A book about writers writing about writing is typically not my thing. But Vila-Matas does so with such little pretension and a silliness that I enjoyed it! 

Semi-autofiction, we are told through a retrospective lecture by our protagonist of his own coming-of-adulthood abroad in Paris and his coming into his own as a writer and individual person. You can tell in looking back, he's not taking so seriously the fact that when he was young, he took everything so seriously: walking around with a fedora and fake pipe, letting himself wallow in emo despair when dammit, he's in Paris! 

We're given a window into the forming of an identity. Vila-Matas intimately showing how his whole self is a kaleidoscopic melding of all the authors, quotes, movies, friends, all the art and relationships that he was interested in. We really see the process of how what influences you shapes who you become.

It spurred me to think about my own life and coming-of-age into adulthood, and I even made a Sp*tify playlist of the emo/alt music on rotation for me during high school 😅

“When I read, something that I understand perfectly, I put it aside in disappointment. I don't like stories with understandable plot lines. Because understanding can be a sentence. And not understanding, a door swinging open."