The Incredible Roberto Bolaño

Benny Bunter

Well-known member
finally getting round to Savage Detectives cos my my spanish is good enough now and i wanted to read it in the original language (turns out its pretty easy language-wise)

I´ve only just finished the first section "Mexicans lost in Mexico" and getting quite strong John Fante/bukowski/knut hamsun vibes so far, which is great cos I enjoy all of them but not quite what i was expecting - from when i first saw this thread years ago i was expecting something a bit more heavyweight and daunting for some reason. Maybe the second section is different?

anyway i`m hooked so far
 

Benny Bunter

Well-known member
finished. whoever said the last couple of hundred pages was the best part was correct i think. i'm on to 'la pista de hielo' ('the ice rink') now, one of his first novels i think. there's definite pre-echos of savage detectives in it - failed latin american poets adrift in europe, the campsite in catalonia, the various narrators telling the same story etc...great so far.
 

IdleRich

IdleRich
The guy's been dead sixteen years and they're still finding novels he had stashed away.
Yeah it's weird isn't it? I really thought he'd only done a few big dorbusters (is that the word I mean? Huge eight hundred page novels anyway) but then I found one of his I'd never heard of in a charity shop and later on I found another somewhere. Both slim volumes and both much more enjoyable and powerful than The Savage Detectives which really kinda pissed me off on the whole and dissipated what dark energy it did have at some point in increasingly meandering and ineffectual subplots.
I mean, obviously, me finding these books second hand wasn't an actual discovery of new works being excavated for the world of literature by me, but it seemed that someone was digging them out of somewhere cos I was sure when I'd looked on his bibliography before neither of them was there.
(apologies if I've said all this before - I forget what if anything I've contributed to this thread last time it came around).
 

catalog

Well-known member
One of my favourite writers, although gave up on the woes of the last policeman. I think the estate is now just checking it all out and he probably never wanted it published. I love his collection of short stories 'last evenings on earth' and 'the third reich' with the guy who lives on the boat.
 

version

Well-known member
The latest was translated into English this year and is called The Spirit of Science Fiction:
Two young poets, Jan and Remo, find themselves adrift in Mexico City. Obsessed with poetry, and, above all, with science fiction, they are eager to forge a life in the literary world–or sacrifice themselves to it. Roberto Bolaño’s The Spirit of Science Fiction is a story of youth hungry for revolution, notoriety, and sexual adventure, as they work to construct a reality out of the fragments of their dreams.

But as close as these friends are, the city tugs them in opposite directions. Jan withdraws from the world, shutting himself in their shared rooftop apartment where he feverishly composes fan letters to the stars of science fiction and dreams of cosmonauts and Nazis. Meanwhile, Remo runs headfirst into the future, spending his days and nights with a circle of wild young writers, seeking pleasure in the city’s labyrinthine streets, rundown cafés, and murky bathhouses.
 
Last edited:

version

Well-known member
Monica Maristain: If you hadn’t been a writer, what would you have been?

Roberto Bolaño: I would like to have been a homicide detective, much more than being a writer. I am absolutely sure of that. A string of homicides. I’d have been someone who could come back to the scene of the crime alone, by night and not be afraid of ghosts. Perhaps then I might really have become crazy. But being a detective that could easily be resolved with a bullet to the mouth.

M.M.: Have you shed one tear about the widespread criticism you’ve drawn from your enemies?

R.B.: Lots and lots. Every time I read that someone has spoken badly of me I begin to cry, I drag myself across the floor, I scratch myself, I stop writing indefinitely, I lose my appetite, I smoke less, I engage in sport, I go for walks on the edge of the sea, which by the way is less than 30 meters from my house and I ask the seagulls, whose ancestors ate the fish who ate Ulysses: Why me? Why? I’ve done you no harm.

M.M.: Which five books have marked your life?

R.B.: In reality the five books are more like 5,000. I’ll mention these only as the tip of the spear: “Don Quixote,” by Cervantes; “Moby Dick,” by Melville. The complete works of Borges, “Hopscotch,” by Cortázar, “A Confederacy of Dunces,” by Toole. I should also cite “Nadja” by Breton; the letters of Jacques Vaché. Anything Ubu by Jarry; “Life: A User’s Manual,” by Perec. “The Castle” and “The Trial,” by Kafka. “Aphorisms,” by Lichtenberg. “The Tractatus,” by Wittgenstein. “The Invention of Morel,” by Bioy Casares. “The Satyricon,” by Petronius. “The History of Rome,” by Tito Livio. “Pensées,” by Pascal.

M.M.: John Lennon, Lady Di or Elvis Presley?

R.B.: The Pogues. Or Suicide. Or Bob Dylan. Well, but let’s not be pretentious: Elvis forever. Elvis and his golden voice, with a sheriff’s badge, driving a Mustang and stuffing himself full of pills.

M.M.: Have you seen the most beautiful woman in the world?

R.B.: Yes, sometime around 1984 when I worked at a store. The store was empty and in came a Hindu woman. She looked like a princess and well could have been one. She bought some hanging costume jewelry from me. I was at the point of fainting. She had copper skin, long red hair, and the rest of her was perfect. A timeless beauty. When I had to charge her, I felt embarrassed. As if saying she understood and not to worry, she smiled at me. Then she disappeared and I have never again seen anyone like her. Sometimes I get the impression that she was the goddess Kali, the patron saint of thieves and goldsmiths, except Kali was also the goddess of murderers, and this Hindu woman was not only the most beautiful woman on earth, but she seemed also to be a good person — very sweet and considerate.

M.M.: What do you wish to do before dying?

R.B.: Nothing special. Well, clearly I’d prefer not to die. But sooner or later the distinguished lady arrives. The problem is that sometimes she’s neither a lady nor very distinguished, but, as Nicanor Parra says in a poem, she’s a hot wench who will make your teeth chatter no matter how fancy you think you are.

M.M.: What kinds of feelings do posthumous works awaken in you?

R.B.: Posthumous: It sounds like the name of a Roman gladiator, an unconquered gladiator. At least that’s what poor Posthumous would like to believe. It gives him courage.
 

Mr. Tea

Let's Talk About Ceps
"I ask the seagulls, whose ancestors ate the fish who ate Ulysses: Why me? Why? I’ve done you no harm."

I love the idea of a person who talks like this in real life.
 

version

Well-known member
Well, but let’s not be pretentious: Elvis forever. Elvis and his golden voice, with a sheriff’s badge, driving a Mustang and stuffing himself full of pills.
 
Top