David Markson SPRINGER'S PROGRESS

It would have been useful, thought some of the crafters of stone circles not far from Loudeac, in Brittany, if Pi were exactly 3, instead of the cumbersome 3.14 insisted upon by more pragmatic Celts. So these adventurers tried to make circles that were perfectly round, yet with a Pi of 3. Some of these imperfect perfect circles remain.
Markson's prose fictions have a Pi of 3, and among such wiggly coils of stones the reader who takes the author into his heart will have a merry afternoon.
Markson never perjures, never dupes; never tricks his reader. The novels repose before the reader and the reading sentiment like compleat anglers, perfect jewels of typewritten manuscripts, unmediated, authentic prose. There will be delicious potato salad with relish, lush green grapes; turkey sandwiches, vodka and lemonade, luscious crisps, pagan discussion, naps, much tongueful kissing, and dreamy vistas of the golden glowing sylvan horizon. Context is everything. We are safe here. Lucien has gathered breath from the books he's read, and hears the trumbling course of his veinblood purr within his memory, a willing victim of the fairs, every glass is in its place in this bar, motes in the slanting sunbeams ring, singing out his faith, the true calling of Lucien reciting aloud, declaiming lyrics from the book that was written before he put pen to paper, and had he worked straight through, there's springer sauntering through the wilderness of this world, beasts and bugs tamed by the melody of prose made by Markson.