This experimental novel by David Markson is told from the perspective of a woman who believes herself to be the last person on earth. While detailing her travels around the empty globe via abandoned cars, boats and other vehicles, she makes references to Greek mythology, modern art, classical music and other elements of western culture.
The paragraph structure is based on Ludwig Wittgenstein’s Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus, in which bite-sized, sentence-long points are arranged into numerical categories and subcategories. This results in the narrator giving a fairly erratic monologue in which she goes back and forth between various ideas, talking about whatever happens to pop into her head at that moment. Through her voice Markson captures the cyclical, recurrent nature of human thought process and memories. The style takes a while to get used to, but the more you read it the more you begin to appreciate the unique insight and sense of humour underlying the novel.
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