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5 out of 5
by
John
from
Des Moines, IA | Jan 3, 2009
Michael Martone's got a imagination that ticks, one in which the manifold cogs & springs crank up something extra at each revolution of an idea. The idea in the case of MICHAEL MARTONE BY MICHAEL MARTONE, a canny & disturbing exercise -- disturbing in best sense, the sense that doesn't interfere w/ the man's quick finger on the pulsing detail or w/ his wit, capable of fluxing up to laugh-inducing fullness & then down to a sobering diminuendo in the space of few perfectly-ironized lines -- the idea, anyway, or should I say ideas, anyway it's self & society, or the empirical, historical life & the dreamed-of, maybe-better alternatives, or the multiply-reflecting mirrors of who we are & what we say we are, we & others, plus the ultimate definition provided by death as well... Yes, at its most serious, this is a book about death, & in particular the death of Martone's mother, so that MM b MM constitutes a lovely valedictory for the woman, a compendium of all the lives her son might've lived. Or then again, maybe I should speak more plainly, & say rather that the book collects some 45 two- or three-page riffs, largely but not wholly jocular, each a variation on the "Contributor's Notes" that run at the back of every literary magazine. In the process this author comes his closest to the novel form (closer certainly than in my other favorite of his, the sparkling BLUE GUIDE TO INDIANA), though the result has got nothing Aristotle would recognize as a drama, & no tragic hero either. Hey, everybody dies. Everybody has a career, w/ some interesting intersections along the way -- & this one's also all about those intersections, moments when MM's life was briefly redefined, yet again, by a Kurt Vonnegut or a John Barth or Amanda "Binky" Urban (a so-called "famous" NY literary agent, she already needs a footnote). So there's still another way to put the idea that rachets through such fascinating changes, here: it's a portrait of US literary life, over the last generation, w/ nearly every entry beginning in middle-American Ft. Wayne, Indiana, & developing, eventually, all the options of success & its opposite a writer might think of. To imagine, this brilliant experiment reminds us, takes the best of us to rendering another world: on the page, the book, the object... the art.
5 people found this review helpful
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4 out of 5
by
Tanya
from
Boston, MA | Nov 28, 2008
I learned from Michael Martone that the "Contributor's Notes" in this book he actually sent out to magazines/journals and a lot have been printed in them. Some even asked for a contributor's note to go with the contributor's note, and instead Martone sent in another fictionalized one, which I find hilarious.
Michael Martone is a very funny man, and this is a highly enjoyable book.
1 people found this review helpful
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5 out of 5
by
Robin
from
Indianapolis, IN | Aug 11, 2008
Like his Blue Guide to Indiana (often accompanied by a disclaimer explaining that it is not a "real" Blue Guide, just in case the inclusion of the Trans-Indiana Mayonnaise Pipeline didn't tip you off) Michael Martone by Michael Martone is a lively patchwork of facts, fabrications, trivia, exaggerations and narrative play.
Composed of forty-two Contributor's Notes, an Acknowledgement, an About the Author, and a Vita, Michael Martone by Michael Martone gives a partial composite picture of Michael Martone, the man (or, if not quite that, then Michael Martone, the inside of head). This is a very funny book, but decidedly not a parody or satire of either contributors' notes or of the literary world. In fact, I daresay that Martone has found some of his most powerful material yet in these protean riffs on his life so far.
Perhaps a short selection will say it best:
"But all of this is to say that Martone has found the contributors' notes sections of magazines and journals often the most interesting part of the magazine or journal. He flips there first, usually in the back pages though sometimes in the front and even more rarely adjacent to the work itself either as a footnote or headnote. In a way it is like a party, Martone thinks, and when he receives his contributor's copy with his contribution and his contributor's note in its pages, Martone most often proceeds directly to the contributor's's notes section to see who is attending the affair. Martone likes the feeling of being thrown together with these other writers and enjoys immensely reading about their lives. The party metaphor is really not accurate. It is more like a family of sympathetic souls partaking in the mysterious rituals of literary publishing. Any particular combination flares brightly for the moment, held together for the prescribed length of time by the periodical. Years later, Martone likes to look back to his old publications, especially the ones no longer in production. Reading through the contributors' notes of those long out of date publications is like convening a reunion of sorts--all the names, all the lives, all the words. Martone thinks of Virgil Suarez as a brother, though he has never met Virgil Suarez anywhere save in the contributor's notes sections of magazines to which they had both contributed."
Although I often hear Martone compared to John Barth (with whom he studied at Johns Hopkins), I personally find his literary experiments more akin to those of Italo Calvino. I'm thinking of books like Cosmicomics, or Invisible Cities. Barthelme also comes to mind. But then he often comes to my mind, so I can't exactly be sure.
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4 out of 5
by
Jason
from
New Albany, IN | Nov 12, 2008
Michael Martone is a quirky, clever idea that actually works as a full-length book. While there's little dramatic tension and dialogue, I found myself eager to continue reading, which surprised me. I'm torn as to whether this would work better as nonfiction, though, so that I'd know I could believe it all. I also understand possible turnoffs about this book--repetitive, too long, ugly cover art--but I liked it.
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5 out of 5
by
Gabriel
from
Portland, OR | Mar 25, 2009
Here I was going to write: "If all of the works of a writer can be thought of as one big serial work-in-progress, this would be the index of Michael Martone's Big Story Collection," but then I realized that it would, of course, be his "About the Author".