The Dedication to The Waste Land in David Markson’s copy of Poems by T. S. Eliot:
On which Markson has made a number of notes…
He placed a line in the margin and wrote that the quote:
“NAM Sibyllam quidem Cumis ego ipse oculis meis vidi in ampulla pendere, et cum illi pueri dicerent: Σίβυλλα τί θέλεις; respondebat illa: ἀποθανεῖν θέλω.”
Is from:
“Petronius.”
He underlined:
“ἀποθανεῖν θέλω”
And translated it as:
“(I WISH TO DIE)”
He underlined:
“Il miglior fabbro”
And translated it as:
“(That greater magician)”
He then created his own table of contents in the lower right corner, naming the five parts of The Waste Land:
“I. THE BURIAL OF THE DEAD
II. A GAME OF CHESS
III. THE FIRE SERMON
IV. DEATH BY WATER
V. WHAT THE THUNDER SAID”
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Markson saw the four novels that make up the Notecard Quartet, his tetralogy, as somewhat similar, if still inferior, to Eliot’s The Waste Land.
Markson claims This Is Not A Novel could be seen as:
“An ersatz prose alternative to The Waste Land, if Writer so suggests.”
– This Is Not A Novel, pg. 101.
Likewise, his friend and literary compatriot, Ann Beattie, wrote of Reader’s Block:
“Finally, a prose sequel to Eliot’s The Waste Land.”
Like Eliot’s The Waste Land, the novels in Markson’s Notecard Quartet warrant the kind of close reading, study and marginalia that Markson placed in his copy of Eliot’s master poem (as showcased in the above scan).
One wonders if Fannin, the detective in Markson’s Epitaph for a Tramp, did as close a reading of The Waste Land as Markson did…
“I sat around for a couple of hours, disciplining myself by not opening the next bottle until I could manage it without defacing the tax stamp, and trying to make sense of something called The Waste Land by T. S. Eliot which was the only book in the joint.”
– Epitaph for a Tramp, pg. 13 (of the collected Epitaph for a Tramp & Epitaph for a Dead Beat).
“In such a misanthropic context, what better book to read than T. S. Eliot’s poem The Waste Land, given Fannin’s bittersweet humor?”
A question asked by Françoise Palleau-Papin in her Markson study This Is Not A Tragedy.
A question seconded by yours truly.
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David Markson’s copy of Poems by T. S. Eliot is owned by Ethan Nosowsky. The above scan is used with his permission. Copyright © Ethan Nosowsky.