Pg. 61 of David Markson’s copy of Wittgenstein’s Vienna by Allan Janik & Stephen Toulmin:
On which Markson placed a check next to a Theodor Herzl quote regarding the creation of a Jewish state:
“If you wish it, it is no fairy tale,” and “If you don’t wish it, it is a fairy tale.”
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The first of those two statements of Herzl’s re: the creation of a Jewish state:
“If you wish it, it is no fairy tale.”
Used in Markson’s This Is Not A Novel, albeit with a variation in the translation:
“If you will it, it is no dream.
Said Theodor Herzl.”
Markson wrote on pg. 31.
If you wish it, it is no fairy tale.
If you will it, it is no dream.
If you build it, he will come.
Oh, sorry, that last one isn’t a translation of Herzl, but a quote from the movie Field of Dreams.
Who is the he that came in that movie?
“An old-time baseball player, wasn’t there?”
– Markson’s Going Down, pg. 13. (Obviously out of context).
John Kinsella. Fictitious baseball player.
Others came too: Shoeless Joe Jackson. Moonlight Graham. Both real.
Baseball is one of Markson’s main obsessions.
References to the sport can be found in just about every one of his novels.
Baseball was likewise a major topic in the old literary haunts Markson frequented (like The Lion’s Head & The White Horse Tavern):
“Joint’s awash in authors, prime theme indisputably’d be gelt. Pussy and/or baseball running a tight second, however.”
– Springer’s Progress, pg. 3.
Baseball held a special place in his heart:
“Markson acknowledges his autobiographical bias and wonders about his own nostalgia for a bygone era of baseball before his time, asking the reader the question that troubles him and to which he gives no direct answer: ‘How does one explain baseball nostalgia?’”
Says Françoise Papin-Pelleau in her Markson study This Is Not A Tragedy re: Markson’s “A Day for Addie Joss.”
Perhaps some answer can be found in the movie I mentioned that caused this digression: Field of Dreams.
In that movie James Earl Jones’ character says:
“The one constant through all the years, Ray, has been baseball. America has rolled by like an army of steamrollers. It has been erased like a blackboard, rebuilt and erased again. But baseball has marked the time. This field, this game: it’s a part of our past, Ray. It reminds of us of all that once was good and it could be again.”
How does one explain baseball nostalgia?
Field of Dreams.
If you will it, it is no dream.
