the only way i could have loved this more is if it were written by david markson -- i suspect i like it even more than i would precisely because i couldn't actually stop thinking of it as (or reading it as) a david markson novel rather than what it was. also thinking this is just the kind of thing i would file happily away as an inverted way of teaching 'pierre menard' only the little buggers are so ill-read these days you can't count on any of them having read markson. oh i'm wasted on not teaching undergrads.

(also, one thinks, ought be read together with manganelli's 'ouroboric' novels.)