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Bartleby & Co.
Bartleby & Co. | Enrique Vila-Matas
3 posts | 9 read | 1 reading | 9 to read
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.
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Liz_M
Bartleby & Co. | Enrique Vila-Matas
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Quite an unconventional work. The narrator plays hooky from the office in order to compile an appendix of the literary “no”, of authors who created art through refusal, through “preferring not to”. If mostly non-fiction, it is a tremendous amount of research with hundreds of works getting a mention. But I am more intrigued by the possibility, and hope, that there are fictious authors sprinkled amongst the discussion of renowned literary figures.

TheAromaofBooks Woohoo!! 3y
Leftcoastzen Wow, really feeling your mug today!😀 3y
Liz_M @Leftcoastzen It was a nice prop for the occasional zoom meeting with boss/colleagues 😁 3y
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Liz_M
Bartleby & Co. | Enrique Vila-Matas
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"I never had much luck with women."

#FirstLineFridays, @ShyBookOwl

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AMVP
Bartleby & Co. | Enrique Vila-Matas
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#quotsydec17 #day2 - #dance

Likely the next book I'll finish, one of several shorter titles I've started as of late to juice my stats before year's end.

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