Enrique Vila-Matas' Journal volubile: A Literary Remedy

Enrique Vila-Matas' Journal volubile, published by Éditions Bourgois, is presented as a remedy against contemporary stupidity. The book is a diary where the author records his readings and encounters, blending classical authors like Melville, Kafka, Borgès, and Renard with contemporaries such as Sebald, Casas Ros, Pitol, Coetzee, Bolaño, Tabucchi, and Michon. Vila-Matas describes reading as a difficult act, often performed half-blinded by light. He recounts coincidences: thinking of Hawthorne and receiving a call from a friend visiting Melville's grave in New York, or thinking of Casas Ros and receiving an email from him. The diary also addresses his health issues, using them to invoke Rilke or Pitol, and observes the rise of idiocy in the West, global tourism, and media saturation. Vila-Matas offers countermeasures: 'I get indignant, but I have learned to find reasoning that deactivates irritations' and 'We write because others did it before us and we read because others read before us.' The literary illness (Le mal de Montano) is deemed incurable.