Apparently, the amazing David Markson passed away today. Instead of long self-important accounts of his importance, the web is slowly filling with small, excellent, deeply personal obits that demonstrate the weight he had in the life of fellow readers and writers. Here is a beautiful obituary note by Sarah Weinman, a very moving one by Kimberly Ann Josephine, an equally moving one by A. D. Jameson, and another great one by Edward Champion. Below is an excerpt from a very good “Conjuctions”-interview with Markson. Click here for the interview and read below for the excerpt:
I use index cards. I store them in the tops of a couple of shoes boxes. If I made a stack of them, they’d probably be about two feet tall. I’m constantly shuffling. This goes on for a couple of years. I might have a few quotations about Joyce, and I figure out which one goes where. I try to make sure I don’t overbalance. I know in the end that there’s going to be more literature, but I try to make sure I have as much about art and music, too. There’s always a certain amount of the classics and philosophy. With the historical stuff, it just depends upon its significance or irony. Then, somewhere along the line, I make notes about Author or whoever it is and figure out where they go. (…) When Reader’s Block came out, Kurt Vonnegut called me, two-thirds of the way through, and said, “David, what kind of computer did you use to juggle this stuff?” I told him what I’d done, and he called me when he finished it and said, “David, I’m worried about your mental condition.”
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