Through the articles and brief literary essays which make up this book, Alejandro Zambra outlines, without explicitly referencing it as such, a unique theory of reading. Whether it be in a sober and well-judged comment on a particular book, or else in the biographical digressions which arise from remarks on a particular author—from Nicanor Parra, Mario Levrero, and Cesare Pavese to Roberto Bolaño, Natalia Ginzburg, and Manuel Puig—the act of reading occupies the central position in these pages, in which good-humored but potent critical attacks on cliché and imposture alternate with an intimate and calm celebration of having read something genuine. Zambra displays a literary style in which ambiguity, self-control, and ambivalence are key values, offering, rather than a pretentious final word, merely an appreciation for the profound impact that certain books can have on an individual.
