Transmigration of souls through time and space via intertextuality transport. Vila-Matas is his own deal but he's also maybe like Markson meets Auster meets a careful dedicated craftsman who juggles thematic balls almost to the point of whirlwind (not necessarily a good thing toward the end since it maybe seems too managed and thereby loses a sense of the noble natural looseness of life?). You don't need to know Joyce or Larkin or Beckett or Borges, but it probably helps to have some familarity with them, to catch it (and care) when the modified first line of Beckett's "Murphy" starts a chapter. Felt like it went on 60 pages too long as it repeated and maybe sort of resolved everything emphasized in the sparkling first half or so -- felt like it wasted way too much space wrapping things up (almost a quarter of its total length). Would've liked a little more boldness at the end on the part of the author or narrator. Lost a little steam for me when they finally get to Dublin, but so much fun when recruiting fellow travelers for a funeral for the pre-Google Gutenberg age. Loved all the mentions of writers from Bolano to Auster to Handke to Larkin to a one-off David Grossman cameo during the Bloomsday reading, among tons of others real or not (Vilém Vok doesn't exist -- I googled!). To list the themes would require repeating most of the book: chief among them is age, genius, publishing, writing, New York as center of world and what that means, relationships, solipsism, the internet, alcoholism, the ever-present apocalypse, books, books, more books, and maybe how all these come together into a sort of religion almost like a Buddhism-less Buddhism that simultaneously saves and destroys you? Consistently charming, smart, self-negating, probing, opinionated, forever at war with idiocy, and deeply deeply in love with books (in a way that's perfectly non-romantical and therefore doesn't make you wanna puke), I got the sense that Samuel Riba is probably a lot like the author -- and therefore things felt real (until the end, in part because of plot mechanics [it's not a spoiler if I type "young Beckett ghost fog!"] and, again, in part because of excessively crafty repetition/resolution) and so ultimately I rooted for this bundle of thought processes, be it Riba or EVM or the intertextually animated amalgamated spirit of Beckett, Joyce, Borges, Vuk, et al. Uneven, as they say, but really enjoyable for the likes of me (not everyone -- you sort of have to love books and writers and "high lit" in general, or at least really want to learn about this stuff -- this is the sort of book that leads to a longer "to-read" list). Some reservations for me, ultimately, but not enough to undermine my affection for EVM, which after reading Bartleby & Co. last summer hath now progressed to the next level. Will read at least two more titles soon before proclaiming my love . . .

Representative quotation addition, 7/26/12: "He'd published lots of important authors, but only in Julien Gracq's novel The Opposing Shore did he perceive any spirit for the future. In his room in Lyon, over the course of endless hours spent locked away, he devoted himself to a theory of the novel that, based on the lessons apparent to him the moment he opened The Opposing Shore, established five elements he considered essential for the novel of the future. These essential elements were: intertextuality; connection with serious poetry; awareness of a moral landscape in ruins; a slight favoring of style over plot; a view of writing that moves forward like time."