Posted by Lale on 7/9/2011, 12:45:36, in reply to "Re: Wittgenstein's Mistress (spoilers)"
174.114.190.243
Dear Friends,
I just finished reading this gem and once again I was grateful to this group for making me aware of such extraordinary works which I would have never discovered on my own.
I can't believe Joffre and Guillermo did not read this book, it is right up their alley. Conversely, the members of this group might have thought that this is not a book Lale would have liked but I LOVED IT!
I think it is a work of genius, very very original, brilliantly done. As mentioned by Steven and Sterling earlier, the analysis and play of language (discovery of ambiguity and meaning) was brilliant. And funny.
Imagine you own all the gold in the world, all the art work, all the books, all the rivers ... In fact you own the world. But there is no one to share them with! Not even a cat to talk to, to touch.
The books title gives away nothing. You may remember that I have said many times before that I do not read the back cover of the books. And I was never so happy with this rule of mine than in regards to W's Mistress. The first sentence on the back cover of my book is "The narrator is a woman who is convinced that she is the last woman on earth." I think it is obscene to write such things on the back of books. Luckily, I had not read it and the book was a discovery sentence after sentence, absolutely delicious, mouth watering, every time I put the book down, I longed to get back to it. In fact, one morning, after making my coffee, the second thing I did was not to open my lap top but to open my W's M.
The books title seemed just a tad "ordinary" to me. I thought it really was about the mistress of someone named Wittgenstein, whom I had never heard of before. I thought maybe it was a book like Madame Bovary. Boy, was I in for a surprise.
The two words Wittgenstein and mistress were uttered in the same paragraph only 20 pages before the end of the book. (I was starting to get a little worried 
) And finally when the mistress made her appearance, it was only to make the reader aware that she did not exist. And, of course, it all made sense.
I loved the book. It was interesting, original, witty. Sad. Extraordinary. I have put David Markson (whom I had never heard of before either) made it to my top geniuses list.
If there is ever going to be a last person on earth, it has to be Kate. I was very happy that Kate and I were EQUIDISTANT from each other.
Lale
