Ibid is another delightfully off-kilter work of metafiction by Mark Dunn. This is not a traditional novel by any means. It opens with a handful of letters between “Mark Dunn” and his editor that explain the unusual format of the book. “Mark” accidentally destroyed one copy of the manuscript of a biography of Jonathan Blashette, a three-legged man with an uproariously bizarre life. The editor’s son accidentally destroyed the other. All that’s left are the endnotes. One might think that endnotes aren’t enough to tell a man’s life story. In the case of Ibid, one would be proven wrong.
It’s possible to piece together a more or less complete picture of the life of Jonathan Blashette. He was born in the 1880s in a small Arkansas town. As a child, he worked in a circus as a “freak,” then sued to break his contract. He graduated from college at a school founded by Confederate veterans and had tragically bad luck in love. He served in World War I, then made his fortune with Dandy-de-odor-o before becoming a philanthropist for just about anyone who could string a sentence together in a letter.
This short summary, however, does not do justice to the hilarious weirdness of Blashette’s life as communicated by the endnotes. “Mark Dunn” did far too much homework about his subject and it shows in the loopy tangents that ended up in the notes. There are places where the notes are just one gag after another. (I had to take some screenshots to share because the side stories are so damned funny it would’ve been a crime not to share them.) Blashette meets great people, odd people, bad people, and never shies away from saying what he thinks about any of them.
Throughout his life, Blashette, like many of us, searches for his purpose. He wants to do good in the world. But it isn’t until the end of his life that he finally figures out what he was put on earth to do, in an epiphany that beautifully makes sense of the format of the book. (I don’t want to spoil it. If you’ve read this book and want to talk about the ending, let’s save it for the comments.)
I really, really enjoyed Ibid. It has so many of the things that I like: a cock-eyed view of history, word games, a subtle message, and tons of quirky humor. I would strongly recommend this book to readers who don’t mind working a little bit as they read and who love weird, little books.