A marvelous novel by one of Spain's most important contemporary authors, in which a clerk in a Barcelona office takes us on a romping tour of world literature.
In Bartleby & Co., an enormously enjoyable novel, Enrique Vila-Matas tackles the theme of silence in literature: the writers and non-writers who, like the scrivener Bartleby of the Herman Melville story, in answer to any question or demand, replies: "I would prefer not to." Addressing such "artists of refusal" as Robert Walser, Robert Musil, Arthur Rimbaud, Marcel Duchamp, Herman Melville, and J. D. Salinger, Bartleby & Co. could be described as a meditation: a walking tour through the annals of literature. Written as a series of footnotes (a non-work itself), Bartleby embarks on such questions as why do we write, why do we exist? The answer lies in the novel itself: told from the point of view of a hermetic hunchback who has no luck with women, and is himself unable to write, Bartleby is utterly engaging, a work of profound and philosophical beauty.
Review
A satiric romp, with stops for delicious/malicious bites at the writing world and its practitioners and hangers-on. -- Confrontation
Abandonment and renunciation are the themes of Vila-Matas's whimsical novel. -- _The New York Times Book Review , Anderson Tepper, 5 June 2005
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_Has its strange cerebral satisfactions. --_Village Voice , Ben Ehrenreich, 29 December 2004
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__Modern Spain's best writer among a growing sect of fanatics scattered around the world. --Juan Forn, PΓ‘gina 12 _
___Perfect. Beautiful. Wistful....an exquisite, exhilarating meditation on the 'art of refusal.' --Thomas McGonigle, Los Angeles Times , 20 December 2004
___The logic and structure of the book are as playfully circular as a gesture in a MirΓ³ painting. --_San Francisco Chronicle , Brenn Jones, 31 December 2004
____The most important living Spanish writer. --Bernardo Axtaga, author of Obakakoak _
_____Vila-Matas has had the brilliant idea of tracking down literature's slackers. --Alberto Manguel, author of A History of Reading _
______Vila-Matas's touch is light and whimsical, while his allusions encompass a rogue's gallery of world literature. --Anderson Tepper, Time Out New York , 2 December 2004
______[Vila-Matas is] one of those curious, original and seductive phenomena writing in Spanish today. --Rafael Conte, Abc ________
About the Author
_______Enrique Vila-Matas was born in Barcelona in 1948. His novels have been translated into eleven languages and honored by many prestigious literary awards including the Prix MΓ©dicis Etranger. Author of Bartleby & Co., Montanoβs Malady , and Never Any End to Paris , he has received Europeβs most prestigious awards and been translated into twenty-seven languages. _______