num_pages: 192
description: 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 &amp; Co. , an enormously enjoyable novel, Enrique Vila-Matas tackles the theme of silence in the writers and non-writers who, like the scrivener Bartleby of the Herman Melville story, in answer to any question or demand, "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 &amp; Co. could be described as a 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 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.
language: English
title: Bartleby & Co.
titlecomplete: Bartleby & Co.
genres: Fiction, Writing, Books About Books, Spanish Literature, Literature, Novels, Contemporary, 21st Century, Literary Fiction, Spain
ratings_count: 4355
awards: awardedAt: 946713600000
name: Premi Ciutat de Barcelona
category: Literatura en llengua castellana, awardedAt: 946713600000
name: Premi Llibreter de narrativa
publisher: New Directions