2666: A Novel by Roberto Bolano
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Book Reviews of 2666: A Novel
Book Review: 2666 is a rich and luxurious set of stories
Summary: 5 Stars
Deeply rich with points and counterpoints, side stories, main stories, and a host of ways to explore this 900 page book the reader can often get lost thinking about the counterpoints that they are reading. This is not a typical book, there are no happy endings here, nothing gets tidied up, and few things get resolved. What the book does provide though is a rich context, nearly luxurious in its writing, it is like slipping into an alternative universe where we are both better than we really are and stranger than we really are.
The book is written in the third person, we learn the story from the view point of being told what the points in the story are. You don't have to think about what is being said, rather you starting thinking what you would do in a similar situation, how you would do the same thing. That is the beauty of this book, it is deeply internalizable, you sympathize, you learn with the characters. There is nothing monotonous about the book, but you will find yourself getting emotionally involved with the characters throughout the five stories in the book. That is what great literature is about, getting involved, finding a connection, understanding where the characters are coming from because they hit an emotional nerve on the part of the reader. This book certainly did that for me, I found myself becoming emotionally involved, and rereading sections of the book to see if I could find more, learn more, understand the situation better as the story line becomes your own.
Overall I found the book compelling, long, thought provoking. Few books reach this standard, and unfortunately this is the last book from Roberto Bolaño. Sad, but if you are going to leave a legacy, this is the book you want to leave. Well worth buying, make sure you have the time to read it if you do. Some will fade out after the first story, but if you want to stretch your imagination, and have a book that you can lose yourself in, this is the book you want to get.
Book Review: astounding
Summary: 5 Stars
I have never been compelled to write a review on amazon, until today, upon completing 2666. For those who have difficulty reading 'The Part About The Crimes' - which for me, induced nightmares - I'd like to offer a passage from the fifth section, 'The Part About Archimboldi', in which the Baroness reveals the artistic output of Conrad Halder:
"Occasionally news came of him, always preceded by some small scandal. His Berlin paintings were left in the care of my father, who didn't have the heart to burn them. Once I asked where he kept them. He wouldn't tell me. I asked him what they were like. My father looked at me and said they were just dead women. Portraits of my aunt? No, said my father, other women, all dead." (Bolano, 683)
This passage, among others within the fifth section, helped fashion my appreciation for Bolano's exacting description of death in Santa Teresa: death, upon death, upon death. Such deaths do occur, they have occurred, and their history must not be forgotten; moreover, work that attempts to examine such death, though some may find it 'degenerate' or displeasing, should not be hidden, buried, or burnt. As Entrescu offered, "culture [is] life, not the life of a single man or the work of a single man, but life in general, any manifestation of it, even the most vulgar." (Bolano, 683-684)
Although they may be unpleasant, devastating, and tremendously sad, even the most horrible moments in our history deserve remembrance through our culture, through our literature, through our art.
I hope Bolano's choice to recount the murders of Ciudad Juarez through Santa Teresa does not dissuade you from acquiring the novel or completing it. 2666 was wholly satisfying, often astounding; it deserves a second read. I cannot recall the last time I've been so enthralled by text, and I do hope you enjoy a similar experience.
Book Review: Year's best novel 2008 here's why........
Summary: 5 Stars
I bought this book because most of the reviews were interesting but ambiguous. The reviews just left me curious. Really, the scope of this book is large and hard to decribe but the reason I would suggest it is that it is completely fascinating. Bolano's characters are spellbinding, odd and they hold your attention so well it's almost hypnotic. Reading this book has the effect of driving up on a bad car accident where bodies are strewn in the road: you keep looking whether you mean to or not. Another thing that I love about Bolano's writing is that he does not give you the option of becoming bored. He writes in short, vivid scenes. Scenes where something could go wrong, someone could get hurt, the character is scared or lost. Everything makes you want to stay. If you pick this up it will speak to you no matter who you are and you may have trouble putting it down.........The s:econd part: the part about the crimes is equally fascinating but very graphic. The purpose of the second part covers the murders, one after another. The most disturbing scene (and When I say disturbing I mean disturbing!) is when four mexican prisoners are held down and castrated by other prisoners as the prison guards look on and take photos. Believe me, Bolano describes this in such vivid detail that as soon as you read it you're going to say to yourself...okay this dude actually saw this happen and this should never occur even in the caveman days. Still you keep reading. It's amazing the level of tension this book is able to maintain throughout. Something IS always happening and yet you feel like something is about to happen...Book Review: Those Who Toil
Summary: 5 Stars
Perhaps Bolano's own words best describes this work:
"Now even bookish pharmacists are afraid to take on the great, imperfect, torrential works, books that blaze paths into the unknown. They choose the perfect exercises of the great masters. Or what amounts to the same thing: they want to watch the great masters spar, but they no interest in real combat, when the great masters struggle against something, that something that terrifies us all, that something that cows us and spurs us on, amid blood and mortal wounds and stench."
Bolano's final, colossal work is just that. Weaving five disparate narratives that brush, grate, and engage in shadow play with each other around the still turning point of this work- Santa Teresa (Ciudad Juarez), Mexico- Bolano has undoubtedly attempted to impart upon the reader those feelings most essential to Death and Man's existence within a Universe dictated by Nature, Chance, and Uncertainty. The words painted across this ambitious masterpiece are unmistakably those of a dying man. After reading this work, I am left with more questions than when I began. Counterintuitively enough, that is a good thing. While this work by no means exhibits perfection, it spurs us on, coaxing us through its multitudes, to excavate and face our own questions, whatever those may be.
On a lighter note, the obscure literary, philosophical, and historical references make for interesting detective work as the novel is read. This is not a work to be missed and these sort are few and far between.
Book Review: The end of something great.
Summary: 5 Stars
2666 was my first experience with Bolano. I read about this book in a Time magazine and was very intrigued.
Upon opening the box and seeing the book, my heart sank a little. Seeing a book of this size is always intimidating, and even though I know it was 900+ pages, seeing 900 pages bound in hardcover is a different manner.
Regardless, I started to read.
The book is split into five sections. The first deals with critics. The second with a philosophy teacher who is going insane (this might have been my favorite part of the novel, although it is short, just over sixty pages). The third deals with a Harlem newspaper reporter. The fourth finally gets to the crimes that form the books center. The fifth is a biography of a reclusive German writer than the critics at the beginning study and try to find.
It is difficult to describe a book such as this in terms that are endearing. The flaws are many; long dream sequences, lots of extraneous details, run-on sentences the likes of which I have never seen elsewhere, and finally, the utter lack of a conclusion.
But in a way, these flaws seem to actually hold the book up and form a cohesive whole. 2666 is the type of book that is frustrating for most of the time, but on finishing the last page the feeling of gratitude is immense.
Read this book. It will change your ideas of what fiction is really capable of.