Bolano is the flavour of the moment; his posthumously published epic 2666 is generating acres of discussion and review. However I wanted to read something shorter before deciding whether to commit myself to 900+ pages of the other. Published before he died, Amulet is a short but and slightly surreal novel set in Mexico during a period of political unrest. Auxilio, a Uruguayan woman who hangs out with the poets of Mexico City is trapped in a bathroom at the university when the army invades to put down a student revolt in 1968. She's there for 12 days, and lies on the floor starving, remembering and fantasising the future about her life with the poets.

Knowing nothing of Mexican poetry or politics it was hard to know what, if anything, was real in the background to the novel. I was hoping to be dazzled by the writing, but found the confusing nature of the plot darting between Auxilio's memories and reveries difficult. The opening lines promise much - a horror story of murder, detection and horror, but immediately takes that away as the teller says it won't seem like that told by her. Interspersed among the ramblings which become increasingly surreal prophecies are some more conventional scenes of life with the literati, and their experiences with both the underbelly of Mexican society and regimes in charge in Latin America; these episodes briefly brought the novel to life.

As for reading more of Bolano, I may well try The Savage Detectives, but find the prospect of 2666 about 600 pages too much for me. (Book provided by Amazon Vine). ( )

This book really stays in your mind! I hadn't thought I would write a review, because Bolano is the Latin American author du jour in North America. But this novel has genuine staying power. The central image -- a woman cowering in the women's room on the fourth floor of the Philosophy and Literature building in UNAM in Mexico City during the police incursion -- is itself very memorable, but really it's her inner monologues, dreams, and hallucinations, and the strange sinuous voice that connects everything into a single book, that stays with me. (I have been told that women's room actually exists. I may visit it sometime: it would be a great literary pilgrimage.)

One of the more acute reviews of Bolano recently was, I think, in the 'London Review of Books'; the reviewer noted that Bolano writes continuously about writing, and that his novels chronicle novelists and poets, but that somehow his books aren't exactly novels. The authorial voice, and in this case also the narrator's voice, are presented as if they are talking. It's as if this is what happens in a writer's mind when he or she is contemplating the craft and social world of novel writing, before it's time to settle down and actually write. I think that's an excellent insight, and it explains an odd effect in Bolano: when you encounter a passage that is beautifully written, it seems somehow out of place, as if that is something that should only happen in the novels that Bolano's characters are forever discussing. Or to put it another way: it is as if novel writing is no longer possible, and the only way forward for the novel is rumination about the novel. Bolano's best, I think. ( )

A satellite of The Savage Detectives; upsetting and haunting, a story with a charming voice. ( )

Auxilio Lacouture is a friend to Mexican poets and artists. Finding herself trapped in the women's bathroom during the military seige on the University of Mexico in 1968, she sees the past and the future from the vantage point of her trauma.

A remarkable book, but the ending comes off a bit artificial. ( )

the story of a poet living in mexico city in the late 60's early 70's . the novel is a poem, lots of symbolism. in a way a romantic novel with a dark soul ( )