Red Mosquito • View topic - Roberto Bolaño ( Bolano for the search engine)

invention · **Joined:** Mon Sep 05, 2005 1:34 am **Posts:** 12029

washing machine wrote:

Thanks for posting this. I'll check it out sometime this weekend. The prospect of reading essays from this guy really makes me excited. Another way to get in to his world and really wrap my mind around what he has to say in his novels.

I've read before that he's really well-known in the Spanish speaking world for his ruthless essays.

There's one available from the VQR I think, that Simple Torture had, I'll send you the file. Some of his speeches and interviews are available online and they're all extremely awesome.

invention · **Joined:** Mon Sep 05, 2005 1:34 am **Posts:** 12029

Simple Torture wrote:

washing machine wrote:

I'm very much looking forward to re-reading TSD. I shouldn't have started with it, a lot of it went over my head.

Yeah I started with it too, and I feel like a lot of energy was spent just grasping the style and the form of the work. I'd like to go back and focus more on the characters and the words.

I'm planning to reread it again this year. I started with Last Evenings which was a great into to him.

washing machine · **Posted:** Thu Oct 15, 2009 6:33 pm

invention wrote:

washing machine wrote:

Thanks for posting this. I'll check it out sometime this weekend. The prospect of reading essays from this guy really makes me excited. Another way to get in to his world and really wrap my mind around what he has to say in his novels.

I've read before that he's really well-known in the Spanish speaking world for his ruthless essays.

There's one available from the VQR I think, that Simple Torture had, I'll send you the file. Some of his speeches and interviews are available online and they're all extremely awesome.

That'd be great. Thanks man.

And ST, It's comforting to know that I'm not the only one that wrestled with TSD the first time around.

glorified_version · **Posted:** Fri Oct 16, 2009 3:58 am

Man, Savage Detectives...great book :thumbsup:

Kevin Costner · **Posted:** Fri Oct 16, 2009 4:06 am

glorified_version wrote:

Man, Savage Detectives...great book :thumbsup:

couldn't get through it. :shake:

glorified_version · **Posted:** Fri Oct 16, 2009 4:33 am

Kevin Costner wrote:

glorified_version wrote:

Man, Savage Detectives...great book :thumbsup:

couldn't get through it. :shake:

U missed out

The story is an eloquent take on a classical theme; deconstructing myth, disenchantment with youth, and disappointment. Except the novel is a riff on those subjects, and what happens upon the two main characters in slow, aging disillusionment - or is it? because we never actually experience them first hand. They are described differently by every narrator in the second act. This is the beauty of Bolano's search for truth, and it mimics the wanderings in the novel. He never fails to ask questions and rearrange our beliefs, even the last sentence of the novel is an inquiry. I love it.

Either way I think all the poetry/literary fetishism is a bit pretentious and silly but it is more or less a part of the subjective themes about art and reality that Bolano intends to explore. It makes perfect sense in the context of the novel as a whole to write about dead poets and authors as if they were actual characters in the novel.

Anyways, Bolano's prose is stupendous and I think you sold yourself short. The last 100 or so pages are revelatory. It's a challenging, rewarding book. Ultimately it's an adventure novel, and I would say the same thing about 2666.

glorified_version · **Posted:** Fri Oct 16, 2009 4:52 am

invention wrote:

Some news in the Bolanoverse today.

Apparently Bolano's agent presented the 2666 related book that was found recently in his papers at the Frankfurt Book Fair. Its not entirely clear if this is a different work or an expanded version of Amalfitano's part. Bolano is known to have written different versions of his books. Apparently there was a different version of The Savage Detectives found. There's been little English coverage exploring the details. The Third Reich was sold at the Frankfurt Book Fair last year.

Original Spanish: http://www.elperiodico.com/default.asp? ... io_PK=1013

Google Translate: http://www.google.com/translate?u=http% ... l=en&sl=es

Also, here Natasha Wimmer give a talk about Bolano here and she also reads from Entre parentesis ("Between Parentheses") forthcoming Bolano essay collection.

http://catranslation.org/blog/2009/10/1 ... mer-audio/

http://www.catranslation.org/audio/wimmer_10_6_09.mp3

If I see Natasha Wimmer speaking in NYC I'm going to have to go. She was a guest at Strand last year when 2666 was released and I wish I would have gone.

Also I'm going to make an effort to get to The Skating Rink before the end of the year.

BlueNote · **Posted:** Fri Oct 16, 2009 11:40 am

Kevin Costner wrote:

glorified_version wrote:

Man, Savage Detectives...great book :thumbsup:

couldn't get through it. :shake:

same here, i just gave up because it was slowing down my overall reading way too much and i had to move on. shame too because 2666 had such an impact on me and i still think about it almost daily.

lennytheweedwhacker · **Posted:** Fri Oct 16, 2009 1:17 pm

glorified_version wrote:

Kevin Costner wrote:

glorified_version wrote:

Man, Savage Detectives...great book :thumbsup:

couldn't get through it. :shake:

U missed out

The story is an eloquent take on a classical theme; deconstructing myth, disenchantment with youth, and disappointment. Except the novel is a riff on those subjects, and what happens upon the two main characters in slow, aging disillusionment - or is it? because we never actually experience them first hand. They are described differently by every narrator in the second act. This is the beauty of Bolano's search for truth, and it mimics the wanderings in the novel. He never fails to ask questions and rearrange our beliefs, even the last sentence of the novel is an inquiry. I love it.

Either way I think all the poetry/literary fetishism is a bit pretentious and silly but it is more or less a part of the subjective themes about art and reality that Bolano intends to explore. It makes perfect sense in the context of the novel as a whole to write about dead poets and authors as if they were actual characters in the novel.

Anyways, Bolano's prose is stupendous and I think you sold yourself short. The last 100 or so pages are revelatory. It's a challenging, rewarding book. Ultimately it's an adventure novel, and I would say the same thing about 2666.

while i did enjoy the book, i felt like in part it was a little much...i understand the intent, but it could have been pared down a bit too

it's the only bolano i've read so far, i really need to try 2666

invention · **Joined:** Mon Sep 05, 2005 1:34 am **Posts:** 12029

check out whats been added

http://www.amazon.com/Antwerp-Roberto-B ... 764&sr=1-1

As described by its French publisher, ‘Antwerp is a thriller without resolution, with corpses and cops, scenes of sado-masochism, beaches swept by the Mediterranean autumn, deserted campsites where a Chilean illegal immigrant is writing this novel, of hallucinations, of transcriptions of nightmares, the wandering ghosts of the first detectives.’ Written in 1980, many of the techniques and concerns prefigure those of Nazi Literature and Savage Detectives. ‘A prose poem of frenzied and exhausting beauty, a stunning crime novel, Antwerp is, in Bolaño’s words, radical and solitary.’ Translated by Natasha Wimmer.

invention · **Joined:** Mon Sep 05, 2005 1:34 am **Posts:** 12029

First English review of Monsieur Pain is out.

http://www.complete-review.com/reviews/ ... nsieur.htm

bart d. · **Joined:** Fri Jun 03, 2005 1:32 am **Posts:** 17563

"Monsieur Pain" sounds like a Morrisey album title.

Simple Torture · **Posted:** Tue Oct 20, 2009 2:44 am

bart d. wrote:

"Monsieur Pain" sounds like a Morrisey album title.

I am pretty sure it's "pain" in the French sense. It took me a while to realize that.

bart d. · **Joined:** Fri Jun 03, 2005 1:32 am **Posts:** 17563

Simple Torture wrote:

bart d. wrote:

"Monsieur Pain" sounds like a Morrisey album title.

I am pretty sure it's "pain" in the French sense. It took me a while to realize that.

"Mister Bread?"

Simple Torture · **Posted:** Tue Oct 20, 2009 2:58 am

As far as I know, that's what it translates as. I have no clue what it means.

bart d. · **Joined:** Fri Jun 03, 2005 1:32 am **Posts:** 17563

Maybe it's about a man made out of bread. So they call him "Mr Bread." Or he could be a baker.

Simple Torture · **Posted:** Tue Oct 20, 2009 2:59 am

Also, I wish Melville House would stop pushing this back: http://www.amazon.com/Bolano-Last-Inter ... 875&sr=8-1

washing machine · **Posted:** Tue Oct 20, 2009 10:34 pm

I just got my 2666 box set in the mail. It's a shame I'm waiting to read until January.

I love the cover art, particularly for the second book. The guy who did that one, Cy Twombly, has a gallery devoted to some of his work near my apartment. Really intense stuff on canvas. http://www.menil.org/collection/CyTwomblyInDepth.php

theplatypus · **Posted:** Tue Oct 20, 2009 10:36 pm

bart d. wrote:

Maybe it's about a man made out of bread. So they call him "Mr Bread." Or he could be a baker.

I love you Bart

invention · **Joined:** Mon Sep 05, 2005 1:34 am **Posts:** 12029

looks like the june 2010 story collection is called The Return.

http://www.amazon.com/Return-Roberto-Bo ... pd_sim_b_4

Roberto Bolaño ( Bolano for the search engine)

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