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3.85 AVERAGE
3.85 AVERAGE
I liked the idea, but not the execution. When it comes to stories with footnotes taking the leading role, Octet by David Foster Wallace is the go-to.
There is a nihilist edge to this taxonomy, one which is evident and continues to persist. I find its serial interrogation necessary but not exactly fulfilling. That may be the point, it is likely the point. We can own our repetitions and accept our failing memories. We elect to refrain and endure likewise. Melville and Walser can offer tacit assistance. We only need dispose ourselves accordingly.
good. could have been better but still worth it for the real stories, fictional bits that are hard to distinguish from the real if you don’t have an encyclopedic knowledge of this shit like vila-matas does—and w that a boatload of recommendations
A book of footnotes about authors who have stopped writing. This is a niche book, written with a lot of wit. The author has read a lot and remembers a lot. But the minutiae bored me.
I could not keep going. Witty but too much.
I could not keep going. Witty but too much.
A beautiful work of fiction about writing fiction, creating art and rejecting them both.
adventurous
challenging
informative
mysterious
reflective
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
Se trata de un libro con interesantes anécdotas sobre escritores que han dejado de escribir por un sin fin y en algunos casos curiosas razones. Historias que me parecieron interesantes. Creo que hubiera funcionado mejor si se tratara solamente de un anecdotario.
No logré conectar con el personaje principal de la historia, porque a final de cuentas, el autor trató de integrar la necesidad de escribir (y al menos el conflicto de publicar) con un personaje que no logró producirme grandes simpatías. Cada que comenzaba a narrar sus vicisitudes yo quería saber del resto de escritores famosos y no tan famosos que abandonaron la publicación de sus textos.
No termino de entender la idea de escribir un libro sobre el no y al final obtener un texto que sí existe. No es una paradoja que me cause el placer intelectual que tanto me gusta sentir.
No logré conectar con el personaje principal de la historia, porque a final de cuentas, el autor trató de integrar la necesidad de escribir (y al menos el conflicto de publicar) con un personaje que no logró producirme grandes simpatías. Cada que comenzaba a narrar sus vicisitudes yo quería saber del resto de escritores famosos y no tan famosos que abandonaron la publicación de sus textos.
No termino de entender la idea de escribir un libro sobre el no y al final obtener un texto que sí existe. No es una paradoja que me cause el placer intelectual que tanto me gusta sentir.
The Spanish author Enrique Vila-Matas provides writing of a very peculiar kind. It is writing about writing, writing about authors, writing that brings up big questions by asking witty but seemingly trifle ones. I honestly didn’t know much about “Bartleby” before reading it. When I took the book off the shelf I only knew that I had had this little volume for a really long time and it looked like it had traveled with me quite a lot because my edition is a Polish translation.
“Bartleby & Co.” is inspired by Herman Melville’s short story about a man who, to any suggestion, replies: I prefer not to and therefore he renounces life by saying No to everything. Vila-Matas, in turn, discusses all the authors, or artists in general, who, at some point of their lives, ceased to write (create). It begins with a Juan Rulfo’s excuse about his uncle Celestino dying – an uncle who was the sole provider of all the interesting stories he used in his own writing. It continues on with authors who found writing illogical, pointless or impossible. It discusses authors who killed themselves, went mad, or suddenly moved onto some entirely different plane of activities (in case of one author, it is a study and observation of vultures).
The little book, under 200 pages, loads so much information and important questions, while at the same time it is so fantastically readable and entertaining. There’s, for instance, a mention of Brautigan Library, now located in Vancouver, WA, that collects unwanted and rejected manuscripts. Or we get a very moving, although somewhat fictionalized / not necessarily true, story of a Spanish poet Juan Ramón Jiménez being unable to write after the death of his beloved wife Zenobia. I NEED to read more of Vila-Matas, as well as some of the authors that he mentions in the book. “Bartleby & Co.” is a real treasure, very inspiring and rewarding to its reader. Some of the literary allusions and stories you know of, in which case you feel a certain affinity with the author, then there’s some information that is new to you – you want to write it down, find out more about it, because you feel like it is coming from a friend with similar tastes.
Fantastic reading experience.
“Bartleby & Co.” is inspired by Herman Melville’s short story about a man who, to any suggestion, replies: I prefer not to and therefore he renounces life by saying No to everything. Vila-Matas, in turn, discusses all the authors, or artists in general, who, at some point of their lives, ceased to write (create). It begins with a Juan Rulfo’s excuse about his uncle Celestino dying – an uncle who was the sole provider of all the interesting stories he used in his own writing. It continues on with authors who found writing illogical, pointless or impossible. It discusses authors who killed themselves, went mad, or suddenly moved onto some entirely different plane of activities (in case of one author, it is a study and observation of vultures).
The little book, under 200 pages, loads so much information and important questions, while at the same time it is so fantastically readable and entertaining. There’s, for instance, a mention of Brautigan Library, now located in Vancouver, WA, that collects unwanted and rejected manuscripts. Or we get a very moving, although somewhat fictionalized / not necessarily true, story of a Spanish poet Juan Ramón Jiménez being unable to write after the death of his beloved wife Zenobia. I NEED to read more of Vila-Matas, as well as some of the authors that he mentions in the book. “Bartleby & Co.” is a real treasure, very inspiring and rewarding to its reader. Some of the literary allusions and stories you know of, in which case you feel a certain affinity with the author, then there’s some information that is new to you – you want to write it down, find out more about it, because you feel like it is coming from a friend with similar tastes.
Fantastic reading experience.
An unusual book that is fundamentally, about writers who refuse to write. It is also simultaneously a novel and an anti-novel, a long essay without a body, being comprised of endless footnotes. Its sole character is a reclusive not-writer who moves through no plot of his own, only obsessively cataloguing writers who reject writing.
Sadly as a writer who doesn't write I can relate all too well.
Sadly as a writer who doesn't write I can relate all too well.
The book is a series of 1Cnotes without text 1D about all kinds of writers who gave up writing, saying a big NO to literature. The book is well written, explaining various reasons because of which one might stop writing for years, or forever. I enjoyed it, but I wouldn 19t recommend it to someone who isn 19t in love with or directly interested in literature.