{"product_id":"9780811216982","title":"Bartleby \u0026 Co.","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.\u003cbr\u003eIn Bartleby \u0026amp; 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 \u0026amp; 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.\u003cbr\u003e","brand":"New Directions Publishing Corporation","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":47031150051568,"sku":"9780811216982","price":15.95,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0737\/7593\/9824\/files\/9780811216982_p0.jpg?v=1763741826","url":"https:\/\/shop-qa.barnesandnoble.com\/products\/9780811216982","provider":"Barnes \u0026 Noble (DEV)","version":"1.0","type":"link"}