ON VILA-MATAS' CANON DE CÁMARA OSCURA

I finally ploughed through Enrique Vila-Matas’ Canon de cámara oscura (2025). I say plough through because, although I am sold on this Spanish author, the read was tough going. Vila-Matas is always unique and innovative. He writes with cultured mastery of the language, free of flourishes and put-ons. His extensive reading and ongoing engagement with world literature make his work both engaging and challenging.

In this new novel-narrative, nothing ever happens. But then, in much good literature, nothing ever happens. Nothing new there. An android attempts to explain why it has decided to enclose literature -its literature- within a canon. Why it does this, or what its wanderings mean, is not clear to me. To me, mind you.

Read it, by all means. But don’t make this the entry point into Vila-Matas. Save it for last.