- Hardcover: 192 pages
- Publisher: New Directions (2004)
- Language: English
- ISBN-10: 0811215911
- ISBN-13: 978-0811215916
- Product Dimensions: 20.6 x 14.3 x 2.1 cm
- Shipping Weight: 340 g
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: #2,101,758 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
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Product Details |
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I never had much luck with women. Read the first page
Front Cover | Copyright | Excerpt | Back Cover
I never had much luck with women. Read the first page
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews on Amazon.com (beta)
Amazon.com:
4.5 out of 5 stars (6 customer reviews)
13 of 16 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars
To write or not to write., Feb 14 2005
By Javier A. Moreno - Published on Amazon.com
This review is from: Bartleby & Co. (Hardcover)
Bartleby and Co. is an excellent entrance to get into the extremely rich literary work of the Barcelonian writer Enrique Vila-Matas. Described as a "series of footnotes of an invisible -unexistent- book", it compiles, following a labirinthic order, the observations of an early-retired writer about a pretty recurrent phenomenon among writers that he calls the "negating literature" (literatura del no). Mixing reality and fantasy, Vila-Matas gives account of the most interesting cases of writers, like Bartleby or Salinger, who stopped writing for good at some point in their lives. It is also a marvelous tour through contemporary literature and, at a higher level, it can be seen as a metaphor of abandonment and negation that explores the reasons we have for writing and telling stories and also as a homage to all those brave men and women who have decided to devote their live to writing, who have taken such a dangerous (and slippy) path.A great follow up for this book, if you liked it, is "El Mal de Montano" (I'm not sure it's translated to english already).
15 of 19 people found the following review helpful
4.0 out of 5 stars
Fabulous book, Jan 15 2008
By James Elkins - Published on Amazon.com
This review is from: Bartleby & Co. (Paperback)
Dear Mr. Vila-Matas,I have no reason to think you will ever see this. Why, after all, should you spend your time reading the reviews on the English-language Amazon site? But I have decided to write this review as if I am writing it to you, because it's in the spirit of your book. And how will I describe this book? It is generous, open, friendly, conversational, and also -- I hope you did not think this was only going to be a friendly review -- also infuriating, loosely written, and hopelessly scattered.
The book is a treasure trove of wonderful books, because you report on many writers that your reader will not have heard of. I marked the margins of my copy with a dozen names that I will now have to go and read. At the same time, I was delighted to find the names of many others that I know and recognize.
And that leads me to my frustration. From very nearly the beginning of the book I found myself arguing with you. Your theme, you say, is "writers of the No," meaning writers who have, for one reason or another, stopped writing. But that is the crux of the matter, that "one reason or another." Writers stop writing for many different reasons. Beckett is not the same case as Rimbaud, and Melville is not the same as Hawthorne. Some were depressed, some tired, some scared, and some -- I would have thought they would be your only subject -- stopped because they felt that modernism (a word that is weirdly absent from your book) prohibited the endless production of novels.
I can hear you saying, Well, yes, but as I say in my book, this is a vast subject, and there are many nuances and many different cases that must be judged and weighed. Exactly. They are different, and where your book falls short (sorry, I am being honest because I do not think you'll see this letter) of, say, Blanchot or even Perec (whom you cite) is where it is necessary to really slow down and think about each individual case.
PS, please, some day, read Wittgenstein's Tractatus. You wouldn't have written what you did if you'd read it, and it might have changed your ideas about other silences as well.
Still, even though this sounds negative and even, I suppose, a bit petulant (or even arch in my mimicry of your easy way of writing), the book is wonderful. It is richer, more full of ideas and writers I want to know, than any academic book I can think of.
3 of 3 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars
Playful philosophy, Nov 8 2005
By Emma Pele "emmapele" - Published on Amazon.com
This review is from: Bartleby & Co. (Hardcover)
As a long-time admirer of Melville's Bartleby, I loved this book. I loved its celebration of refusal and devolution. A novel that refuses to be a novel, the book is an especially good read for aging writers who may not have "fulfilled their creative potential" as the self-help goes. Though most of us know of the long silences of writers like Salinger, I had little idea how many writers have gone silent and for the most subtle of reasons.
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