As David Foster Wallace points out, this book is significant a large part due to its publication in an era where literature was marked by the tone of anti-intellectualism.

Wallace describes the book as the colorization of an old film in the way that Kate manages to misinterpret misconstrue and miss "so many of Wienstein's famous ideas in a way that adds new interpretation that still falls within the bounds of his tracks, but also reinforces his initial ideas in so much of his writing had to do with abstract interpretation

He says that Markson's book makes what is to be a mechanism pulse

Goddamn, I think I'm about to include this afterward as a review of its own because Wallace's praise is so beautiful in and of itself. He is so humble as an author that in his essay, he says that the book transcends, for me, it's purpose. He's so humble that he's unwilling to advance his own idea as a fact which breaks a lot of the rules about persuasive rhetoric.

Describes self-conscious books as tedious and postmeridian, but Wittgenstein's Mistress breaks the mold by serving a purpose in her self-consciousness

Genuine connections elude her, all she can strive for is the occasional synchronicity. Wallace points out that this most frequently occurs with memories of people whose names are often times easily mistake with other people's names.

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