This funny, erudite novel from one of the great European storytellers will have your book club dreaming of a trip to Barcelona.
Mac, over sixty and recently unemployed, lives on his wife’s earnings from her furniture restoration business. An avid reader, he decides at the age of sixty to keep a diary. Gather your book club for Spanish tapas and see who was paying attention with the following talking points.
Discussion points and questions:
- Mac & His Problem is a lively novel, what is it about?
- What is Mac really up to? Does he know?
- Vila-Matas references the work of other writers, such as Karl Ove Knausgaard, in this novel that is, amongst other things, about literature. What are your feelings on metafiction?
- Is Mac & His Problem the true contemporary novel for our post-truth times?
- Do you find that translated fiction has a different sensibility to English-language fiction? If so, what are those things that set them apart?
- In addition to celebrating the playfulness of literature, Mac & His Problem seems to be inseparable from its location. Would you agree? Are you booking your next holiday to Barcelona?
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