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Loading... The Insufferable Gaucho (2003)by Roberto Bolaño
  
None No current Talk conversations about this book.  soylentgreen23 | Apr 11, 2020 |  The short stories are good, but not incredible. I don't know the history of each story or whether this book was in fact edited together under the oversight of the author, but it feels like it could have been a posthumous collection of otherwise discarded stories, especially since it's finished with two essays. The story 'Police Rat' is my favorite of the stories, though I was a little thrown by the characterization (they are rats!). Nothing in the fiction part of the book really impressed me like the stories in Last Evenings on Earth. I was surprised to find the two essays as my favorite pieces overall in the book. Bolaño's style in these is very enjoyable and he leaves much to think about concerning life and literature. (  ) jantz | Jan 1, 2017 | Some days I think Bolaño deserves all the hype and the accolades, and some days I'm just not feeling it. This collection delivers that mixed feeling - some brilliance, some above average work, and some head-scratchers - sometimes all within the same piece. And some days I just get tired of the unremittingly world-weary persona behind the words and wish for some unguarded passion or glimmer of transcendence. But that's just not who the man was. ( ) CSRodgers | Jan 22, 2015 | A really fine collection of short stories - Bolaño's narrative power (which, in longer works like 2066 or The Savage Detectives, is unevenly lambent) is positively brilliant in this form. (  ) milkyfangs | May 7, 2014 | "But while we are looking for the antidote or the medicine to cure us, that is, the new, which can only be found by plunging deep into the Unknown, we have to go on exploring sex, books, and travel, although we know that they lead us to the abyss, which, as it happens, is the only place where the antidote can be found." —Illness and Poetry (  ) S.D. | Apr 4, 2014 | no reviews | add a review
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Roberto Bolaño burst onto the scene with The Savage Detectives, and his posthumous masterpiece2666 confirmed his place as a giant of Latin American literature. The Insufferable Gaucho was the last book he prepared for publication before he died in 2003. Unpredictable and daring, highly controlled and yet somehow haywire, the five short stories included here are some of Bolaño's best. Whether they concern a stalwart rodent detective trying to investigate the mysterious deaths of his fellow rats, an elderly judge giving up his job in the city for an improbable return to the family farm in the pampas, or a confrontation between an elusive film-maker and the little-known Argentinian novelist whose work he's plagiarized for years they are as haunting as they are enthralling. In addition, The Insufferable Gaucho offers, for the first time in English, two essays by Roberto Bolaño: 'Literature + Illness = Illness' and 'The Myths of Cthulhu'. Provocative and often scathing, Bolaño's essays are alive with his trademark humour, violence and utter faith in the power of the written word. Roberto Bolaño is undoubtedly, as Susan Sontag said, "the real thing and the rarest". No library descriptions found. |
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Wikipedia in English (1)
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Fortunately, this book offers some true, classic Bolano, and serves - in places - as an almost perfect introduction to his style. "The Insufferable Gaucho" is an excellent meditation on identity and madness; "Police Rat" is a police procedural set in the sewers; and "Alvaro Rousselot's Journey" is a Borgesian delight. There are missteps - subjectively speaking - such as "Jim" and "Two Catholic Tales", although the latter is worth rereading to figure out the overlap between the two pieces.
Bolano did not achieve acclaim for his essay writing, which besides does not always survive the translation away from Spanish. But "Literature + Illness = Illness" proved quite fascinating, especially with its focus on the interplay (and importance) of sex, books, and travel.
All in all, an excellent collection that deserves its place on the bookshelf next to 2666 and By Night in Chile. (