Roberto Bolano

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.

Yeah the girl hiding in the toilet in The Savage Detectives is also in Amulet.

Yes the sections do cohere (those from the second half of the book especially) by the end. Although it's worth remembering that 2666 is technically unfinished and we don't know exactly what the final draft of the last section might have looked like.

I FINISHED IT.

The last part is def the best. The digressions are beautifully timed: loved the endless sentence relating one of the Sisyphus myths; the crucified Romanian general; Archimboldi's affair with the Baroness. The last twenty pages deftly tie up a couple of strands.

Whether the novel as an entity works I'm not sure yet. I have to think about it.

one of the things I liked about 2666 was when it seemed like it was drifting or starting to become a slog, these luminescent moments would happen like the romanian general/baroness stuff, or archimboldi's underwater dreams

my favorite part is still the part about the crimes, when ppl describe it they make it sound like nonstop clinical descriptions of the murders when it's so much richer than that, so many characters floating in and out, sweeping in scope, etc

I thought there was another book of 2666 that was slated to be published?

I sort of hope that's not true.

Pondering the title and the epigraph have been absorbing me since I finished the book. I'm sure it coheres but I'm not totally sure I can describe how.

The murders section is much too long, but I can't figure out where I'd start cutting.

That length is a necessary part of its effect I think.

Oh sure, but I wasn't even repulsed after a while, just bored.

a necessary part of its effect etc

"An oasis of horror in a desert of boredom" isn't it?

haven't heard anything since this report back from 2009

Two new novels by the Chilean author Roberto Bolaño have reportedly been found in Spain among papers he left behind after his death. The previously unseen manuscripts were entitled Diorama and The Troubles of the Real Police Officer, reported La Vanguardia.

The newspaper said the documents also included what is believed to be a sixth section of Bolaño's epic five-part novel 2666.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/mar/10/spain-roberto-bolantildeo

one of my fav parts is the section on the journalist who starts in detroit & goes to see the boxer & ends up falling for that girl & almost gets killed or something? idk i always remember my fav parts as if they were dreams i had

That's by far my favourite section but not sure I could really say why. Maybe because it seems realest? The bits in the various sections about just driving round Santa Teresa at night, ending up going for a drink or something to eat, they were my thing.