Bartleby & Co.

"Bartleby & Co." is a 2000 philosophical fiction novel that acts as a literary essay exploring the "Bartleby syndrome"—the phenomenon of writers who suddenly refuse to write. The unnamed narrator compiles a secret history of these "writers of the No," chronicling real and imagined authors who gave up their craft.

The title is a direct reference to Herman Melville's famous short story "Bartleby, the Scrivener," in which the protagonist famously responds to all requests with the phrase "I would prefer not to." The book uses this character as the patron saint of authors who chose silence over writing.

The novel is uniquely structured as a series of footnotes to an invisible, unwritten text. Through these 86 footnotes, the narrator pieces together his labyrinthine musings on literature, turning the traditional format of academic footnotes into the main narrative device.

Yes, the book blends metafiction and literary criticism by discussing a mix of real authors who famously stopped writing, such as Arthur Rimbaud and J.D. Salinger. The narrator also invents fictional characters to fit into his taxonomy of literary silence, blurring the lines between reality and fiction.