Ibid: A Life
Encyclopedia
Ibid: A Life is the third novel
by Mark Dunn
, published in 2004. Its form is highly reminiscent of Nabokov's
Pale Fire
in that it consists almost entirely of a set of endnote
s for a larger (non-existent) biographical
work.
performer born with three legs
who goes on to make a fortune in the deodorant
business and becomes a famous philanthropist
- was accidentally knocked into a bathtub and destroyed. Luckily, Dunn had not yet sent along his voluminous endnotes and they survived, so the editor convinces Dunn to make a virtue of necessity and publish the endnotes by themselves. The reader is left to try and ferret out the details of Blashette's life story through the marginal asides and tangents related therein.
Novel
A novel is a book of long narrative in literary prose. The genre has historical roots both in the fields of the medieval and early modern romance and in the tradition of the novella. The latter supplied the present generic term in the late 18th century....
by Mark Dunn
Mark Dunn
Mark Dunn is an American author and playwright. He studied film at Memphis State University followed by post-graduate work in screenwriting at the University of Texas moving to New York in 1987 where he worked in the New York Public Library whilst writing plays in his free time.Among the...
, published in 2004. Its form is highly reminiscent of Nabokov's
Vladimir Nabokov
Vladimir Vladimirovich Nabokov was a multilingual Russian novelist and short story writer. Nabokov wrote his first nine novels in Russian, then rose to international prominence as a master English prose stylist...
Pale Fire
Pale Fire
Pale Fire is a novel by Vladimir Nabokov. The novel is presented as a 999-line poem titled "Pale Fire", written by the fictional John Shade, with a foreword and lengthy commentary by a neighbor and academic colleague of the poet. Together these elements form a narrative in which both authors are...
in that it consists almost entirely of a set of endnote
EndNote
EndNote is a commercial reference management software package, used to manage bibliographies and references when writing essays and articles. It is produced by Thomson Reuters.- Features :...
s for a larger (non-existent) biographical
Biography
A biography is a detailed description or account of someone's life. More than a list of basic facts , biography also portrays the subject's experience of those events...
work.
Plot introduction
In a series of (fictional) letters exchanged between the author, Mark Dunn, and his editor, it is explained that the only copy of Dunn's excessively and exhaustively researched and documented biography of one Jonathan Blashette - a circusCircus
A circus is commonly a travelling company of performers that may include clowns, acrobats, trained animals, trapeze acts, musicians, hoopers, tightrope walkers, jugglers, unicyclists and other stunt-oriented artists...
performer born with three legs
Congenital disorder
A congenital disorder, or congenital disease, is a condition existing at birth and often before birth, or that develops during the first month of life , regardless of causation...
who goes on to make a fortune in the deodorant
Deodorant
Deodorants are substances applied to the body to affect body odor caused by bacterial growth and the smell associated with bacterial breakdown of perspiration in armpits, feet and other areas of the body. A subgroup of deodorants, antiperspirants, affect odor as well as prevent sweating by...
business and becomes a famous philanthropist
Philanthropist
A philanthropist is someone who engages in philanthropy; that is, someone who donates his or her time, money, and/or reputation to charitable causes...
- was accidentally knocked into a bathtub and destroyed. Luckily, Dunn had not yet sent along his voluminous endnotes and they survived, so the editor convinces Dunn to make a virtue of necessity and publish the endnotes by themselves. The reader is left to try and ferret out the details of Blashette's life story through the marginal asides and tangents related therein.
Endnotes, not footnotes
While the book's copy and most reviews refer to Ibid: A Life as being a novel made up of footnotes, the novel itself identifies them as being endnotes. As endnotes are collected together and placed after a manuscript, while footnotes are interspersed throughout the manuscript itself, the novel's framing concept necessitates the notes being endnotes, not footnotes. However, from the cover art, it is obvious that the use of the term "footnotes" was as a pun on how the notes are on a three-footed man.Editions
- Hardcover (as Ibid: A Life): MacAdam/Cage Publishing, March 2004. (ISBN 1-931561-65-6)
- Paperback (as Ibid: A Life): Methuen Publishing Ltd, February 2005. (ISBN 0-413-77428-7)
- Paperback (as Ibid: A Novel): Harvest Books, June 2005. (ISBN 0-15-603100-0)