LAS LENGUAS INGLESA Y ESPAÑOLA de Delfín Carbonell

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.

  I read the classics mostly, in English and Spanish, because I still have a long way to go to cover the extent of my unread literature. I do not at all scoff at current, young, and new writers. I am just being practical. I have little time left, and the day still has twenty-four hours. With Enrique Vila-Matas I make an exception. Why? I find his writings different, new, and I can relate to his way of seeing reality, or fiction, or whatever. I just simply like him. He fits the definition of literature Jorge Santayana gifted us with in his Three Philosophical Poets: "The sole purpose in possessing great works of literature lies in what they can help us to become." Vila-Matas does that: reading him, we become more, more reflective, more meditative, more insightful, more ourselves. And I was lucky to meet him yesterday, at the presentation of his new book "Canon de cámara oscura" at the Rafael Alberti bookstore, in Madrid. (Do visit when you come.) He is an affable, se...