Zeno Was Here [Hardcover]

Jan Mark (Author)

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Mark, the author of children's books and a collection of short stories, here makes a brilliant debut as a novelist. John McEvoy is a diffidently handsome high school English teacher in a London suburb, saddled with a clinging, obsessively jealous wife, Sarah, whom he has married out of pity. McEvoy is forced into painful self-scrutiny when, after seeing him on a highbrow TV talk show, a bitter ex-girlfriend sends him an autobiography containing a portrait of him in his younger days, written by a woman now in a mental institution. While showing the book to his novelist friend Geneva he encounters the strikingly plain poet Ruth Prochak, with whom his life will fatefully intertwine. As its title suggests, the novel is a philosophical argument, inquiring into the nature of fiction's quest for truth and its ascendancy over mere recollected fact. Akin to Zeno, the paradoxical Eleatic, founder of dialectics, this self-referential "metafiction" probes deeply into its own designs and strategies, advancing theories about itself and questioning and undermining its fictive reality as it proceeds. The device has proved tedious in other hands and has the ready potential to betray a novice's unsureness of touch, but here, endowed with Mark's formidable command of her medium, it enables a virtuoso performance. The reader is beguiled into suspending disbelief and is profoundly moved.
Copyright 1988 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal

To complex questions about time, space, and reality, the Greek philosopher Zeno offered paradoxical answers. His spirit persists in this provocative and entertaining novel. When John McEvoy finds himself unfavorably portrayed in the autobiography of a former mental patient, he begins to question his self-image. Fleeing from an intensely jealous wife, he seeks reassurance from a novelist friend who contemplates writing a novel about a man who is a character in a novel. McEvoy falls in love with an eccentric poet and, through bizarre coincidence, is the indirect cause of her death. This well-crafted book successfully combines romance, philosophical speculation, and urbane humor. Albert E. Wilhelm, Tennessee Technological Univ., Cookeville
Copyright 1988 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 327 pages
• Publisher: Farrar Straus & Giroux (T); 1st Us Edition edition (May 1988)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0374296642
• ISBN-13: 978-0374296643
• Average Customer Review: 2.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #10,452,482 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

2.0 out of 5 stars a self-aware book, August 8, 2004

By 

Geoffrey Forden (Boston MA United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Zeno Was Here (Paperback)

Clearly the author has followed the old adage: write what you know. Not only is this book about writing, it basically tells you how to interpret the book; a perfect fit for a teacher, and I assume she is an English teacher. Every plot twist or symbol used in the plot is first discussed by the characters. While I actually enjoyed the basic concept of the book quite a bit and think it is very well written, I began to resent being hit over the head with the internal critique telling me exactly what the plot twists mean.

I have to explain why I picked this book up and why I read it. First, the title Zeno Was Here, got me wondering about Zeno's paradox and whether he could every say he was anyplace. I assume that is exactly what the author wanted me to wonder, which is another obvious device that one would expect from an English teacher. The reason I continued to read it was the question the main character is asking himself at the opening of this novel: How do we know this is a poem? The corollary, how do we know this is a novel? is easily answered: the author tells us repeatedly it's a novel and exactly how to interpret it. Read it for the writing and the interesting plot, but don't fall into the trap of thinking about it! The author has already done that for us.

2.0 out of 5 stars How I've changed!, May 1, 2004

By 

A. G. Plumb "Greg Plumb" (Melbourne, Australia) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Zeno Was Here (Paperback)

When I read this book eight years ago I would have rated it at 4 - fascinating and stimulating. Now, however, on second reading, I struggle to give it a 2. Basically I just don't like the characters. The only male, John, is wishy washy - has faced a failing marriage for years and yet has done nothing about it - and the only action here is to find a confidant and turn them into an affair. His wife is appalling, unrealistically negative - does she have no redeeming features? Then there is Geneva - another struggling female despite her smart-alec, erudite appearance, with two awful daughters - arethey supposed to be clever too. And the one redeeming female spoils her copybook by being bowled over in her friendship by sex - as if that is all that can turn a female from a friend to someone with love in them! But as she slipped in my respect - well, I'll leave that to the reader to discover ......