Fiction Review
Vanishing Point
a novel by David Markson
Published by Shoemaker & Hoard, 2004
ISBN: 1-59376-010-8
Paperback, 191 pages, $ 15
Reviewed by Michael Pastore
During his long life, the influential philosopher Immanuel Kant (1724--1804) lived according to the strictest regimen. Every day -- as he pondered the unsolvable mysteries of God, freedom, and immortality -- Kant would step outside his house for a long walk in the nearby woods. So perfectly precise was the freethinking Kant that his neighbors would set their clocks by his appearance on his doorstep, exactly at 3:30 pm every afternoon. Only once in thirty years did Kant fail to emerge for his daily walk. That was the day he ceased all his other activities to read a wild and radical book written by a French romantic: The Confessions, by Jean Jacques Rousseau.
For me, there is only one living author whose work is so original and compelling that I will drop and stop everything to read his latest book from page first to page last. That sublime author is David Markson. Markson's new book -- the third in a series that follows Reader's Block and This Is Not A Novel -- may be his best work yet.
Confessions are embarrassing but necessary. Years ago, in a review of Reader's Block, I wrote a sentence which became the title of the next book in the series: "This is not a novel." I loved the book, I wrote in that review, but I didn't then understand why the publisher classified the book a novel. Now, six years later, I might stick to my original assessment. Or I might say that Markson is writing experimental novels, guided by Emerson's motto: "Life consists in what a man is thinking all day long."
Vanishing Point is a bouillabaisse of the author's reflections about life, death, writers, artists, history, and love. The passages, approximately ten per page, range from a few words to a few sentences. Many are funny, some saddening, some perplexing. For example, there is an entry that says simply:
"112 Mercer Street
Princeton, New Jersey."
Although I have walked by that house hundreds of times, I cannot now remember if that is the former residence of Albert Einstein, or some other scientific or artistic luminary. Other nuggets are more direct and crystalline:
"Charlotte Bronte mailed off the unsolicited, pseudonymous manuscript of Jane Eyre to a London publisher on August 24, 1847. And saw it in print seven weeks and four days later."
Which of course makes you wonder why it takes modern publishers -- with printing presses that can make more than ten thousand books per hour -- far longer to get a book in print: usually one to two years from the time the manuscript is accepted.
This is not a novel, it is an experience. I grab a pencil, cancel all my appointments and read for hours and hours on end. I make marks on (is the author's name a subtle pseudonym: Marks on?) every page: probably 40 percent of my paperback copy is now marked with notes, asking me to find out more about this person, idea, or theme.
In Alfred Hitchcock's films, the great director would appear for one brief instant. Markson is equally enigmatic, although in this book we catch more glimpses of him, as he worries aloud about symptoms of his old age. But we can't quite believe that this author is losing it, since the words are so brilliant, and the photo on the book's back cover shows a white-haired man who looks cheerful, intelligent, serene.
Vanishing Point is hilarious, pensive, stunning, thought-provoking all at once. One profound surprise after another, like the illuminating Zen koans. Yet the book is far better than the koans: you get all the enlightenment and revelations without the beatings from the master's stick.
About the Reviewer
Michael Pastore is the Editorial Director of BookLovers Review and Zorba Press. Currently he is writing his fourth novel, and working to establish the Youthtopia Institute and Youthtopia website, devoted to children, creativity and the arts, humanized technology, and a sustainable world.
