Roberto Bolaño

[Stewart]

There's been a lot of buzz around the blogosphere and in some print publications about the forthcoming translation of 2666 by Roberto Bola?o. To be honest, prior to this I'd never heard of him, or, at the very least, the copy of The Savage Detectives sitting on the shelf in my local Borders hadn't registered with me.

Anyway, a brief bio courtesy of Wikipedia:


For most of his youth, Bola?o was a vagabond, living at one time or another in Chile, Mexico, El Salvador, France and Spain, where he finally settled down in the early 1980s in the small Catalan beach town of Blanes. There he died of a liver disorder he suffered from for more than a decade. He was survived by his Spanish wife and their two children, whom he once called "my only motherland." Bola?o named his only son Lautaro, after the Mapuche leader Lautaro, who resisted the Spanish conquest of Chile, as related in the sixteenth-century epic La araucana.

A crucial episode in his life, mentioned in different forms in several of his works, occurred in 1973, when he left Mexico for Chile to "help build the revolution." During his travels to Chile, he met revolutionary poet Roque Dalton in El Salvador. After Augusto Pinochet's coup against Salvador Allende, he was arrested; Bola?o spent eight days in custody, although he did not suffer torture, and was rescued by two former classmates who had become prison guards. In the 1970s, he became a Trotskyist and a founding member of infrarrealismo, a minor poetic movement. Although deep down he always felt like a poet, in the vein of his beloved Nicanor Parra, he is known for his novels, novellas, and short story collections. Six weeks before he died, his fellow Latin American novelists hailed him as the most important figure of his generation at an international conference he attended in Seville.

It's always a shame, I think, when a writer comes to wider attention after their death. But Bola?o must be good - and by good I mean exceptional - as I feel that what I'm reading on the blogs and whatnot is genuine excitement rather than prepublication hype. So, how good is he? And what makes him for you, so great?

[miriring]

Hello Srewart,
In the new forum of the participants of The New York Times Latin American Lit. forum, we decided to discuss The night in Chile by Bolano.
Would you like to join?
The site is:
http://forums.escapefromelba.com
you just need to register.

[Stewart]

Would you like to join?
Well I've signed up, but I don't know how you can manage to have multiple discussions raging on all on a single thread. Surely people must talk over each other, with some posts getting lost in the mire?

[miriring]

I don't know what do you mean.
We vote for a book and then start posting messages.
Bolano - The night in Chile is probably the new vote, only in the Latin American Literature thread.
Did you read the book?
I am reading it just now.

[Stewart]

I don't know what do you mean.
There was a single thread called Latin American Fiction and it spanned pages and pages of discussion. Just like every separate forum on the site had a single thread. Different people could be talking about three or four different books on the same thread at the same time, making the stream of conversation hard to follow. Add a book group discussion to that, rather than have it in a separate thread dedicated to The Night In Chile alone, and I'd find it very hard to follow everything that is going on.


Did you read the book?
No. I hadn't heard of Bola?o until I started reading the hysteria about 2666 on a number of blogs. I've looked up The Night In Chile and it seems to be out of print in the UK. Not to say I can't pick up a second hand copy, but I've sworn off buying books at the moment as I have far too many that I haven't read (almost 500!) and I need to work my way through some of them to clear space as my books are threatening to take over the house.

[miriring]

Stewart,
It is a great book The Night in Chile.
And in www.bookfinder.com (http://www.bookfinder.com)
you can buy used for less than a dollar.
I try not to buy more books as my library is so "full"...but you know how is it with peope who love books.

[Morten]

I was severely disappointed with The Savage Detectives...

[Stewart]

I was severely disappointed with The Savage Detectives...
In what way? I suppose it's good to hear a bit of a negative response to it as I was pretty much going to head into the book (when I got it) on a wave of praise that I could, most likely, expect nothing else but sheer disappointment. That's been my experience before when I start a book expecting the world of it.

[Howard]

And I thought I was alone in the world in not liking The Savage Detectives...

Read the book three years ago (in Spanish) at a publisher's request and wrote a report on it which ended with the words "adds up to six hundred of the most pointless pages I have ever had the misfortune to have to plough through". Needless to say, that particular publisher didn't buy the book, but it was quickly snapped up by another publisher and eventually appeared to enormous acclaim (especially in the USA), with the author praised as the greatest Latin American writer since Marquez.

Guess I must have missed something...

[nnyhav]

Bola?o Englished online (collected from my postings at EscapeFromElba):
Excerpts from Nazi Literature in America:
The Mendiluce Clan (http://www.vqronline.org/articles/2007/fall/bolano-nazi-literature-americas), The Many Masks of Max Mirebalais (http://www.wordswithoutborders.org/?lab=BolanoNazi), The Fabulous Schiaffino Boys (http://www.bookforum.com/inprint/014_05/2047)
Another writer-story, not part of the above: ?lvaro Rousselot's Journey (http://www.newyorker.com/fiction/features/2007/11/26/071126fi_fiction_bolano)
One not about a writer as such: The Insufferable Gaucho (http://www.newyorker.com/fiction/features/2007/10/01/071001fi_fiction_bolano)

Poem: Self Portrait at Twenty Years (http://www.threepennyreview.com/samples/bolano_f07.html)

[nnyhav]

via Bookbench (http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/books), at triplecanopy (http://canopycanopycanopy.com):

In 1999, four years before his death, Chilean novelist Roberto Bola?o won the highly prestigious R?mulo Gallegos prize for his novel The Savage Detectives. ?The Caracas Speech (http://canopycanopycanopy.com/2/the_caracas_speech)? is his acceptance of that prize.

(use -> key or onscreen + to navigate thru)

[ions]

Finished The Savage Detectives a couple days ago. While I wasn't impressed by it there were moments that will keep my interest in his work to try him again. Far too much name dropping - places/people.

[ions]

Clara (http://www.newyorker.com/fiction/features/2008/08/04/080804fi_fiction_bolano?printable=true)

Good stuff!

[fausto]

There is a problem with Latin American literature: it's always limited to the "boom", a vastly apocryphal concept. Actually, most people outside of the Spanish world only know Borges (though he is pre-boom), Garcia Marquez and al. Or Esquivel and Allende, who both made their fortune on the back of books imitating their predecessors, not bringing anything to the plate. So here comes Bola?o, and where does he fit in? Well, at first he doesn't. And then he gradually grows in stature. And now, 5 years after his death, he is praised by most latin american writers who started publishing in the last ten years. Why? Because he showed a way out of the magical realism trap. He is a sort of godfather for an entire genration. There is no doubt in my mind that he will still be read and commented in 50 years. Future generation might need to "kill" him as he did Gabo and Vargas Llosa (more for shows than anything else) or he might be as revered as Borges, time will tell but he will still be around.

Having read all his books save three, there is no doubt in my mind Bola?o is a giant -- even though some books are obviously of a lesser quality.

I did read Savage detectives first and loved it, although I would admit it's not the best starting place. However, if you think it's "six hundred of the most pointless pages I have ever had the misfortune to have to plough through" either you have only read masterworks your entire reading life or, yes, you missed something. But to comment further, I'd at least need you to elaborate -- as I would need some more details from Morten. The only details we had were ions' and to those I can only say, Stone Cold Steve Austin style, "what?". Name-dropping is used to refer to people using names of many people to give credibility to what they're saying. Can this be applied to fictitious characters? Is Pynchon name-dropping when he used the names of his hundreds of character in Against the day? I don't know... I guess Ions is alluding to the central part who couldn't have worked if names and places weren't regularly used -- any other way and you would have ended with something very different to what Bola?o was trying to achieve, I think.

Nocturno de Chile / By Night in Chile is one of his best and definitely a recommended starting point. Short, moving and chilling.

[ions]

And it gets covered:

Hardcover:
http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51vlaa96THL._SS500_.jpg

[Eric]

There are further problems with Latin American literature to those that Fausto mentioned:

a) Brazilian literature is often ignored, as they wrote in the wrong language.

b) Latin-American literature is often equated with the magical realism of M?rquez, or the stories of Borges, and if the authors don't fit these Procrustean beds they are ignored.

c) Do we know for sure that Roberto Bola?o actually existed? He sounds like a figment of Borges' imagination. Photos? One or two black-and-white studies of a curly-haired bespectacled man with a fag between his fingers. Detailed biography? Movements? Any second-rate actor could do an interview. I somehow doubt that he died in 2003, as he was never born in 1953.

When you look at the whole Infrarrealistas movement, how many of these people were real, how many holograms?

Roberto Bola?o (http://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roberto_Bola%C3%B1o), Cuauht?moc M?ndez Estrada (http://es.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Cuauht%C3%A9moc_M%C3%A9ndez_Estrad a&action=edit&redlink=1), Ram?n M?ndez Estrada (http://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ram%C3%B3n_M%C3%A9ndez_Estrada), Bruno Montan? (http://es.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Bruno_Montan%C3%A9&action=edit&redlink=1), Rub?n Medina, Juan Esteban Harrington (http://es.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Juan_Esteban_Harrington&action=edit&redlink=1), Oscar Altamirano (http://es.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Oscar_Altamirano&action=edit&redlink=1), Jos? Peguero (http://es.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Jos%C3%A9_Peguero&action=edit&redlink=1), Guadalupe Ochoa (http://es.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Guadalupe_Ochoa&action=edit&redlink=1), Jos? Vicente Anaya (http://es.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Jos%C3%A9_Vicente_Anaya&action=edit&redlink=1), Edgar Altamirano (http://es.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Edgar_Altamirano&action=edit&redlink=1), Elmer Santana (http://es.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Elmer_Santana&action=edit&redlink=1) y Mara Larrosa (http://es.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Mara_Larrosa&action=edit&redlink=1)

[Stewart]

Do we know for sure that Roberto Bola?o actually existed? Photos?

From the BBC (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/arts/3070879.stm):

http://newsimg.bbc.co.uk/media/images/39283000/jpg/_39283263_bolano_ap203.jpg

[fausto]

Eric has to be on a wind-up. A figment of Borges imagination? In what ways?

[Eric]

Forget Borges, Fausto. That was just a name I pulled out of a hat. Borges liked subterfuge and layers of non-existence.

What I am trying to say without equivocation is that I think that Bola?o, with his nice little tilde, is the figment of someone's imagination, as is the whole of the Infrarrealistas movement. Showing that same photo of Bola?o again and again, in black-and-white and in colour, proves nothing. Any actor, critic, author could have posed for that photo.

The BBC are as gullible as anyone else. They could easily have copied this photo from a website. Until the Culture Show, with Loo Lav and Kermode, shows his grave, interviews his half-senile mother and a couple of his childhood friends, I will continue to think that "Roberto Bola?o" is a cyber-invention by academics who have not quite grown up.

I would like others, especially those who speak Spanish, to furnish much more proof that this man isn't just a fantasy, made up by sniggering academics with nothing better to do. U read this on the net:

EL INFRARREALISMO EXISTE Y NO EXISTE

And I've seen this picture, purporting to be one of the movement:

http://www.infrarrealismo.com/Fotos/p7080/Webinfras1.jpg

But I'm still not entirely convinced.

As there are so many other untranslated authors writing in Spanish, why make more up, when so few are available in English?

So, if these authors are real, and their works worth reading, let's have more details.

Check out this reference:

http://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arturo_Belano

[fausto]

Christ...
So you type Bola?o in google, click on images and you'll find on the first page 9 different photos. You will also find on youtube videos of him being interviewed. A dutchman directed recently a documentary where you will see his wife and children and friend talk about him. He was a common, well-known figure in literary Barcelona, gave many conferences in Spain and in latin america, interviews to French newspaper, attended book fairs in Paris and Frankfurt, received prizes that he came and picked up in person, had dinner with Chile minister of culture and fell out big time with them because of his report of it, had many writer friends who wrote columns on his death, etc.

An actor? For twenty years? Dream on.

As for the infra-realists, those who are still alive maintain a website and hold public poetry reading. Fly out to Mexico and see for yourself.

[Eric]

I have found some pretty convincing evidence of Bola?o's existence:

Muere Roberto Bola?o, un gran renovador de la literatura en espa?ol** :: e-barcelona.org :: F?rum de Cultura, democratitzem la democr?cia (http://www.e-barcelona.org/index.php?name=News&file=article&sid=1157)

Roberto Bola?o - Viquip?dia (http://ca.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roberto_Bola%C3%B1o)

So you must be right - this man is not a fiction, after all. There are indeed hundreds and hundreds of articles on him and his books on the internet. The books certainly are real. But there is still an aura of mystery about his person, despite all the details about Chile, Mexico and Barcelona.

I saw the YouTube interviews. My Spanish is not good enough, but he looked real enough. No denying that. But he did dabble in personality shifts or alter egos, like Pessoa, from what I gather.

After Arthur Valdes and others, I'm always a bit sceptical about writers whose biographies aren't immediately clear. But it looks as if you're right this time, Fausto.

[Mirabell]

Christ...


*cracked up*

[fausto]

Unreal.
Say, Eric... I can't find any photos of you via google and when I do a search with your alledged name, the fourth hit is this:
BBC NEWS | Programmes | Newsnight Home | Who is Eric? (http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/programmes/newsnight/5076898.stm)
Now tell me: are you the invention of some bored Newsnight temps staff, let loose on the world wide web?

[Eric]

Fausto, of course I don't exist. I was telling Mirabell at great length only the other day that it is about time he stopped believing that there exists some Englishman, with the surname Dickens, who lives in the Netherlands, translates from one or two relatively obscure languages and reads others (including basic Yiddish and intermediate Finnish) and claims to have lived in Poland, Estonia and Sweden for more than a year, met people at the PEN Club in Stockholm and London, wrote for Newsnight, had one grandfather that was an architect, another who was a coal miner, etc. I think that my inventor did over-egg the languages, and other things, somewhat. That tends to give the game away in the end. Makes a good persona, though.

It takes quite a degree of skill to forge a fictional biography, but I'm beginning to get the hang of it, though you do make mistakes (like claiming to have been born in Dewsbury, inspired by the fact that the town has been in the news recently for less than happy reasons). I'm rather proud of having pulled the wool over people's eyes, really. Nevertheless, I can risk revealing my distortions of the truth and downright whoppers to this website, as we're all friends. I like my fictions, but they shouldn't be taken too seriously by the real people that the rest of you are.

I will leave it for you to guess precisely which Newsnight journo or backroom boy/girl got so bored that s/he had to invent me. But suffice it to say, that I remain a possibility, a kind of Virtual Eric.

[saliotthomas]

How fascinating !

[ions]

The only details we had were ions' and to those I can only say, Stone Cold Steve Austin style, "what?". Name-dropping is used to refer to people using names of many people to give credibility to what they're saying. Can this be applied to fictitious characters? Is Pynchon name-dropping when he used the names of his hundreds of character in Against the day?

Do you know X?
No.
Oh I do.
Oh. That's great, what was he like?
Pretty cool, but not what you'd expect.
Have you been to Y? There's a bar on Main and First where X used to hang out in Y.

And repeat again soon.

Name & place dropping. There's a lot of that in Detectives. Especially when those listed could be obscure poets ya really couldn't care less about.


I don't know... I guess Ions is alluding to the central part who couldn't have worked if names and places weren't regularly used -- any other way and you would have ended with something very different to what Bola?o was trying to achieve, I think.

And no, not just the middle section by the many different narrators, something I rather enjoyed, the name dropping goes on with all the characters. As if it was endemic. It happened too often. Became egotistical. In between the myriad of these moments there are fantastic characters, great dialogue, interesting plot, vivid setting and so on. I'd point out a particular scene I enjoyed but my copy is loaned out unfortunately.


Nocturno de Chile / By Night in Chile is one of his best and definitely a recommended starting point. Short, moving and chilling.

Noted. I will try and get that read before I pick up 2666.

[ions]

A passage I had typed out to save in my quotes file:


There are books for when you're bored. Plenty of them. There are books for when you're calm. The best kind, in my opinion. There are also books for when you're sad. And there are books for when you're happy. There are books for when you're thirsty for knowledge. And there are books for when you're desperate. The latter kind are the kind of books Ulises Lima and Belano wanted to write. A serious mistake, as we'll soon see. Let's take, for example, an average reader, a cool-headed, mature, educated man leading a more or less healthy life. A man who buys books and literary magazines. So there you have him. This man can read things that are written for when you're calm, but he can also read any other kind of book with a critical eye, dispassionately, without absurd or regrettable complicity. That's how I see it. I hope I'm not offending anyone. Now let's take the desperate reader, who is presumably the audience for the literature of desperation. What do we see? First: the reader is an adolescent or an immature adult, insecure, all nerves. He's the kind of fucking idiot (pardon my language) who committed suicide after reading Werther. Second: he's a limited reader. Why limited? That's easy: because he can only read the literature of desperation, or books for the desperate, which amounts to the same thing, the kind of person or freak who's unable to read to read all the way through In Search of Lost Time, for example, or The Magic Mountain (a paradigm of calm, serene, complete literature, in my humble opinion), or for that matter, Les Miserables or War and Peace. Am I making myself clear? Good. So I talked to them, told them, warned them, alerted them to the dangers they were facing. It was like talking to a wall. Furthermore: desperate readers are like the California gold mines. Sooner or later they're exhausted! Why? It's obvious! One can't live one's whole life in desperation. In the end the body rebels, the pain becomes unbearable, lucidity gushes out in great cold spurts. The desperate reader (and especially the desperate poetry reader, who is insufferable, believe me) ends up by turning away from books. Inevitably he ends up becoming just plain desperate. Or he's cured! And then, as part of the regenerative process, he returns slowly ? as if wrapped in swaddling cloths, as if under a rain of dissolved sedatives ? he returns, as I was saying, to a literature for cool, serene readers, with their heads set firmly on their shoulders. This is what's called (by me, if nobody else) the passage from adolescence to adulthood. And by that I don't mean that once someone has become a cool-headed reader he no longer reads books written for desperate readers. Of course he reads them! Especially if they're good or decent or recommended by a friend. But ultimately, they bore him! Ultimately, that literature of resentment, full of sharp instruments and lynched messiahs, doesn't pierce his heart the way a calm page, a carefully thought-out page, a technically perfect page does. I told them so. I warned them. I showed them the technically perfect page. I alerted them to the dangers. Don't exhaust the vein! Humility! Seek oneself, lose oneself in strange lands! But with a guiding line, the bread crumbs or white pebbles! And yet I was mad, driven mad by them, by my daughters, by Laura Dami?n, and so they didn't listen. The Savage Detectives, Roberto Bola?o p207

[Eric]

Ions, your quoted person makes some interesting points. But I am innately suspicious of people who don't write paragraphs, but just keep going, sentence after sentence. What is he actually saying, beyond that some novels require more application and a greater attention span to read? Is he on speed?

[Mirabell]

I am innately suspicious of people who don't write paragraphs, but just keep going, sentence after sentence

:D

[Mirabell]

started to read The Savage Detectives in the Wimmer translation on the tube and it's a hell of a read. Lotsa fun so far, 75 pages in.

[Irene Wilde]

Now let's take the desperate reader, who is presumably the audience for the literature of desperation. What do we see? First: the reader is an adolescent or an immature adult, insecure, all nerves. He's the kind of fucking idiot (pardon my language) who committed suicide after reading Werther.

Wow! It's like looking in a mirror! :D

I think I may have to read this now, however unappealing a title like The Savage Detectives sounds. I'm picturing Dean Martin with a .357 Magnum oh-so-cleverly tucked into the waist of his trousers. I hope I'm wrong.

[Mirabell]

well, Irene, currently there's lots of explicit confused-adolescent-boy-tumbles-into-his first-sexual-experiences-stuff going on. Not as off-putting as Grass' talks with his penis, though. A warning is in order, nevertheless. People who read over my shoulder on the tube recoiled and looked at me as if I was a perv.

[Irene Wilde]

well, Irene, currently there's lots of confused-adolescent-boy-tumbles-into-his first-sexual-experiences-stuff going on. Nopt as off-putting as Grass' talks with his penis, though. A warning is in order, nevertheless.

I hardly think Grass is alone in talking with his penis. Show of hands: men who have not had a word with John Thomas.

Anyone?

Anyone?

[Mirabell]

*raises hand*


men do that?

[Irene Wilde]

In my experience, frequently. He apparently needs a pep talk now and again, especially after a night's drink, and a stern talking to some morning afters as well. Of course, I'm female, so I don't know the full extent of these exchanges.

Oops! It's entirely possible I forgot which forum I was addressing. I think I shall retire for the night.

[Mirabell]

a pep talk???? maybe it's an age thing
or I'm the wrong kind of man
(i.e. one with a penis that doesn't have a brain of its own....)
or I'm a woman
whoopsie-daisy

[Irene Wilde]

Ah youth! When the mojo is unlimited and regrets are few.

Say g'night Irene.

G'night.

[Mirabell]

g'night irene. I#ll be off to bed now, too.

[Stewart]

From the Literary Saloon (http://www.complete-review.com/saloon/archive/200809a.htm#gt5):


...readers are in for several more healthy doses of Bola?o: as the new New Directions newsletter (http://www.ndpublishing.com/home.html) notes (scroll down, second to last item), they have big plans: the novel The Skating Rink is due in August 2009, and then, 'In the Not-too-Distant Future', they're offering:

Monsieur Pain (novel)
Antwerp (novel)
The Insufferable Gaucho (novel)
Parenthetically (essays)
Assassin Whores (short stories)
Secreto De Mal (posthumous collection of writings-stories, sketches, poems, miscellany)

It seems Bola?o-mania will be properly fed for years to come!

[Stewart]

Looks like the UK will be getting some of the above titles too, following on from the success of 2666, now that Picador (UK) are set to publish them (http://www.thebookseller.com/news/78685-picador-buys-brand-bolao.html) and some of those available in the States too:

Picador has announced its first acquisitions under new publisher Paul Baggaley, including 11 novels by the cult Chilean writer Roberto Bola?o.

Bola?o's epic work 2666 has just been published by Picador to critical acclaim, hitting the top 10 original fiction bestseller list. Baggaley bought The Third Reich, a novel completed by Bola?o shortly before his death in 2003 and as yet unpublished in any language, from Sarah Chalfant at the Wylie Agency. It will be published in 2011.

Baggaley has also acquired 10 other Bola?o titles, previously untranslated into English, from Tim Bates at Pollinger on behalf of the US publisher New Directions. The first of these, Amulet, will be published in hardback this autumn, alongside the paperback of 2666. The remaining Bola?o novels will be published over the following two years.

[Jayaprakash]

I am deeply unimpressed with THE SAVAGE DETECTIVES. If you ignore the fact that the book is about wannabe poets and therefore somehow tickles the interest of literary types, it's just a book about a bunch of youngsters who imagine they are a counterculture doing all the usual banal things kids who imagine they are rebelling do. There's a lot of aimless hanging around, a lot of drinking, hooking up, some doping, more groping, a lot of big talk. Yeah, so it's like a Latino Kerouac. Big deal. Halfway through the narrative seems to be actively arranged to be hostile to the reader with its oral history style leaps from one narrator to another. Frankly, I would side with the passage quoted by ions, side with the only character here who is explicitly portrayed as insane, and go re-read THE MAGIC MOUNTAIN again. Really. This wasted several hours of a life that I happen to value. Fah.

[e joseph]

Having read 2666, By Night in Chile and The Skating Rink, I'm pretty pleased with reading Bolano so far. After reading Skating (1993), which was just translated into english, it seems like it shouldn't have taken his bigger novels to gain him some popularity in the states. Essentially a detective novel, I was impressed by the pacing, story and characters; Bolano didn't get hung up writing what could have just been a genre book.

[ferns_dad]

Nazi Literature in America --sitting on my bedstand, maybe next on line, I am currently on Mike Davis Ecology of Fear, which is pretty good.......

[Daniel del Real]

Go for it! I read it two weeks ago and though it has a slow paced introduction, once you get use to the style it grows to become an amazing imaginative book.
I highly recommend it!

[Johan]

I discovered him by chance five or six weeks ago. So far I have read 2666, The Savage Detectives and half of Nazi Literature in the Americas. Just ordered By Night in Chile and Distant Star. All translated. My Spanish is not that bad, but definitely not good enough to read Bola?o without consulting a dictionary every two minutes.

2666 is truly a masterpiece, I'm still trying to find a way to describe it without sounding like a lunatic.

The Savage Detectives is not perfect, but I enjoyed it very much. The character Garcia Madero reminds me of my own teenage foolishness.

Nazi Literature makes me think of Borges, especially his Book of Imaginary Beings, which is a pretty big compliment.

Since I'm reading him in reverse chronological order I have noticed that at least two characters from 2666 are briefly mentioned in earlier works. Archimboldi in The Savage Detectives(although as a non-reclusive frenchman with a different first name), General Entrescu in Nazi Literature and probably several more whom I overlooked. It has the pleasant effect of giving one the sense that the works are connected, no matter how different they are.

[ferns_dad]

Nazi Lit--I'd say so/so. Was pretty clever and quite imaginative at times, but I thought sort of plodding, and I had to spur myself on to finish. Now, since this is one of his SHORTER works, I am a little worried that 2666 may not be one I like at all....maybe I should read the detective one next?

[Daniel del Real]

Yesterday I purchased Llamadas Telef?nicas, a book of short stories. This is the first time I approach to his brief texts instead of the novels. I've read three of them it so good so far. He has the punch to capture you in just a few pages. I don't think he can get that good as a short story writers as Julio Cort?zar for example, but I'm liking it.
I'll let you know more opinions when I finish it.

[invention]

I really enjoyed Last Evenings on Earth, which is the English volume collecting half of this one and half of Putas asesinas and half of Llamadas telef?nicas. It was the first Bola?o I read and a decent introduction.

[DB Cooper]

Count me among the Bolano acolytes. I devoured his longer works (Savage Detectives and 2666) first, and came away wildly impressed. In my opinion both are masterworks, and it will be interesting to see over time which one is heralded as his masterpiece. Don't count The Savage Detectives out of that race. His shorter works are more of a mixed bag for me. Nazi Literature in the Americas fell far short of those aforementioned tomes, didn't really resonate with me. The Skating Rink I would consider a great entry point for those looking to explore Bolano, as it touches on many of the themes explored in his later works. Distant Star was a fun little noir-ish book, as I understand Bolano had a great affinity for detective novels. I've yet to read Last Evenings on Earth, Amulet, or By Night in Chile. Trying to save some for later rather than devouring his oeuvre as fast as I can. Eagerly awaiting the rest of his works to be translated.

[Backwords]

Somewhere in The Part About the Critics, maybe elsewhere too, We get a reference to an artistic movement "Visceral Realism" There is no movement that gos by this name, but there just as well could be. There is no Archimboldi but it wouldn't make much difference if there were. That's the genius of the work in my view...or anyway the charm.

Eric's thread brings something into focus, In Bolano, every character has the air not of a created or imagined amalgam of some living persons or an exaggerated stand in for an idea but instead they seem just plausible persons who could be real or inventions of a newspaper man, artistic and literary movements which could be picked out of the cornucopia of available "real" material in an age of wikipedia which meets simulacrum with a cry of bon apatite.

If it's natural for a writer to embody the qualities of his books then Bolano himself appearing a bit of someone's foolery is about right.

Isn't the name dropping partly a show of Bolano's fascination and passion for academia, books, art and culture?
It also speaks to the age we are living in, where increasingly there are too many author's and painter's names for the vainglorious cultural peacock to pin to his pretentious shirt.

:)

Viva Visceral Realism!

[Daniel del Real]

I just finished Llamadas Telef?nicas last night and I have to say I'm greatly impressed by the sensations this set of short stories leave you. As most of Bola?o's works, stories go all over the globe to tell the tales of living ghosts that found company in their wanderings, but then they get lost after they touch each other's life. They're just like ghosts only able to manifest themselves in brevity and then go ahead to their invisible a lonely existance.

[Backwords]

"Last May I went to an evening at the Sligo Spanish Society, Sol y Sombra,
where a Chilean novelist called Carlos Frank talked and gave readings
from his work, none of which is as yet translated from Spanish into
English. At the end of his talk and reading, I asked him about his main
influences as a writer and he mentioned the Chilean writer Roberto Bolano.
I did not know about this writer until then and have since learned that
he was a major South American author who died in 2003 at the age of just 50.
I purchased some of Bolano's books and the first one I read was a series
of excellent short stories called "Last Evenings on Earth", translated by
Chris Andrews and published by Vintage, London, in 2007. Near the end
of the book there is a short story called "Days of 1978" in which,
at a pivotal moment in the story, the major character - called B in
the story - relates an account of a film that has made a big impression
on him. This film, as it turns out, is Tarkovsky's "Andrei Rublev", though
the name of the film is never mentioned in the text. In fact, his account
of the film is a fairly strange and interesting interpretation and the
account that the character gives of the film seems to have a major effect
on another major character in the story. Beyond that I will not ruin
the story for anyone who is interested in reading it by relating what happens.

The other time Tarkovsky influenced a major author is in the Japanese Nobel
Laureate Oe's novel "A Quiet Life", in which Tarkosvky's film "Stalker"
plays a very prominent part.

I hope this information is of interest and I remain,

Yours sincerely,

Tony Partridge,
Sligo."

[nnyhav]

crosslinking to the Blogosthread
http://www.worldliteratureforum.com/forum/blogosphere/20957-horacio-castellanos-moya-disgusted-bolano-myth-new-post.html

adding the last words in review :
Roberto Bolao: The Last Interview - Roberto Bolao (http://www.complete-review.com/reviews/bolanor/interview.htm)

[Georgina Gonzalez]

I have been reading Bolano but haven't been able to really get into his literature. He sounds too academic and literary, as if he tries to write for writers and not by the passion for life.

[Eric]

I saw the following in Backwords' posting:


Near the end of the book there is a short story called "Days of 1978" in which, at a pivotal moment in the story, the major character - called B in the story - relates an account of a film that has made a big impression on him. This film, as it turns out, is Tarkovsky's "Andrei Rublev", though the name of the film is never mentioned in the text.

This is rather similar to plagiarism. You get yourself influenced, or intellectually inseminated if you like, but you keep shtum about where the influence comes from, strongly suggesting that the genius and originality was yours. Oe is obviously another of that bandwagon.

If you give me long enough with Google and the internet, I may be able to win the Nobel next year with a minimum of effort. I like the idea of a million dollars, but am rather lazy. And knowing a few languages, I am quite capable of stealing whole chunks of text from obscure languages, long before anyone susses. This means I can be living on the Cayman Isles long before they ask me to pay back the dosh.

[nnyhav]

I think I've heard this somewhere before ...

Clearly, all allusion should be explicitly spelled out. What good is literature if it isn't taken literally?

[Bubba]

The great acclaim that has greeted the publication in English of Bola?o's work has been, for me, one of the most distressing and perplexing literary phenomena of recent years. I wouldn't call Los detectives salvajes, for example, 600 of the most pointless pages I've ever read, as a poster up-thread did. Neither, though, would I call the great majority of Bola?o's work anything other than, as I believe the French say, fort m?diocre. With each Bola?o book I read, my astonishment, my disbelief, grew. Could all the critics really be, as it seemed they were, heaping praise on this writer? Were my eyes not deceiving me?

Let me acknowledge that Bola?o is capable of writing very engaging work (his brief first novel, La pista de hielo, and about a half a dozen of his short stories are touching). He is generally what I call an honest writer. And some of his detractors are perhaps reacting more to the excessive praise heaped on his work (especially by US critics, who, as Edward Abbey put it, are like giant schools of minnows, all turning the same direction at the same time) than to the work itself.

But when you take a close look at this work you see there's really not much to it. Many Bola?o advocates criticize Bola?o's detractors for failing to explain why we think his work isn't much good. But what is there to say about a bad book? It's simply bad. A couple of bad things I remember, to content you Bola?o fans: in some books, entire chapters are lists of names of people or streets. In the same books, Bola?o describes dreams. Does anybody like to read descriptions of dreams? Anybody? What kind of writer doesn't know that nobody likes to read descriptions of dreams or does know but simply doesn't care?

And if you look at reader reviews that praise Bola?o's work you see that they are often no more enlightening than those that pan it: there is talk of "mysterious presences," a lot of attempted lyricism, heavy reliance on "cool," and plenty of evidence that the reviewer doesn't read a lot. I strongly suspect that very few of those who praise Bola?o's big novels will bother rereading them.

Bola?o's short book Amberes ("Antwerp") is, I see, soon to be published in English translation. Now, Amberes is entirely unreadable, and I defy anyone to say otherwise. It is perhaps even utter nonsense. Yet it is being published in English translation! How will the giant schools of minnows react?

You could accuse me of envy (I translate work from Latin American Spanish to English, work far superior to Bola?o's, and am unable to get a publisher even to deign to take a look at it), and perhaps I am slightly envious of the attention these translations of Bola?o have garnered, but more than anything I am enraged. Enraged by the bad faith or bad taste of the New York reviewers. Enraged by ordinary readers' complicity in the Bola?o fraud that has been perpetrated by the New York literary community.

I am enraged because such phenomena make it all the more likely that translations of better work--such as those I do--will remain buried for good.

[Beth]

Oh my, this saddens me on two levels. Firstly, Bubba, it's frustrating to know that splendiferous work is going unpublished. Period. Secondly, it saddens me to think another reader would view my enjoyment of 2666 as some sort of complicity in a fraud. Ouch. Not so.

[Daniel del Real]

Envy, rage, whatever it is, it doesn't let your mind think correctly, without passion.
I'm sure Bola?o has some bad stuff in his writing, as any other writer does. Haven't read Amberes.However I can tell that his qualities are by far more that his weaknesses, and this is why he has become a world phenomenon without even wanting it. It's not like Vargas Llosa or Fuentes who are always screaming to the world "look I'm a really wise man and a piece of living history". He is a true writer, a dreamer who always pursued his dreams and at the end he achieved them.

I think it is really interesting that you are a translator for Latin American books. Which writers have you translated you think they are way better than Bola?o?
I think that this Bola?omania should be helping people all over the world to get interested more in Latin American writers, and this way create another "boom" for Spanish writings. I'm sure this can help to all of us who wants to see Latin American literature get spread all around the world.
Writers like Volpi, Bellat?n, Piglia, Toscana, Sada, Castellanos Moya and Zambra should have more presence all around the globe.

[Backwords]

1 plus half a cent post:

You're attacking a fad! :O Woe is u.

"no book was so bad but that some good might be got out of it." - Pliny

I just read one of his short stories where he's going on about better and worse written short stories. :) Sometimes he seems superficial and unreadable but he's fun when you get into the story.

There are just too many who enjoy him... it's like being enraged that people like Spielberg movies, what's the point, and yet he is obviously, if you stop to think of it, on a higher level then the "average bestseller".

And who is to say if Bolano is not so deep and good as the authors that seem so to this or that person in this or that time period etc.

[Bubba]

No, rage and envy aren't really blinding me to Bola?o's charms, such as they are. For one thing, I live in France, and there was a Bola?o boomlet here well before the analogous but much bigger bubble took shape in the US (his books may even have been sold in French translation before they were available in Latin American editions, rather than expensive imports from Spain). In short, I formed my first opinion of Bola?o's work before I had any reason to be envious of his success in English translation. That opinion is the mirror image of yours: in B's books the bad outweighs the good. In Los detectives, for example, I enjoyed the short diary at the beginning of the book, the Font family, a couple of the scenes in Paris and in the south of France, and the line drawing of three Mexicans at a wake. That's it. It goes without saying that the Bola?o bubble in France, has, like all bubbles, burst. You go into French bookstores now and you may not find any books by Bola?o. Some of them, so recently hailed as masterpieces, may even be out of print already.

Nor can my almost instantaneous reactions of boredom and irritation when I read most of Bola?o's work be the product of rage and envy alone; these reactions are simply too instinctive. And I have perfectly lucid reasons for my dislike. To wit: I like silences in a novel. In the bulk of Bola?o's work, there are none.

You mention a few other Latin American writers, some of whom I haven't read. But the fifteen or twenty pages of Piglia's Artificial Respiration that I forced myself through embody, much like Calvino's If on a Winter's Night a Traveler, a school of literature I detest. I have also read Thomas Bernhard en El Salvador, by Castellanos Moya, in a French translation whose title I don't remember. It was slightly amusing, but it wasn't a novel; it was a philippic. My impression is that when writers such as Piglia, Bola?o, or Castellanos Moya are touted as the next great thing, the readers who count--that is, the readers who enjoy conventional narrative and buy books--are invariably disappointed, and it becomes ever harder to sell them on new writers, especially when they are in translation. So I think Bola?omania, as you put it, will do Latin American literature in English no favors whatsoever.

If so-called genre fiction is so popular, it's surely not because it's so good--it often isn't--but because, unlike the most heavily touted writers of "literary" fiction, the writers of spy novels, sci-fi, Harlequin romances, and detective stories rarely abandon the conventions of storytelling. They allow the reader to suspend disbelief, unlike, say, a Piglia, who is always reminding the reader he's the clever fellow who wrote the book the reader has in his hands. Or was that Calvino?

Why then do publishers continue to foist on to readers precisely the books that will make it harder to sell other books to the same readers (when you have a bad meal in a restaurant you usually don't go back to the place)? Why do the reviewers with access to the national newspapers and magazines always say the same things about the same books? Do they know they are lying or do they believe their own lies? Why are some writers anointed by the literary press and others--often superior--ignored?

Ah, lots of questions, to which I have few answers, but it does seem that the bien-pensants in the rich countries need a vaguely revolutionary Latin American writer every generation or so. One of the last ones was Cort?zar, whose work, with the possible exception of a handful of short stories, no one in his right mind reads anymore. I foresee a similar fate for Bola?o.

I would tell you the name of the Latin American whose work I've translated, but I would blow my cover, if I haven't already. Still, like a serial killer toying with the police, I'll give you three hints:

a) With your Guadalajara location, you should at least have heard of the writer.
b) The writer is mentioned in Los detectives salvajes (of course, what Latin American writer isn't?).
c) The writer and his work are praised in the work of a writer that you yourself often praise in this forum.

Backwords, your comparison with Spielberg isn't apt. I have no problem with people's enjoying his movies. These movies may be low brow and manipulative--I'm certainly not interested in them--but they give their viewers what they want; when viewers say they like a Spielberg movie, they are lying neither to themselves nor to others.

Good Lord! I can't believe I wrote all that.

[Daniel del Real]

It doesn't matter if they don't read Cortazar anymore, and you can't find him that easily in Paris or elsewhere over the world. He is still great and the commercial explosion of his books once doesn't diminish his great literary quality. If the same happens with Bola?o is fine for me.

Ok this is sure interesting and I'm really curious to find your identity. The first two clues are not that helpfull really, but the third is the one which I'm trying to figure it out.
I'd say Cesar Aira, but I'm not totally sure he is been mentioned in Los Detectives Salvajes.
Am I right or wrong?

[nnyhav]

Chirs Andrews englishes Aira as well as Bola?o (was 1st with the latter for NDP).

Hey, no accounting for tastes. Specially with a handle like Bubba.

[saliotthomas]

Are all translators megalomaniacs?
One legend-in-is-own-mind was allready overwelming but a bunch of them....

[Johan]

Why then do publishers continue to foist on to readers precisely the books that will make it harder to sell other books to the same readers (when you have a bad meal in a restaurant you usually don't go back to the place)? Why do the reviewers with access to the national newspapers and magazines always say the same things about the same books? Do they know they are lying or do they believe their own lies? Why are some writers anointed by the literary press and others--often superior--ignored?


So what you are claiming is that your taste in literature is a hitherto unknown universal standard to which everyone must conform?

I love Bola?o, I like Castellanos Moya and I'm reading Cort?zar right now.

[DB Cooper]

I greatly enjoy Bolano's books, and I can also appreciate the passionate opinions of those who don't enjoy his books. There is no right or wrong, just matters of opinion and personal taste (bias?). That's what makes this forum special, the passionate (theres that word again) discourse between readers and lovers of fiction, and thats why I choose to frequent this forum more than any other literary board Ive come across. I value the well thought out opinions of both sides of the coin, and I respect what all the readers here bring to the table regardless if they dovetail with my own thoughts or not.

[Stiffelio]

it was a philippic


Philippic! I love that word. It applies exactly to what you've written. Since you are disdaining some very important Latin American (and other) writers generally appreciated in this forum, I'd be curious to know what kind of literature you enjoy. Please do not generalize and try to give us concrete examples of unjustly treated but genial writers. Perhaps we are missing an undiscovered world and you can help us find it.

Cheers! :p

[lionel]

Hey, no accounting for tastes.

You mean sour grapes, of course.

[Bubba]

Since you ask, Stiffelio, I'll say that in some other posts I've mentioned writers whose work I admire or have enjoyed. I won't repeat their names here.

As this forum seems to be fairly international, I'll instead mention some US writers whose work seems to me under-appreciated, above all, outside the US:

Willa Cather (she is very well known in the US, is even required reading at school, but abroad her work is much less well known than that of her contemporaries Fitzgerald and Hemingway); Edward Abbey (wrote some excellent novels and essays, a couple of bad novels); Charles Portis (of True Grit fame); Walker Percy; George Garrett; Peter Taylor. Those are just some Americans I can think of off the top of my head.

I am almost as furious with French publishers for translating so many frivolous books by "hip" New Yorkers, and for translating them so soon after they appear in English, as I am with American publishers for publishing no translations to speak of.

In another thread somewhere around here, I suggested a study of reading as a form of masochism, as self-flagellation. Those of you who are reading Rayuela would, I think, make great subjects for this study!

[Mirabell]

Edward Abbey (wrote some excellent novels and essays, a couple of bad novels)


which are the bad, which the excellent novels?

[Daniel del Real]

Bubba, you still haven't clarified on Latin American authors you think are better than Bola?o, or the ones you have translated. I'm really curious about it so we can have a good discussion about it. My next questions would be, Mexican? Alive?
Please tell more

[Backwords]

Cultivate your mind until you learn to appreciate nonsense.

In a word, death to the bourgeois.

Death to false elitism.

[saliotthomas]

Death to false elitism.

I take it real elitism is ok.

And your list of death is a bit short, you'll never make that way.

[Backwords]

Death to apathetic contentment.

And to the other point, long live True elitism; emancipatory Freedom of thought.

These are Not to be misconstrued as political comments.

[Backwords]

Everything I say has a meaning. I am ready to elucidate any particular point when the answer is sought in good faith. My mind is too weak to answer amorphous quips such as "What are you saying?".

My science, like the life sciences, analyzes and cuts into the corpses of ox's and Orwell's not by way of personal likes and dislikes, but along a steep road of discovery, exploration and through a gathering up of knowledge by an empirical method in a quest for Hegel's perfectly ridiculous, final ideas.

[saliotthomas]

I think he is a natural.
Otto like.
He sniff his armpit and goes wild.

Otto -Monkey don't read Phylosophie!!
Venda-Yes they do ,they just don't understand it.

(courtesy of our dear Bjorn, signature from some other place)

[Daniel del Real]

Ok, apparently we are increasing the number of lunatics in the forum. Don't know where this discussion came from in the Bola?o thread.

[Liam]

I have perfectly lucid reasons for my dislike. To wit: I like silences in a novel.I'm beginning to like you!

I would tell you the name of the Latin American whose work I've translated, but I would blow my cover, if I haven't already.I don't think anyone here would want to show up on your doorstep with a meat cleaver, but whatever... You should, however, take Eric as your role-model: he's not afraid to tell the world, I am... Eric Dickens!!!

Ok, apparently we are increasing the number of lunatics in the forum. Don't know where this discussion came from in the Bola?o thread.If you mean ME, Dan, then I apologize. I was just venting. (Stuck at home writing a 15-page final paper for class).

Everything I say has a meaning.Please, subtitle.

[learna]

Are there links where I can read online The Savage Detectives and 2666 by Roberto Bola?o? Thanks.

[Bubba]

which are the bad, which the excellent novels?
Desert Solitaire (essay) and The Fool's Progress are excellent; The Monkey Wrench Gang isn't much good, and Hayduke Lives! (like any book with an exclamation point in the title) is downright awful. The collections of essays are excellent, too; the other novels are uneven.

[Daniel del Real]

If you mean ME, Dan, then I apologize. I was just venting. (Stuck at home writing a 15-page final paper for class).

No, actually I'm talking about Backwords who thinks that decapitating all people in the bourgeois life style would be the solution to all problems. I'm more with Liam thinking that what we need is to make everyone a bourgeois, with this meaning that no one should be worried about the basic needs for a human life.
Every time I see or hear about a tycoon in the news it just pisses me off bad! This is just an insulto to all the poverty in the world and that should not be allowed to happen.

[Bubba]

Bubba, you still haven't clarified on Latin American authors you think are better than Bola?o, or the ones you have translated. I'm really curious about it so we can have a good discussion about it. My next questions would be, Mexican? Alive?
Please tell more

No, you're right, Daniel, I haven't said who it is, and I'm not going to, at least not for now. Not because I think someone like Backwords is going to show up at my doorstep with a blunderbuss and attempt to blow me to Kingdom Come in punishment for my aspirations to bourgeois comforts, for my apathetic contentment, and for my conviction that the finest literary criticism is grounded above all in the critic's personal likes and dislikes, but simply because there are so few publishers willing to bring out translated Latin American work in the US that I think I would make things harder for myself than they already are if, by chance, I became known, say, for accusing these very publishers of fraud.

In fact, I've translated work by only three Latin Americans: a couple of poems by Vallejo, a short piece by ?lvaro Mutis, and nearly all the work of the writer whose identity I'm not revealing. Still, since your interest seems genuine, I'll give you a couple more hints: the writer's work is not discussed in these fora (you can eliminate quite a few writers that way); just today I got in the mail a contract from a very well known magazine in the US for the publication of a piece by this writer that I translated nearly ten years ago. This piece should appear in late 2010.

That's more than enough hints. When you read Amberes we can talk more about Bola?o.

[hdw]

My elder son has just emailed his mother and me a list of acceptable Christmas presents, and it includes a request for some decent literature, e.g. anything by Roberto Bola?o. Until I saw his email I thought this RB was someone you pointy-head intellectuals had invented for the purposes of this forum.

Harry

[saliotthomas]

He also is an adulte movie actor, that's the one Daniel is a fan of .:D

[Mirabell]

Is there a translation of Vallejo's work that you'd recommend especially? I've been after him for awhile but I'm cagey as far as poetry in translation is concerned.

[Backwords]

I think Liam is a dupe of Eric. How can we have two people in the same forum that drone on insesently about things everone already knows (the evils of soviet communisim) and no one argues against. Even lifting pics from my web site where I already wrote on the same subject.

By the way, I meant bourgious (conforming to the ideology and unconous beliefs and judgments of one's community etc.) mind set, and nothing political. I am speaking more on an ontological level. There is no talk of decapitation. A True Elitisim in this case would mean the prefrence for one state of being over another, abstract freedom over slavish uniformity. The level of presumption on the site is unfortunate and as they say it is the worst of all "sins".

Also in your ignorance you perhaps do not realise that the phrase "death to such and such" is used commonly in many countries simply to mean "I don't like that" i.e. "Death to traffic" - Iranian cab driver (Rick Steves travel show:)).

on a side note a poem for Bolano:

The great refigerater,
of the the sacred qoutidian,
can not destroy the poet,
around and around the drunken bend,
he just gets more bent.

[Vince(nt)]

I'm late to this discussion, I know, but Eric, are you kidding?

[Backwords]

Oh, the mods deleated one of his eric like posts. With the lifted pics it seems. :O

[Mirabell]

I'm late to this discussion, I know, but Eric, are you kidding?


he really isn't

[Vince(nt)]

I have been reading Bolano but haven't been able to really get into his literature. He sounds too academic and literary, as if he tries to write for writers and not by the passion for life.
I'd say his work is the exact opposite of that.

[Daniel del Real]

He also is an adulte movie actor, that's the one Daniel is a fan of .:D

Oh my! Then maybe I saw a different version of The Savage Detectives :p

[Eric]

Never mind the cult figure Guru Eric the Translator. Just get back to Bola?o and tell the rest of us what he has to say. Too many of these threads slither-slide off-topic into an inebriate attempt at avoiding any discussion of the narrow subject implied in the title.

I haven't read a word by Bola?o, but I get the feeling that some of those discussing haven't either.

I suspect that posters who cannot spell English (Backwords resembles Saliotthomas in this respect) are of one and the same mind, expressed in many badly spelled outlets. Please respect the spelling of English as you would that of French, Spanish, Italian, etc. Then we can be serious. Spelling is courtesy.

I don't always agree with Liam and Mirabell, and we have never met in person. But we discuss like civilised beings - a little banter, a little sarcastic stabbing, but a sensible discussion, not a piss-artist's rant, or ragged raging.

[Liam]

I think Liam is a dupe of Eric.
I've been accused of being:

a) the best friend of Eric

b) too enamored of Eric

c) engaged-to-be-married to Eric,


but this really IS quite shocking. Eric, how did you and I become one and the same person without even noticing?


Oh, the mods deleated one of his eric like posts.Nah, they're too afraid to mess with ME! :cool: I have pictures of them naked, and they know it.

I deleted the two abovementioned posts myself. I don't want any unnecessary attention, especially from the crazy meat-cleaver-wielding people.

[Oops, did that slip out?]

[Daniel del Real]

I haven't read a word by Bola?o, but I get the feeling that some of those discussing haven't either.

I suspect that posters who cannot spell English (Backwords resembles Saliotthomas in this respect) are of one and the same mind, expressed in many badly spelled outlets. Please respect the spelling of English as you would that of French, Spanish, Italian, etc. Then we can be serious. Spelling is courtesy.



This is not about spelling, I think you're the only one who gets offended by this. This is an international forum, so we're not obliged to write perfect english as you Eric.
So if you haven't read a word of Bola?o, what are you doing discussing here? Then, you can go back to the thread, is spelling important and criticize all of us.

[Bubba]

Is there a translation of Vallejo's work that you'd recommend especially? I've been after him for awhile but I'm cagey as far as poetry in translation is concerned.

I wouldn't even recommend Vallejo himself without reservations, much less Vallejo in translation.

What can you do with nice lines like: "Fue domingo en las claras orejas de mi burro / mi burro peruano en el Per? (Perdonen la tristeza)"?

"It was Sunday in the clear ears of my burro / my Peruvian burro in Peru." Ridiculous!

From the same poem, maybe a little easier, is: "Lluvia y sol en Europa, y ?c?mo toso! ?c?mo vivo!" "Rain and sun in Europe, and how I cough, how I live!

And what to do with the lines from "La violencia de las horas"? "Muri? en mi rev?lver mi madre, en mi pu?o mi hermana, y mi hermano en mi v?scera sangrienta, los tres ligados por un g?nero triste de tristeza, en el mes de agosto de a?os sucesivos." You could say: "My mother died in my revolver, my sister in my fist, and my brother in my bloody gut, the three of them bound by a sad sort of sadness, in the month of August of successive years," and the translation would be accurate enough, but how much of the "poetry" it would retain I don't know.

Then there's: "Mi cosa cosa, mi cosa tremebunda."

On Google books you can see quite a bit of C. Eshleman's bilingual edition of Vallejo. Why don't you take a look at it?

[saliotthomas]

"It was Sunday in the clear ears of my burro / my Peruvian burro in Peru." Ridiculous!




Manuel in Fawlty towers?

[Backwords]

It's too bad our premier Bolano enthusiast exudes all the worst qualities that Bolano himself is accused of. The effete stench of lies etc.

"Every time I see or hear about a tycoon in the news it just pisses me off bad! This is just an insulto to all the poverty in the world and that should not be allowed to happen.[/QUOTE] " - Bolano enthusiast

What scares me is these rageaholics "righteous anger", these are the guys that started the chimneys going the first time, in order to burn all those "tycoons" as they called them.

It's easy to see that this quote comes from someone who enjoys ego pleasing, emotional masturbation sessions over things he knows nothing about, poverty and suffering.

[Bjorn]

That's quite enough name-calling for now, thank you. Get back on topic.

/Mod

[ferns_dad]

again, I liked about 1/2 of Nazi Lit and would recommend it to Eric as an intro.

[Stewart]

As I explore the works of Bolano I'm finding it quite an interesting journey. I may not know much about the Pinochet regime, poetry, or, indeed, South American history (I do have Eduardo Galeano's take on it, sitting on the shelf, though), but I do enjoy the occasional bit of reading I do around these topics to help better understand where Bolano is coming from. I've read two of his books in full - Last Night In Chile and Amulet - and can't say I've fully enjoyed them as books, but have enjoyed the experience of reading them. I've also read the first story in Last Evenings On Earth and The Part About The Critics from 2666, which had me rapt (don't know why I never moved to the second part) and now I find myself about 80 pages shy of finishing Nazi Literature In The Americas.

I think what I'm liking about Bolano is the feeling of interconnectedness there is. It may be purely superficial, but I know there's about twelve pages in The Savage Detectives that work with the story of a woman trapped in a university toilet, which forms the narrative of Amulet, and Amulet itself is the only of Bolano's work to mention 2666. Not to mention that Distant Star, from my understanding, expands on one of the authors profiled in Nazi Literature In The Americas. I'm certainly going to keep reading - what's on the shelf, and what's still to come - as I like the nature of his prose, and I'm interested to see if there's a bigger picture to it all.

[Daniel del Real]

I read Amulet after The Savage Detectives and since there are plenty of names mentioned in this later novel, I can't remember the part where Auxilio Lacouture, the main character from Amulet, appears in the story. I need to re-read it sooner than later.

About Distant Star and Nazi Literature In The Americas, the novel is built after the last biography in the book. I think it's better to read first Nazi Literature In The Americas, so you can see how Bola?o develops his short story into a novel, but I did it backwards and still works.

I agree that the feeling of interconnectedness is a feature that adds a lot to the Bola?o's works, making you feel comfortable and in common territory as you explore new territories.

On saturday begins my journey througn 2666. There will be two prolific weeks.

[kpjayan]

On saturday begins my journey througn 2666. There will be two prolific weeks.

I have kept it for the new year! May be I could join you !

[DB Cooper]

I read Savage Detectives during the summer of '08, was blown away and got 2666 the day it was released in November '08. Ive been slowly working my way through his other books since then. Im actually surprised that you havent read 2666 yet Daniel. Is this a reread perhaps?

[Daniel del Real]

I have kept it for the new year! May be I could join you !

That's great! We can discuss it as we read it.


I read Savage Detectives during the summer of '08, was blown away and got 2666 the day it was released in November '08. Ive been slowly working my way through his other books since then. Im actually surprised that you havent read 2666 yet Daniel. Is this a reread perhaps?

Oh no, it's my first time. December 08 I read The Savage Detectives. No need to say I absolutely loved. Immediately I had the idea to keep reading him works, but when I wanted to put my hands in 2666, being such a long book, I decided to wait to have full time for reading it. Basically because I wanted to read it as fast as possible and with no interruptions. This is basically the why on this.

[Johan]

I finished it in about a week. A very intense week.

[e joseph]

Daniel -
I'm looking forward to your take on the book. You may be the only person on this forum that will be reading 2666 as a Bolano fan; the rest of us read it with much more limited exposure to his novels (I think). Perhaps you'll have a different take on it with much of his work under your belt already. Regardless, enjoy!

[Peeping Tom]

I first read the Savage Detectives when it first came out. I knew very little of Bola?o then and did not know what to expect. It blew me away and I've been reading him ever since.

That's why I bought 2666 when it first came out, but it took me a little over two months to read it since that was a very busy period for me. You have the right idea, Daniel--blocked out a time period and read it.

Enjoy!

[learna]

William Burns

by Roberto Bola?o:

Roberto Bola?o: “William Burns” : The New Yorker (http://www.newyorker.com/fiction/features/2010/02/08/100208fi_fiction_bolano)

Meeting with Enrique Lihn:

http://www.newyorker.com/fiction/features/2008/12/22/081222fi_fiction_bolano

Alvaro Rousselot's Journey:

http://www.newyorker.com/fiction/features/2007/11/26/071126fi_fiction_bolano

Clara:

http://www.newyorker.com/fiction/features/2008/08/04/080804fi_fiction_bolano

The Insufferable Gaucho:

http://www.newyorker.com/fiction/features/2007/10/01/071001fi_fiction_bolano

[Daniel del Real]

The Insufferable Gaucho is a supreme short story. I you already read Borges' The South, you'll get a deeper understanding on this one.
I've read the other 3 with the exception of Clara which I don't remember, but all the others are quite good.

[learna]

I read only the first one. I have already got "The South" by Borges which I am going to read today.

[Bottle Rocket]

My elder son has just emailed his mother and me a list of acceptable Christmas presents, and it includes a request for some decent literature, e.g. anything by Roberto Bola?o. Until I saw his email I thought this RB was someone you pointy-head intellectuals had invented for the purposes of this forum.

HarryBut you're going to get him a TeleTubby tape that was on sale, a pair of pink mittens with a string for up the sleeves, and a string vest.


:) BRocket :)

[invention]

Prefiguration of Lalo Cura

Roberto Bolaño: “Prefiguration of Lalo Cura” : The New Yorker (http://www.newyorker.com/fiction/features/2010/04/19/100419fi_fiction_bolano)

there's also The Return in Harpers but you need to subscribe.

[Refus de Sejour]

Thanks for this, Invention. I only got into Bola?o a few months back, through the story "William Burns" in the New Yorker; this one will help tide me over 'till I get a copy of 2666.

[Daniel del Real]

This short story was originally published in a book named Putas Asesinas (Assasin Whores) which I bought last saturday. Knowing nothing about the short story, I assume it must be about this character who appears at 2666, a young policeman who also has connections with organized crime. I'll start reading it today.

[Stiffelio]

I haven't read either the Lalo Cura story nor 2666 yet, but the name itself constitutes a sort of pun in Spanish:

"Locura" means "madness" and Lalo is usually a nickname for Eduardo or Osvaldo, while "cura" means either "priest" or "cure". I'm sure Bola?o has been playing with words here to indicate some character trait.

[Daniel del Real]

Thanks for pointing it out Stiffelio. Very thruth. In 2666 the character's name is Eduardo, and Lalo is the short name. He's got nothing to do with religion but he comes from a town named Villaviciosa (that also has a meaning, translation could be Vicious Village) that is known to "produce" young boys that are ready to be gunman since young age and with no training. So, police or mafia hired them, no matter which one, it was all the same.

[Johan]

One of the few things that bother me about Bola?o are the immature sexual statistics we find in both 2666 and The Savage Detectives. How many orgasms the women have, how long the men last, etc. Is this typical of Latin American males, or endemic to Bola?o?

And I just bought Amulet and Antwerp. Which should I read first?

[Stiffelio]

One of the few things that bother me about Bola?o are the immature sexual statistics we find in both 2666 and The Savage Detectives. How many orgasms the women have, how long the men last, etc. Is this typical of Latin American males, or endemic to Bola?o?

Whatttttttt? Have you ever read Henry Miller? Philip Roth? John Updike? Norman Mailer? There you have some good old non-LA orgasm counters and stamina time checkers?

[Johan]

Only Miller, and I don't much like him, so I guess it bothers me more when it's Bola?o doing it.

[DB Cooper]

I dont really understand why those sexual exploits would be bothersome.

[Refus de Sejour]

Speaking of bothersome sexual exploits. . .

I just got around to reading that story in The New Yorker, "Prefiguration of Lalo Cura," and I am just blown away. It is SO GOOD! It's only the second thing by Bola?o I've read - the other one being the short story "William Burns," also in The NY, which I also thought was fantastic.

The strange thing is, a while before reading those stories I tried to read the first chapter of 2999, but I just found it dull and lifeless, nothing like these two stories. Does the style change? Or are these two stories not typical of his work?

[Peeping Tom]

I think Bolano's "big" novels feed off his short stories, which are intense and incredibly good. They leave you breathless. In both of his two major works, The Savage Detectives and 2666 (not 2999 as you stated) there are numerous chapters and episodes that I re-discovered in one of his short stories that I read later on. This fascinates me because they're somehow all related. In the novel you're currently reading, 2666, the first chapter is probably the most conventional (at least that's the way it seems to me). And for many readers, it's their favorite section, precisely because it seems conventional. But there's a lot more to 2666, each of the five sections has a very different style, and sometimes seemingly different and unrelated narratives. So, keep reading. There's quite a lot more going on.

[Daniel del Real]

Prefiguration of Lalo Cura is an amazing short story. It reminded me so much The Book of Illusions from Auster. Bola?o did what Auster tried to do with silent movies with porn instead, but not typical porn. He adds the psychodelia, the surrealism and the atmosphere from a David Lynch movie into a porn film. Bola?o's is also better because he did what Auster should've done. Keep it short. While Auster bores you with so many descriptions of the Hector's movies Bola?o has the touch to put everything in just a few pages and leave the reader with the impact.

Regarding 2666, I think it has the same style than his short stories, but you have to go further in the book to get the similarities. If you want to get to the core of Bola?o's 2666 style with one chapter would be the equivalent of getting it in any of his short stories in 1 page. I recommend you continue, because as DB Cooper says, many of his short stories seem to get intertwined in the different books of the novel as it advances, creating a very rich web of stories and characters.

[Refus de Sejour]

I'm definately going to give 2666 another try (funny about the "2999"; I actually googled "Bolano 2999" to check I had it right, and came up with quite a few hits - guess I'm not the only one to be confused. . .). I read the short story "The Return" today (my local cafe gets Harpers in, albeit a few weeks late). Bizarre and perfect!

[Clarissa]

Reading 2666 at the moment. Came across this on BBC Online:

BBC News - Audio slideshow: The missing women of Mexico (http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-latin-america-11169379)

Found it a bit weird that fact should reflect fiction so closely.(cf. Book 3 - The Part About Fate)

[lenz]

I thought the novel addressed that exact situation - not so weird or so fictional, then?

[Clarissa]

I didn't know that. The novel takes place in the early '90s. This BBC report was in 2010. Has it really been an ongoing thing all these years?

[miercuri]

It seems so. There's even a wiki entry on it
Female homicides in Ciudad Ju?rez - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Female_homicides_in_Ciudad_Ju%C3%A1rez)

[Clarissa]

WOW! That was revealing. I never knew about these murders. Really thought by some bizarre coincidence, they were taking place now after Bolano's book.
Looking at all the films, newspaper articles that have appeared since the 1990s, I feel as if I have been living on the moon.
Thanks for that, Lenz and Mieruri!!!

[Refus de Sejour]

It's appalling that they're still going on.

I confess, I feel a little conflicted over getting such pleasure from a book grounded, however obliquely, in such horrible reality.

[Mirabell]

review of three new bolano translations

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/19/books/review/Greenberg-t.html?ref=books

[Refus de Sejour]

Thanks for those, Mirabell.

[Daniel del Real]

El Gaucho Insufrible and The Return (Originally titled Assasin Whores) are short stories books with a similar quality. Some short stories are better than others but I can't tell which one is better. Probably the tale that gives name to the first one is the best of them all. However this is a very good example of Bola?o's skills as a short story writer.
Antwerp is a very strange literary exercise. It was his first attempt to write prose and it has to bee seen as an embryo of his forecoming works. Don't go to Antwerp if you're not a truly admirer of Bola?o, it can give a wrong impression of his books, specially if it's your first one.

[Clarissa]

Just finished 2666 - found the murders and sexual details a bit tiresome and repetitive.
Also wished it had been published in 5 separate volumes nstead of one huge doorstep So difficult to carry around.

[Mirabell]

here's a list of all Bolano writing that is available online
http://booktrek.blogspot.com/2010/09/guide-to-online-writings-of-roberto.html

poems, stories (LOTS!), letters and essays.

very cool.

[Daniel del Real]

An unpublished title by Roberto Bolaño will see the light this year. In January, Anagrama is publishing this new book, Los Sinsabores del Verdadero Policía (The Upsetting Experiences of the Truth Policeman) a novel written from the late 80's to late 90's. The novel is based in what later in 2666 would become, La Parte de Amalfitano, the shortest part of the book that deals with a Chilean profesor living in Santa Teresa and working for the University. This is supposed to be a skeleton, the raw structure of what later came to be 2666. Still this is no short book at 328 pages.
Here's the cover:


189

[Caodang]

It's wonderful, I wish I could get my hand on it right now :)

[Eric]

There was a review in this morning's paper about Bolaño's poetry. A collection called, in Swedish, Det okända universitetet (The Unknown University) has just been published. Evidently, the Spanish original versions of these poems appeared in 2007. The poems were written between the 1970s and 1994.

The reviewer, Sebastian Johans, of the UNT newspaper, appears to be in two minds about Bolaño. While he praises some aspects of the authors writings, he is a little cautious about all the hype surrounding his person and his early death. He goes on to discuss hype in the context of a number of Swedish authors and alsoJonathan Littell, the French-American Holocaust author.

Evidently, the first book of Bolaño's in Swedish translation was The Wild Detective back in 2007, published with a small publishing house called Tranan, not with one of the big conglomerates. But then, when a bigger publishing hosue realised that the author would sell, they took over, which in effect robbed Tranan of further income from Bolaño sales.

The reviewer suggests that the seeds of a lot of what Bolaño wriote in his prose was already present in his poems.

[Bubba]

I had been thinking about reviving this thread, which had been lying dormant for some time until Eric's post. I was going to do so, in part, to argue that the dearth of new posts on Bolaño's work was evidence that, as a writer, he has been a bit of a flavor of the month (mint chocolate chip, perhaps?). I don't really like a lot of Bolaño's work (though I think such stories as "Sensini" are excellent), but neither do I think it should drop off the radar, as it seems to be doing, so quickly. In short, the hype around Bolaño's work, engineered mostly, but not exclusively, by his American publishers and by American reviewers, brought Bolaño to the attention of a lot of readers who thought they saw what they wanted to find in his work and to readers who, such as the author of this review (http://http://www.bookslut.com/latin_lit_lover/2011_04_017480.php)--a review despicable where it's not boring--seem to worry above all whether it's still "cool" to read Bolaño.

I would dearly love to see sales figures for English translations of Bolaño's work--I imagine that, as with so many books that are victims or beneficiaries of hype, they peaked early and have been in free fall ever since.

In the United States, the smallish publishers New Directions were the first to bring out Bolaño's books. But they were apparently outbid for the translation rights to the two big novels by the larger house Farrar, Straus & Giroux (foreign rights to Bolaño's work are handled for his estate by an agent whose real name escapes me just now; no matter, everyone knows him by his nickname, the Jackal). New Directions may well have been disappointed to be outbid for these books, but the house is unlikely, as Eric says of Sweden's Tranan, to be "robbed of further income from Bolaño sales." In fact, the hype that FSG whipped up for 2666 and The Savage Detectives, probably much bigger than anything New Directions could have created, could only help New Directions sell more of its own editions of Bolaño's books. New Directions, in short, is free riding.

[DB Cooper]

I dont think the interest is fading per se, but Bolano hasnt had a major work come out since 2666, which was a few years ago. There are tons of great authors whose threads only have a handful of posts here. When an author bursts on to the scene the interest does spike, and it will inevitably wane a bit also. Everybody was discovering him at the same time, so there were a lot of people reading his books at the same time, equals a boom in interest.

[Daniel del Real]

The reviewer suggests that the seeds of a lot of what Bolaño wriote in his prose was already present in his poems.

I've read all of his poetry, most of it contained in the volume titled La Universidad Desconocida, which is the one Eric is refering to. We have to highlight here that even though Bolaño always claimed himself as a poet, the best of this work is not in this field. Although he has some good poems, the majority of his poetic ouvre goes from good to regular. However the poems are very important to understand a young Bolaño, to witness how the seed of the great novelist grew in the 80's. I'd consider that, unless you have read 5 or 6 books by him, it's not a good idea to read his poetry, that could appear as unconnected and without sense without further references.

And for you my bitter Bubba, I think it's good the big hype is finishing. True readers will remain and will keep reviewing his works. However you can't judge if the "hype" is diminishing simply by the fact no one has commented the thread lately. There are wonderful authors with almost no comments or even without a thread and that doesn't mean they are not read anymore.

[Rumpelstilzchen]

Authors recommended by Bolano:

http://conversationalreading.com/the-between-parentheses-reading-list/

One recommendation I found particularly amusing:
Ubik by Philip K. Dick
“Dick is the one who, in Ubik, comes closest to capturing the human consciousness or fragments of consciousness in the context of their setting; the correspondence between what he tells and the structure of what’s told is more brilliant than similar experiments conducted by Pynchon or DeLillo.”

[Daniel del Real]

It's great they are publishing this book in English. I'm planning to read it this month. Bolaño had a very interesting peculiarity, he read a lot of the works of his contemporaries; he even read a lot of younger writers in Spanish. The was coherent with the lacks he felt he had when he was younger, and how difficult it was form him to let his voice speak out loud and be published. In this act I see a way to compensate all the lackings he had when he was a young Poet trying to open his personal path in Mexico City and later in Barcelona. The only sad thing about it is that now all the publishing groups are using Bolaño's words for the marketing of the books of those now, not that young and many not that good authors.

[Daniel del Real]

Una Novelita Lumpen (A Lumpen Novella, not translated to English yet), an early novel by Bolaño is being filmed in Rome and will be released next year. The movie will be directed by Chilean director Alicia Scherson who has directed a movie called Play that was awarded in 2007 in the Tribecca Film Festival.
Although it's not the best novel by Bolaño (actually one of the less good IMO) I think this is a natural choice for a movie, with a clean direct plot, very well defined characters and one of the less postmodern novels Bolaño wrote. It will be interesting to see what they can do with the story and what else they can give it with the production.
Here's the article.

http://www.informador.com.mx/cultura/2011/316589/6/descenso-al-infierno-de-bolano.htm

[Rumpelstilzchen]

Interesting that it is called Il Futuro, i.e. "The Future", see here:
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1992156/

Imdb lists Rutger Hauer as one of the actors :)

[Daniel del Real]

I have no idea who this guy is, but he will be playing the role of Maciste who is a retired bodybuilder. He doesn't look strong enough.

[Rumpelstilzchen]

I think there was some "hype" about him on this forum some time ago ;), you might know him from Blade Runner, the leader of the replicants. But I agree, he is not looking like a bodybuilder, retired yes, but not enough muscles... I like the novella btw, though I still have not read Bolano's more famous ones.

[Daniel del Real]

In what language did you read it?

[Rumpelstilzchen]

German translation by Christian Hansen. I also read other books in his translation: 2666 and Llamadas telefónicas.

[MichaelS]

The Third Reich is coming out at the start of 2012 in English, it's excellent

[Stiffelio]

Here's an interesting article about how Bolaño first got to be published in the United States.

http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/books/2012/01/this-week-in-fiction-roberto-bolano.html

[Liam]

An unfinished Bolaño novel to be published (http://www.amazon.com/Woes-True-Policeman-A-Novel/dp/0374266743/ref=sr_1_73?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1332093237&sr=1-73)in English translation in November. I'm not really a fan of this writer, so forgive me if I don't pass out from excitement, but those of you who are may want to look it up really quickly. From the blurb:

Begun in the 1980s and worked on until the author's death in 2003, Woes of the True Policeman is Roberto Bolaño's last, unfinished, novel.

The novel follows Amalfitano--exiled Chilean university professor and widower with a teenage daughter--as his political disillusionment and love of poetry lead to the scandal that will force him to flee from Barcelona and take him to Santa Teresa, Mexico.

It is here, in this border town--haunted by dark tales of murdered women and populated by characters like Sorcha, who fought in the Andalusia Blue Division in the Spanish Civil War, and Castillo, who makes his living selling his forgeries of Larry Rivers paintings to wealthy Texans--that Amalfitano meets Arcimboldi, a magician and writer whose work highlights the provisional and fragile nature of literature and life.

Woes of the True Policeman is an exciting, kaleidoscopic novel, lyrical and intense yet darkly humorous. Exploring the roots of memory and the limits of art, it marks the culmination of one of the great careers of world literature.


...

One hopes that with the publication of this, his "final" novel the Bolaño-hysteria will finally begin to dissipate.

[MichaelS]

The Savage Detectives was ookaaay, I suppose. It was a good primer for Mexican slang at the very least. I really had to force myself through the final section though, I could not give a fuck about Cesárea Tinajero and the narrator and to be honest Ulises Lima and Arturo Belano. The bits I liked had nothing much to do with them.

[Liam]

Bolaño fans (to whose camp I do not belong) can rejoice: his entire poetic corpus is to be published in English (http://www.amazon.com/University-Roberto-Bola%C3%B1o/dp/0811219283/ref=sr_1_90?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1354405769&sr=1-90), translated by Laura Healy. A 760+ pp. New Directions tome:


http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51l45tEJjgL._SL500_AA300_.jpg (http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/images/0811219283/ref=dp_image_z_0?ie=UTF8&n=283155&s=books)

[Stevie B]

I found this Bolaño piece online earlier today. I'm not sure if where it originated from or if it can be found in one of his books. I do know that no one can ever accuse Bolaño of not having opinions or of being unable to express them in a humorous way.

Now that I’m forty-four years old, I’m going to offer some advice on the art of writing short stories.
1. Never approach short stories one at a time. If one approaches short stories one at a time, one can quite honestly be writing the same short story until the day one dies.
2. It is best to write short stories three or five at a time. If one has the energy, write them nine or fifteen at a time.
3. Be careful: the temptation to write short stories two at a time is just as dangerous as attempting to write them one at a time, and, what’s more, it’s essentially like the interplay of lovers’ mirrors, creating a double image that produces melancholy.
4. One must read Horacio Quiroga, Felisberto Hernández, and Jorge Luis Borges. One must read Juan Rulfo and Augusto Monterroso. Any short-story writer who has some appreciation for these authors will never read Camilo José Cela or Francisco Umbral yet will, indeed, read Julio Cortázar and Adolfo Bioy Casares, but in no way Cela or Umbral.
5. I’ll repeat this once more in case it’s still not clear: don’t consider Cela or Umbral, whatsoever.
6. A short-story writer should be brave. It’s a sad fact to acknowledge, but that’s the way it is.
7. Short-story writers customarily brag about having read Petrus Borel. In fact, many short-story writers are notorious for trying to imitate Borel’s writing. What a huge mistake! Instead, they should imitate the way Borel dresses. But the truth is that they hardly know anything about him—or Théophile Gautier or Gérard de Nerval!
8. Let’s come to an agreement: read Petrus Borel, dress like Petrus Borel, but also read Jules Renard and Marcel Schwob. Above all, read Schwob, then move on to Alfonso Reyes and from there go to Borges.
9. The honest truth is that with Edgar Allan Poe, we would all have more than enough good material to read.
10. Give thought to point number 9. Think and reflect on it. You still have time. Think about number 9. To the extent possible, do so on bended knees.
11. One should also read a few other highly recommended books and authors— e.g., Peri hypsous, by the notable Pseudo-Longinus; the sonnets of the unfortunate and brave Philip Sidney, whose biography Lord Brooke wrote; The Spoon River Anthology, by Edgar Lee Masters; Suicidios ejemplares, by Enrique Vila-Matas; and Mientras ellas duermen by Javier Marías.
12. Read these books and also read Anton Chekhov and Raymond Carver, for one of the two of them is the best writer of the twentieth century.

[Hamlet]

Very amusing StevieB... thanks for setting that out.

Chekhov, never heard of him?

[Stevie B]

What was Bolaño's beef with Camilo José Cela? Was Bolaño upset that he got the Nobel over other writers he felt we more deserving?

[Bubba]

Lord knows what Bolaño had against Cela. Maybe that he fought on the "wrong" side in the Spanish Civil War. Umbral, for his part, was a protégé of Cela's, so any aversion he had to Cela would naturally extend to his acolyte Umbral.

I haven't read a lot of Cela's stuff, and what little I have read I haven't always liked, but it is far less self-indulgent than such ridiculous novels (I use the term loosely) as 2666 or The Savage Detectives. Cela's dedication in San Camilo, 1936, a novel I haven't read, makes the hair on the back of my neck stand on end:


A los mozos del reemplazo de 1937, todos perdedores de algo: de la vida, de la ilusión, de la esperanza, de la decencia. Y no a los aventureros foráneos, fascistas y marxistas, que se hartaron de matar españoles como conejos y a quienes nadie les había dado vela en nuestro propio entierro.


For the kids of the draft class of 1937, all losers of something: of life, of illusion, of hope, of decency. And not for the foreign adventurers, Fascists and Marxists, who had their fill of killing Spaniards like rabbits and whom no one had invited to our funeral.