Roberto Bolaño

[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/...-new-post.html

adding the last words in review :
Roberto Bolao: The Last Interview - Roberto Bolao

[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.