Roberto Bolano

I read about the price of books in Chile mentioned here amongst other things.

What is the reception of Bolano in his own country?

can't really answer that but last time i was there, a year and a half ago, there were some pieces in the newspapers - el mercurio and la tercera: the two most widely-read papers - about his international success, including his success in English translation. They weren't particularly large pieces but they were happy to claim Bolano and his success for Chile, despite it being somewhat problematic to call him Chilean without some qualifier.

how expensive are books over there? and can you get copies in english there jim? that looks perty.

in that link xyzzzz posted it says that a slim paperback is about £15, and that seems to be about right if memory serves. Keeping in mind that most things in Chile are a lot cheaper than they are here (bottle of spirits for £3 so i definitely couldn't live there without dying!).

No english translation i'm afraid.

We will be publishing Roberto Bolaño’s The Third Reich—our first serialized novel in forty years—with original illustrations by Leanne Shapton.

http://www.theparisreview.org/blog/2011/02/09/a-year-of-bolano-announcing-our-spring-issue/

OK, this book sounds very much like my cup of tea

Reading Dorfman's Hard Rain at the mo - v pre-Bolano, who surely must have read this - starts off talking about how the dictatorship apes Nazi Germany in torture techniques, then follows it up w/a discussion on Chilean/Latin novels of the period (and how he/his character failed to publish a novel). The third chapters is introducing characters (who are just names).

Bolano comes across as a much better teller, so far (Dorfman was just as much a playwright).

In Spain, 'Los sinsabores del verdadero policía' by RB has just been published. I finished it last week and I think it's really good.

I assume it'll be getting a book pub once the Paris Review finishes serialising it

Listen carefully, my son: bombs were falling
over Mexico City
but no one even noticed.
The air carried poison through
the streets and open windows.
You'd just finished eating and were watching
cartoons on TV.
I was reading in the bedroom next door
when I realized we were going to die.
Despite the dizziness and nausea I dragged myself
to the kitchen and found you on the floor.
We hugged. You asked what was happening
and I didn't tell you we were on death's program
but instead that we were going on a journey,
one more, together, and that you shouldn't be afraid.
When it left, death didn't even
close our eyes.
What are we? you asked a week or year later,
ants, bees, wrong numbers
in the big rotten soup of chance?
We're human beings, my son, almost birds,
public heroes and secrets.

From The Romantic Dogs by Roberto Bolaño, translated by Laura Healy

One hundred pages into 2066. Wish me luck!

hey so am I

well like 120

2666, rather

can we make it a competition? that way I might actually finish the book

I don't mean like 'who can read 300 pages a day' I mean like if you post your progress you will guilt me into catching up

thoughts so far?

mostly just happy they finally got to mexico

It gets (even) better from here on, keep going! Although not all in Mexico.

I just got past the scene in which they meet Jones the painter.

so many great little scenes that pop up in my head 2 years after reading it.

i still have yet to start part 3.

is that one about the professor? i think that might have been my least favourite, but they are all worthwhile

was just thinking about rereading savage detectives but im p much illiterate now

just after that, the reporter.

i love sd & 2666

2666 was so enveloping, i almost feel like im getting deja vu of some irl shit when i randomly recall parts of the book (thankfully not the part about the crimes, though)

I'm almost done with the Amalfitano section.

I'm thinking past 2666. Besides The Skating Rink, which other short novels should I try? I loved By Night in Chile, my favorite so far.

I really like his short story collections, esp "Last Evenings on Earth"

'Nazi Literature in the Americas' is great, if you don't have a problem with unconventional structure

yeah 'nazi literature' was the one i liked best, was sorta lukewarm on 'skating rink', really, i had a hard time taking it seriously

what did u like about 'chile' alfred? its so difft from everything else

He found a correlative for the intensity of the narrator's recollections in feverish prose. It's one of the best sustained compressed flights of invention I've read.

I'm halfway through the Fate section of 2666, btw.

I haven't had time/energy to read, I doubt I'll ever catch up

maybe I'll try saturday

Is Amulet underrated? Certainly looks like it. Not as good as By Night in Chile but better than just a rehearsal for that concentrated burning fever (actually don't know the chronology).

Also is anyone working on a biography at all? Don't do biogs but I'd think about it for this guy.

I know Melville House published a book of interviews which includes a lot of biographical info: http://mhpbooks.com/book.php?id=313

Now that I've started "The Part About The Crimes" some questions:

I wasn't clear exactly (I lost concentration) how the unfortunately named Fate wound up in Saint Teresa: the boxing story to which he was assigned changed to an investigation of the murders? Also: how is Rosa relevant?

I know Melville House published a book of interviews which includes a lot of biographical info: http://mhpbooks.com/book.php?id=313

― the most cuddlesome bug that ever was borned (James Morrison), Friday, March 18, 2011 Bookmark

Thanks James - don't think I've even read an interview w/him.

there's a Spanish bundle with interviews as well:
http://www.ediciones.udp.cl/colecciones/huellas/braithwaitebolano.jpg

A geometry of Bolano:

http://quarterlyconversation.com/roberto-bolano-the-geometry-of-his-fictions

OK so I made it past "The Part About the Crimes" and am almost hundred pages deep into the Archimboldi section, specifically the Ivanov part.

My question: do these five fragments cohere?

I'm only just at part 3

I saw someone in the subway reading it the other day, while I had my copy out. I almost said something but that would have been potentially awkward.

sort of? xp

OTM:

the fake robert rodriguez anecdote is great

― Tracy Michael Jordan Catalano (Jordan),

Also: So far I'm enjoying Part 5 best.

I'm about 130 pgs from the end, and I hate to discuss books before I'm finished, but I gotta talk to somebody since I've lived with this book for nine days.

So far it's been perverse the way Bolano has developed characters as promising as Lalo Cura, the female Mexican reporter (and her female lover?), and Klaus Haas, then either dropped them or buried their arcs in reams of prose.

Also: it helped that I've spent bored moments at work the last six days watching old Robert Stack-hosted "Unsolved Mysteries" clips; they prepared me for "...Crimes."

So far it's been perverse the way Bolano has developed characters as promising as Lalo Cura, the female Mexican reporter (and her female lover?), and Klaus Haas, then either dropped them or buried their arcs in reams of prose.

this was simultaneously maddening and wonderful, in that i kind of cherish what we got of them even more, and kept anticipating their return. like a literary cocktease.

In 'The Return' there is a story on Lalo Cura, and in 'Los Sinsabores...' the main characters are Amalfitano and his daughter Rosa. There, the characters are much more 'deep' in the sense that you get to know them better than in '2666', where they seem to pass by and are dropped. Not that that is a bad thing though. That's actually why I like to reread Bolaño's books, they all seem to give you clues for why certain things are happening in the other books.