bolano, ebooks, tweets, etc.

I'm engrossed in Bolano, Roberto, again--polished off the second section being serialized by The Paris Review (197) and then jumped right into The Skating Rink, which I'm finding pleasantly suspenseful. I'm also enjoying how this slimmer novel resonates with Bolano's other work. We meet alternating narrators, a broken poet, South Americans in exile, the murdered and the forlorn, and a rich sadness that can be absurdly comical, and thus radically destabilizing, all at once. Or, you could say Bolano can write scenes that perfectly create the feeling of simultaneous laughter and tears.

(I believe I first read about Bolano's writing being described this way in a review either in Harpers Magazine or The New Yorker, and I apologize for being unable to pin it down. This wonderful website of Bolano articles appeared when I tried to search for the original quotation.)

At a slight tangent, it seems fitting that I received my form-letter rejection from The Paris Review last night; Bolano's success is most often in his fully realized vision of our failures.

But I guess my book is still in the news if we define "the news" as all information I so desperately search for online everyday. Which does indeed mean that although I failed to watch the women's football (soccer?) championship or follow all the blow-by-blow of the NFL and NBA labor disputes, and the "debt-ceiling crisis" is only an occasional worry and not a constant fear for me or my meager holdings, I did learn that Fight for Your Long Day is now also available as a google e-book, and if you click on "View Sample" to the right of the screen (or follow the last hyperlink), the first 25 pages can be read for free.

And then an amazing blogger, Lori at The Next Best Book Club, has tweeted on it several times, and has even invited shy Cyrus into the bedroom for a late night finale (a dash to the finish line?) according to one tweet. She has also hung it on the front page of her blog under currently reading for quite some time--alas, possibly due in part to the fact that the last half reads a lot faster than the first half for many. A final cool thing about TNBBC is that she is also an alt.punk fan.

Last, the talented writer and photographer Abeer Hoque was kind enough to share this photograph from the Chestnut Hill Book Festival:

Thanks, Abeer and Lori!

And now it's probably time to return to all of my Saul Bellows and Bolanos and John Fantes and other writers who'd probably not be caught dead blogging about themselves or their writing.

Alas, I suppose they died before we could find out, so that they're dead is all we can know for sure.

(So in other words, I wouldn't wish promoting one's own writing on anyone? Or death? Watch out! Yikes! Yeah, I know. I'm a goner.)

the first of bolano

December is undoubtedly a month of Bolano. Do you require proof? Here is your quotation of the day, an excerpt from "Vagabond in France and Belgium":

The dead are at peace, thinks B stretching out in the bed. As if she had read his mind, the girl says that no one who has passed through this world is at peace. Not anymore, not ever, she says with total conviction. B feels like crying, but instead he falls asleep.

More Roberto Bolano in English translation arrives early next year: http://www.amazon.com/Monsieur-Pain-Roberto-Bola%C3%B1o/dp/0811217140/ref=pd_bxgy_b_img_a

Roberto Bolano: The Last Interview: And Other Conversations looks good too: http://www.amazon.com/Roberto-Bolano-Interview-Other-Conversations/dp/1933633832/ref=pd_cp_b_2_img.

It'll be interesting to learn how well this cult of Bolano translates and endures in the English language. In a world of fierce competition and low sales numbers, it is impressive that so many of his titles appear within months of each other and sell all at once. Chris Andrews and Natasha Wimmer deserve a lot of credit for the less recognized part of the deal. Translation?

The Bolano Buzz

When Andy Warhol noted we're lucky to get 15 seconds of fame, I wondered how he computed time; after all, it took me far longer than that to complete my business after two strong mugs in the morning. Potty humor aside, one writer who seems to have survived a bit longer than the fleeting 15 is Roberto Bolano. I have friends with varied literary interests who have found The Savage Detectives rather gripping, and both it and 2666 have won global acclaim. For me, the narrative strategy for The Savage D. amazes with its cumulative effect; in essence, two lives are told from the perspective of dozens of narrators, and so we get a disarmingly penetrating view into the motivations and idiosyncracies of dozens of characters. Many of the sections can be read as "stand alone" stories, and several of my favorites occur toward the end of the book. It is too tempting to give away more story.

To some extent, Bolano's short stories, some of which are translated into English by Chris Andrews and collected in Last Evenings On Earth can seem rather modest and subdued. I suppose that is one of the dangers of writing not one but two epic novels. I have read and reread this collection, much in the same way I have savored work by other haunting authors we may reread. (For me, in my past, these have included Sherwood Anderson, J.D. Salinger, Paul Auster, and many more. After a phone conversation with one book friend, we established that I am a "book returner" in the sense of returning for multiple reads whereas he is always looking forward to something new.) But back to Bolano, I am convinced no one with a taste for the wandering life and melancholy can possibly be disappointed by passages like this:

What were you dreaming about? he asks her. The girl replies that she was dreaming about her mother who died not long ago. The dead are at peace, thinks B stretching out in bed. As if she had read his mind, the girl says that no one who has passed through this world is at peace. Not anymore, not ever, she says with total conviction. B feels like crying, but instead he falls asleep.

That glimmering crystal is neatly tucked into Bolano's "Vagabond in France and Belgium." In nearly every story in the collection, you will discover several such bits of chilling wisdom. (My favorites are "Vagabond...," "Mauricio ('The Eye') Silva," "Anne Moore's Life," and "Dentist.") His style is so smooth and understated, it is possible to read right past these gems, so remember to slow down and enjoy the journey. Safe passage.

Roberto Bolano's "I Can't Read"

In the April 2012 Harper's Magazine, Roberto Bolano's "I Can't Read" has a final paragraph that will make you chuckle. Alas, it's trapped behind a paywall. Even if it's not Bolano's best writing, and was left unpublished but saved on his hard drive for a reason, this blogger is a fan. At the end, Bolano reports that he is getting trashed by Chilean writers from both left and right-wing political positions, and that it is most likely either due to the major prize he had recently won or his offending teeth. And I'd say that life, often, can be just like that.

April 19 (let the old content make way for the new content)

More or less, I got nothin', but I'll be teaching Roberto Bolano tomorrow (haven't decided yet as to what lessons he'll learn) and thought I'd share a favorite passage from late in The Savage Detectives:

In Paris, it's different. People drift away, people dwindle, and you have time to say goodbye, even if you'd rather not. Not in Africa. People talk there, people tell you their problems, and then they vanish in a cloud of smoke, the way Belano vanished that night, without warning. And you never even consider the possibility of running into X or Y again at the airport. The possibility exists, I'm not saying it doesn't, but you don't consider it. So that night, when Belano disappeared, I stopped thinking about him, stopped thinking about loaning him money, and drank and danced and then fell asleep in a chair and when I woke up with a start (more out of fear than because I was hungover, since I was afraid I'd been robbed, not being in the habit of going to places like Joao Alves's) it was already morning and I went outside to stretch my legs and there he was, in the yard, smoking a cigarette and waiting for me.

Yes, it was quite the gesture.  (497)

As to the first part, it's worth noting that false dichotomies may be binaries we can deconstruct and yet their extremes tantalize us and often make for great writing, or at least writing that can lead to some conversation.

Bolano has also been on my mind because by coincidence the same week he shows up on my syllabus, I stumbled upon (or I should say it was twossed in my direction via the e-chirper) this bit of Bolano blog. According to the attribution, it's Daniele Pantano's sharing of a Roberto Bolano section that appeared on the NYRBlog. From the text, I know for sure it's a curious bit of writing about observing V.S. Naipaul in Buenos Aires in 1972. Is this real or imagined? I couldn't tell you.

Anyway, Pantano also sent a shout for more quality submissions for his literary journal, and it looks like a promising one with an international flavor and a fancy curve over its first "e." (I suppose I should pretend I know what it's called and not admit to having googled "umlaut" even while remembering that would be two dots).

So that was something.

As you were.

a lost novel

Yes, I'm reading the "lost novel" of Roberto Bolano, or at least the first quarter of it, as published and translated in The Paris Review, Number 196. Because I purchased this single copy in a bookstore along with the latest issue of Boulevard, I'm somehow reminded of Bolano's "Vagabond in France and Belgium" from Last Evenings On Earth, a story in part about searching for the only author listed in an old issue of a literary journal whose name B does not immediately recognize. It nags at him and leads to something of a quest but also the classic sad Bolano story. What is it about that man's writing that is so intoxicating?

In the issue of Boulevard, there is a scathing Anis Shivani piece about the MFA programs. He basically destroys them with ridiculous generalizations which are also at times entertaining and rather clever. Although I'm hardly an insider at AWP (I have been a member for the past few years, but I don't have an MFA, and I teach business writing and contemporary literature, not fiction writing), it seems worth noting that his main argument about MFA program writing as mediocre and "standardized" (he uses the term "house style") is an unoriginal one, and also that there are some writers who teach and learn in these programs who are absolutely amazing. Would John Gardner or Irving be better writers without advanced degrees in creative writing?

One of Shivani's main points is that the "guild" of creative writing programs prohibits extroverted political display in fiction although I'm not sure this is accurate. Or, rather, I suspect common teachings could include "showing" one's politics as opposed to "telling" of them. Another point he makes, seemingly to disparage writers earning their living from teaching, is that they have withdrawn from the marketplace. It seems worth noting that although some great writers were commericial successes at the height of their literary careers, many others were not (Melville, Kafka, Svevo, Nietzsche, and so on).

But I like some of the international writers Shivani wants to recognize as superior; Joseph O'Neill and Chinua Achebe are two he names, for example, and I suspect many professors of fiction writing might fess up to enjoying these two and many more. And yet in recognizing his preferences, Shivani feels a need to bash the programs in one fell swoop. He creates a binarism, a false one, and that's far too easy for any of us. Silly, really. And yet Shivani's invective is fun to read, and I suspect most of us who will read the essay in Boulevard are somehow attached to the programs. I've also read his attack on the "Kirby poet" in the South Carolina Review, and I must say he can draw you in and aggressively lead you to his conclusions.

Ecrasez l'infame, Shivani! I have a feeling that Anis would enjoy Fight for Your Long Day.

Bolano and the Beats

"Roberto Bolano and the Beat Connection" appeared in The New Yorker earlier this month.

Awash in Barach and Bolano

I'm very thankful that Editor-in-Chief Christopher DeGroot published "Awash in Barach and Bolano" as part of The Agonist's Summer 2019 issue.

Bolano's Geometry

"Espinoza went out into the backyard and saw a book hanging from a clothesline. He didn't want to go over and see what book it was, but when he went back into the house he asked Amalfitano about it.

"'It's Rafael Dieste's Testamento geometrico,' said Amalfitano.

"'Rafeael Dieste, the Galician poet,' said Espinoza.

"'That's right,' said Amalfitano, 'but this is a book of geometry, not poetry, ideas that came to Dieste while he was a high school teacher.'

"Espinoza translated what Amalfitano had said for Pelletier.

"'And it's hanging outside?' said Pelletier with a smile.

"'Yes,' said Espinoza as Amalfitano looked in the refrigerator for something to eat, 'like a shirt out to dry.'"

~~ from 2666 by Roberto Bolano

2666 and the triangle offense???

I suspect some of you remember Phil Jackson's first year with the Lakers when Kobe Bryant received Paul Beatty's The White Boy Shuffle while Shaq got stuck with Nietzsche's version of the Superman (Thus Spake or Spoke, you decide). This time around, it looks like a few players got lucky with Walter Mosley novels while Ron Artest will be quizzed on Thus Spake Phil and Pau Gasol earned Roberto Bolano's thousand pager, 2666. I guess Phil knows Pau has time to read on the exercise bike as he paces himself to full hamstring strength.

Here's the full roster of Phil's reads at The New Yorker.

And, yes, I know I'm the last person who should be questioning anyone else's injuries and recoveries. Oy.

Last Evenings On Earth

I've been enjoying a reread of Roberto Bolano's collection Last Evenings On Earth, including the title story which I've only read once before.

April 22 (Teju Cole on KONY 2012)

Teju Cole's essay on KONY 2012, published online at (in?) The Atlantic, is one that caught my eye this week.

I certainly remember my own, perhaps similar, cynical thoughts surrounding my experience at Wesleyan University and all of the seemingly affluent students intent on changing the world (or resisting locally or whatever Teach for America, the Peace Corps, or grad school in social work was supposed to be called). It felt like they all had automobiles and car insurance paid by their parents, and I vividly remember the brand-new SUVs a few of them drove off in at the end of their glorious four-years of somewhat radical undergrad.

But I never met one who ever called himself a "saviour" or wouldn't have acknowledged and appreciated at least some of the nuances and complexities to all the different kinds of hegemonies circulating throughout and within. There was one friend who would describe it all in matter-of-fact terms: "X's parents have dough, so he can change the world, but Y's parents are poor, so he'll go to law school and aim for corporate work." It's never that simple, of course, but even among the financial-aid students there were not many genuinely poor "Y"s.

Anyway, Cole's tweets and essay made me more interested in reading his novel Open City, and it made for a nice complement to this week's teaching of Roberto Bolano's Liberian section from The Savage Detectives along with "Mauricio ('The Eye') Silva." Cole is working on a nonfiction book about Lagos, Nigeria, and that reminded me of this Uwem Akpan story and this George Packer essay that I unfortunately dropped from the syllabus to make room for the more local concerns of Ron Rash's Saints at the River.

And for leisure reading, finally, I'm getting immersed in Frances Lefkowitz's To Have Not about her poor, white childhood in San Francisco and her subsequent attendance at Brown University on heaping helpings of financial aid. It was my own Wesleyan experience that brought me to this memoir, and there is a decent chance I'll ask Lefkowitz for an interview when I'm done.

Goldman on Bolano

Francisco Goldman on Roberto Bolaño’s 2666

Reading

"I was doing something useful. Something useful no matter how you look at it. Reading is like thinking, like praying, like talking to a friend, like expressing your ideas, like listening to other people's ideas, like listening to music (oh yes), like looking at the view, like taking a walk on the beach. And you, who are so kind, now you must be asking: What did you read, Barry? I read everything."

~~ from 2666 by Roberto Bolano

Short Stories by Alex Kudera

"Going to Hell," Russian trans. from Sergey Katukov, East West Literary Forum, Jan. 28, 2026

"A Separate Piece," Citywide Lunch, December 8-12, 2025

"A Day's Worth," Eclectica Magazine, July 2025

"Chinese Sun," Meniscus, Volume 12, Issue 2, pages 139 to 146, November 2024

"Going to Hell," Soyos Books, November 11, 2023

"An Amazing Turn," New Oxford Review, January-February 2023

"On the Plane," in Zeitgeist: Stories Capturing Different Eras in the Vast Expanse of Time, December 2022

"Early Morning Train," Humans of the World, June 2022

"An Old Friend Called," Lighthouse Weekly, March 2022

"A Thanksgiving," Eclectica Magazine, July 2021

"Bombing From Above," Heavy Feather Review, June 2020

"Over Fifty Billion Kafkas Served," Eclectica Magazine, October 2019 "Awash in Barach and Bolano," The Agonist, July 2019

"About Your Status," Monkeybicycle, June 2019 "Free Car," Heavy Feather Review, September 2018 "My Father's Great Recession," Heavy Feather Review, March 2018

"Frade Killed Ellen," Dutch Kills Press, July 2015

"Turquoise Truck," Mendicant Bookworks, September 2015

"The Betrayal of Times of Peace and Prosperity," Gone Dog Press, February 2011

Twenty great, good, or at least not bad novels I've read that were published in the 21st century

(1) The Sellout by Paul Beatty

(2) Heaven by Mieko Kawakami 

(3) Convenience Store Woman by Sayata Murata
(4) Zone by Mathias Enard 

(5) Inside Story: A novel by Martin Amis 

(6) 2666 by Roberto Bolano
(7) Outline by Rachel Cusk
(8) Wake up, Sir! by Jonathan Ames
(9) Afterlives by Abdulrazak Gurnah

(10) The Corrections by Jonathan Franzen
(11) The Netanyahus by Joshua Cohen
(12) Netherland by Joseph O'Neill 

(13) The Lay of the Land by Richard Ford 

(14) The Lazarus Project by Aleksandar Hemon
(15) The Buddha in the Attic by Julie Otsuka
(16) Open City by Teju Cole
(17) Home Land by Sam Lipsyte
(18) The Cry of the Sloth by Sam Savage
(19) Nanjing Requiem by Ha Jin
(20) The Beautiful Things That Heaven Bears by Dinaw Mengestu

his books

"Why won't you believe it? she asked. Because I've been to his house, said the boy. So have I, and I didn't see anything to make me think he'd been taken by force. He left because he wanted to. No, she heard the boy say. If he'd left of his own accord, he would have brought his books. Books are heavy, said Mary-Sue, and besides you can always buy new ones. . . . No, I'm not talking about those books, I'm talking about his books, said the boy. What do you mean his books? said Mary-Sue. The ones he wrote and published. He wouldn't have left those behind even if the world was coming to an end."

~~ from 2666 by Roberto Bolano

his work lived on. . .

"Nevertheless his work lived on, precariously, desperately (as he would have wished, perhaps), yet it lived on. A handful of young men read it, reinvented him, tried to become his followers, but how can you follow someone who is not moving, someone who is trying, with every appearance of success, to become invisible?"

~~ from Distant Star by Roberto Bolano

Fear of being no good.

"Ivanov's fear was of a literary nature. That is, it was the fear the afflicts most citizens who, one fine (or dark) day, choose to make the practice of writing, and especially the practice of fiction writing, an integral part of their lives. Fear of being no good. Also fear of being overlooked. But above all, fear of being no good. Fear that one's efforts and striving will come to nothing. Fear of the step that leaves no trace. Fear of the forces and chance of nature that wipe away shallow prints. Fear of dining alone and unnoticed. Fear of going unrecognized. Fear of failure and making a spectacle of oneself. But above all fear of being no good. Fear of forever dwelling in the hell of bad writers."

~~ from 2666 by Roberto Bolano

customs

"Rosa was seventeen and she was Spanish. Amalfitano was fifty and Chilean. Rosa had had a passport since she was ten. On some of their trips. . . they had found themselves in strange situations, because Rosa went through customs by the gate for EU citizens and Amalfitano went by the gate for non-EU citizens. The first time, Rosa threw a tantrum and started to cry and refused to be separated from her father. Another time, since the lines were moving at different speeds, the EU citizens' line quickly and the noncitizens' line more slowly and laboriously, Rosa got lost and it took Amalfitano half an hour to find her. Sometimes the customs officers would see Rosa, so little, and ask whether she was traveling alone or whether someone was waiting for her outside. Rosa would answer that she was traveling with her father, who was South American, and she was supposed to wait for him right there. Once Rosa's suitcase was searched because they suspected her father of smuggling drugs or arms under cover of his daughter's innocence and nationality. But Amalfitano never trafficked in drugs, or for that matter arms."

~~ from 2666 by Roberto Bolano