Some clues on form

 In David Markson’s novel Reader’s Block, Reader is thinking about writing — or at least thinking about a character called Protagonist.

But is what Reader is imagining a novel? Reader’s mind is wandering among the remarkable facts, legends and myths of literature, music, art and history. Reader’s mind is having trouble focusing on a setting, much less on a plot. Reader, musing, makes these remarks:

 

A novel of intellectual reference and allusion, so to speak minus much of the novel?

 

Also in part a commonplace book?

 

Also in part a cento, as Burton surely would put it.

 

Robert Burton set out to collect everything that had been writing about melancholy and thought of a book consisting entirely of quotations. Reader isn’t sure what he has in mind is in the form of a cento. Reader remarks: 

 

We have too many things and not enough forms, Flaubert said.

 

Much of Reader’s Block could be in the form of a reference for the writers of crossword clues.

An odd form, but a good clue in a puzzle is like a good clue in a mystery novel: interesting.

• Source and notes: David Markson, Reader’s Block; Normal, Ill.: Dalkey Archive Press, 1996. The first three remarks on p. 61 and the remark on Flaubert is on p. 68.