I have become a compulsive footnoter.[1] It began when I first read Cuppy’s
Decline and Fall of Practically Everybody.
I was too young to get most of the jokes, but even then I could tell all
the best lines were in the footnotes.[2] Then, when I was somewhat older, I read Carel
Kapek’s War with the Newts. Kapek is
best known for giving us the word “robot,” derived from the Polish for “work,”
in his play, RUR.[3] War with the Newts is riddled with footnotes,
making references to everything from Karl Marx to Johnny Weissmuller. [4] Later, I read the hilarious and trenchant
political biography, Making of a
Prefident.[5] I don’t remember the author[6]
but, like Cuppy, he was a master of the footnote. It reached a crisis point when I came across
David Foster Wallace.[7] Wallace irritates me sometimes, but I glory in
his extensive, relentless footnoting.
Now I’ve begun footnoting everything. [8] I
can’t help myself, Lord help me. I’ve
become convinced the most interesting part of my writing is the footnotes.[9] When I die, I’ll need a twenty-foot
gravestone: the top will say simply, “Man Martin, Husband and Father.”[10]
[1] Is
this even a real thing? My spell-checker
doesn’t think so.
[2]
Cuppy writes that Alexander was called “The Great” because he killed more
people of more nationalities than anyone up to that time. A footnote goes on to explain he did this to
impress Greek culture on them.
[3] I’ve
never read RUR. Is it any good?
[4]
The conclusion of the novel has eerie resonance with Global Warming. Intelligent super-newts are gradually
destroying the continents, undermining the coastlines to create salt-water
shallows in which to breed. Humans
continue abetting the process, supplying the newts with dredging equipment,
etcetera, because there’s money in it.
[5]
The misspelling was deliberate; the author was spoofing 18th Century
orthography.
[6] Marvin
Kitman. I just looked it up.
[7]
Although Infinite Jest was a little too infinite, if you ask me.
[8]
This, for example.
[9]
And it is, too, isn’t it?
[10]
Everything else will be footnotes.
