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.

draft in progress: over a hundred favorite novels (and novellas) not in order

      A Fan's Notes by Fred Exley

      The Crying of Lot 49 by Thomas Pynchon

Vineland by Thomas Pynchon

Brothers Karamazov by F.D.

The Wapshot Chronicle by John Cheever

Chump Change by Dan Fante

The Sell-Out by Paul Beatty

The White Boy Shuffle by Paul Beatty

Who Will Run the Frog Hospital? by Lorrie Moore

Moby-Dick by Herman Melville

Absalom, Absalom by William Faulkner

Light in August by William Faulkner

Hunger by Knut Hamsun 

Candide by Voltaire

Lolita by Nabokov

Revolutionary Road by Richard Yates

The Lazarus Project by Aleksandar Hemon

Nanjing Requiem by Ha Jin

War Trash by Ha Jin

The Joke by Milan Kundera

Petersburg by Andrei Biely

Envy by Yuri Olesha

Native Son by Richard Wright

Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger

2666 by Robert Bolano

Home Land by Sam Lipsyte

The Ice Storm by Rick Moody

The Music of Chance by Paul Auster

White Noise by Don DeLillo

Americana by Don DeLillo

End Zone by Don DeLillo

Libra by Don DeLillo

The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald

The Sun Also Rises by Ernest Hemingway

A Farewell to Arms by Ernest Hemingway

Mr. Sammler's Planet by Saul Bellow

Herzog by Saul Bellow

Ravelstein by Saul Bellow

Humboldt’s Gift by Saul Bellow

The Ghostwriter by Philip Roth

I Married a Communist by Philip Roth

Caucasia by Danzy Senna

Native Speaker by Chang Rae Lee

Hard Times by Charles Dickens

The Mayor of Casterbridge by Thomas Hardy

A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens

The Mill on the Floss by George Eliot

Too Late the Phalarope by Alan Paton

A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man by James Joyce

The Human Stain by Philip Roth

Mickelsson's Ghosts by John Gardner

Water Music by T. C. Boyle

World's End by T.C. Boyle

Budding Prospects by T.C. Boyle

Even Cowgirls Get the Blues by Tom Robbins

Another Roadside Attaction by Tom Robbins

Rabbit is Rich by John Updike

Rabbit at Rest by John Updike

The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn

The Nun by Denis Diderot

Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison

Television by Jean-Phillippe Toussaint

The Savage Detectives by Roberto Bolano

The Sot-Weed Factor by John Barth

The Corrections by Jonathan Franzen

Revulsion by Horacio Castellanos Moya

Zone by Mathias Enard

Journey to the End of Night by Celine

Dreams from Bunker Hill by John Fante

Ask the Dust by John Fante

The Brotherhood of the Grape by John Fante

Outline by Rachel Cusk

Convenience Store Woman by Sayaka Murata

Correction by Thomas Bernhard

Extinction by Thomas Bernhard

Camera by Jean-Phlippe Toussaint

The Bathroom by Jean-Philippe Toussaint

Concrete by Thomas Bernhard

Immortality by Milan Kundera

The Unbearable Lightness of Being by Milan Kundera

Old Masters by Thomas Bernhard

The Trial by Franz Kafka

The Castle by Franz Kafka

Confessions of a Lady Killer by George Stade

Blood Meridian by Cormac McCarthy

All the Pretty Horses by Cormac McCarthy

Independence Day by Richard Ford

The Lay of the Land by Richard Ford

The Chaneysville Incident by David Bradley

Middle Passage by Charles Johnson

Memory of Departure by Abdulzarak Gurnah

Afterlives by Abdulzarak Gurnah

Heaven by Mieko Kawakami

Wake Up, Sir! by Jonathan Ames

The Extra Man by Jonathan Ames

The Rings of Saturn by W. G. Sebald

A Bend in the River by V.S. Naipaul

Shame by Salman Rushdie 

I Served the King of England by Bohumil Hrabel

Too Loud a Solitude by Bohumil Hrabel

Firmin by Sam Savage

Mad Toy by Roberto Arlt

The Seven Madmen and the Flamethrowers by Roberto Arlt 

V by Thomas Pynchon

Gravity's Rainbow by Thomas Pynchon

Billy Budd by Herman Melville

Benito Cereno by Herman Melville

Crime and Punishment by F. D.

The Possessed (Demons or The Devils) by F. D.

A School for Fools by Sasha Sokolov

The House of Mirth by Edith Wharton

Washington Square by Henry James

Sula by Toni Morrison

Their Eyes Were Watching God

A Separate Peace

My Antonia by Willa Cather

Giants in the Earth by O. E. Rølvaag

Run Me To Earth by Paul Yoon

White Mythology by W.D. Clarke

Mrs. Bridge by Evan S. Connell

The Beautiful Things That Heaven Bears by Dinaw Mengestu

The Story of My Wife by Milan Fust

The Incorporation of Eric Chung by Steven C. Lo

Straight Man by Richard Russo

Wonder Boys by Michael Chabon

The Virgin Suicides by Jeffrey Eugenides

The Ice Storm by Rick Moody

Hating Olivia by Mark SaFranko

The Notebooks of Malte Laurids Brigge by Rainer Maria Rilke

Fight for Your Long Day by Alex Kudera

Auggie's Revenge by Alex Kudera

A Hero of Our Time by Mikhail Lermontov

Fathers and Sons by Ivan Turgenev

The Red Badge of Courage by Stephen Crane

A Passage to India by E. M. Forrester

All Quiet on the Western Front by E. Remarque

The Scarlett Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne

Roughing It by Mark Twain

The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain

The Mysterious Island by Jules Verne

Ivanhoe by Sir Walter Scott

Klein on DeLillo

If you follow this blog, then you know that my pandemic reading consists mainly of Roberto Bolano's 2666, feminist memoir from the Soviet gulag, and Paul Theroux's travel narratives, but I recently enjoyed learning that novelist and translator Lee Klein has had literature fun forever with his return to the fiction of Don DeLillo. 

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.

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

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

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

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

a place where they would be fed

". . . in other words near the settlement of El Obelisco, which was neither a village nor exactly a suburb of Santa Teresa, but a way station for the poorest of the poor who came each day from the south, people who slept there at night and even died in hovels that they didn't think of as homes but as one more stop along the road to something different or at least a place where they would be fed."

~~ from 2666 by Roberto Bolano

a correct sum

"This time the advance he sent Archimboldi was bigger than any previous advance, in fact so large that Martha, the secretary, before mailing the check to Cologne, brought it into Mr. Bubis's office and asked (not once but twice) whether the sum was correct, to which Mr. Bubis answered yes, it was, or it wasn't, what did it matter, a sum, he thought when he was alone again, is always approximate, there is no such thing as a correct sum, only the Nazis and teachers of elementary mathematics believed in correct sums, only sectarians, madmen, tax collectors (God rot them), numerologists who read one's fortune for next to nothing believed in correct sums. Scientists, meanwhile, knew that all numbers were only approximate. Great physicists, great mathematicians, great chemists, and publishers knew that one was always feeling one's way in the dark."

~~ from 2666 by Roberto Bolano

Goldman on Bolano

Francisco Goldman on Roberto Bolaño’s 2666