contemplated suicide at sixteen:

I did not, however, commit suicide, because I wished to know more about mathematics.

 

The book has hints about a possible protagonist in a possible novel, but I’m in it for these remarks about literature, music and art. I’m reading because I’m interested in getting a sense of what’s on the narrator’s mind.

I have friends who would hate this book. (My old friend Melvyn’s review would be scathing.)

But I like remarks. I was fascinated by Fernando Pessoa’s The Book of Disquiet and by Evan S. Connell’s Points for a Compass Rose and Notes from a Bottle Found on the Beach at Carmel. Connell’s books were usually sold as books of poetry, but I think Connell resisted calling the books poems.

I’d say all these books have a family resemblance.

• Source and notes: David Markson, Reader’s Block; Normal, Ill.: Dalkey Archive Press, 1996, pp. 28 and 45.

For earlier notes on a similar point, see “He wrote remarks,” July 26, 2025, and “Give me fiction, but hold the novel,” Nov. 5, 2022.