murphyandhislaw

reading list

Only Revolutions

Mark Z. Danielewski

published: 2006, read: 6/25/25
360 pages, genre: Ergodic
rating: 6/10, normalized: 5.556/10
-1.139σ worse than average
-0.762σ or -1.527/10 worse than average in Ergodic genre
-0.58σ or -1.167/10 worse than average by Mark Z. Danielewski

Similar to Anamneusis insofar as there's no emergent plot. This book only earns a score above because it's not transparently LLM slop. I know that Danielewski didn't write this like that, but it's the same flavor of text you'd receive outside the context window of an RNN lol

The typesetting alone is beautiful, and the book is fascinating as a piece of art, but it's swill as a novel

–Love! The second most misprised of human goals.

–What's first?

–Liberty

There's a number of oddities in this book which beg further examination into the schizo message lying beneath the surface for the cryptanalytically inclined. Sadly, many of the relevant posts on the danielewski forum appear to have died, and this book is not compelling enough for me to take up the mantel myself to figure out the significance of things like the following:

  • random dots in corners of the pages or inside some of the Os
  • bold face animals
  • different car names each time
  • some of the S's and H's get illuminated treatment when leading a parapgrah (corresponding to Sam and Hailey, but not corresponding to the 8-page "chapter" divisions
  • some of the letters are randomly offset in a way that cannot be accidental (I think there's a musical connection hear)
  • 'Allways' and 'Allone'
  • always capitalizing us to be 'US', even when used in a contraction i.e. "let's" becomes "let'S"
  • no idea what the significance of the dates and factoids in the margins are.

Ass out, poop Marble

Similar to S. I think this book is trying too hard to be mysterious and not tryign hard enough to be good. Whereas e.g. Pale Fire is bar-none because it's surface level is great, and the things hidden beneath are even better. Hiding gold beneath poop mountain is less enjoyable to read

related

ReadAuthorTitlePagesPublishedGenreRatingRating'TagsRecommended by
6/25/25Mark Z. DanielewskiOnly Revolutions3602006Ergodic6.0005.556
7/16/24Mark Z. DanielewskiHouse of Leaves, 2nd Ed.7092000Ergodic10.00010.000
7/14/25Mark Z. DanielewskiThe Fifty Year Sword2802005Fiction5.5005.000
6/9/25Dan BarrettDeathconsciousness752008Ergodic8.2508.056
5/20/25J.J. AbramsS.4722013Ergodic6.7506.389
3/25/25Caroline McManusAnamnesis6982024Ergodic4.0003.333
3/22/25Steven HallThe Raw Shark Texts4282007Ergodic7.6887.431
12/26/24Tim RobbensMindgames562021ErgodicN/AN/A
5/25/24Vladimir NabokovPale Fire3011962Ergodic10.00010.000