2666

This behemoth defies description. It is five books in one revolving around "The Part About the Crimes" with its interminable recital of the brutal rapes and murders of scores of female factory workers in a Mexican border town. After reading page after page of graphic violence, the reader almost becomes immune to the pure evil of the crimes. It is to Bolano's credit that this litany appears 350 pages into the book after the reader is hooked by the loosely connected first three parts.

And I was hooked. I generally dismiss authors who write 5-page sentences as pretentious, but Bolano can make his run-on sentences breeze by like the desert wind. His fast-paced energetic style reflects the race he was in to finish the book before his show more death.

Not a pretty book with a defined plot and resolution, it is more like a desert sandstorm that rages here and there until it ends leaving the reader stunned by the stillness it leaves in its wake. 2666 is gigantic in scope (and even features a German giant!) with themes of love, madness, strange dreams, literature, philosophy, drugs, war, and, of course, death.

Bolano's writing is sometimes incomprehensible to me, sometimes achingly beautiful, but always memorable. As for a recommendation: read it if you have a strong tolerance for the macabre and if you don't care whether or not all the pieces fit together, for this is a novel of many stories with loose connections that requires patience and persistence. show less

This is a five-part novel with loosely connected storylines. The title is not specifically referenced, but I assume it points to a future dystopia that will occur if we do not do anything about it. The introductory information indicates that this was the author’s last work, and he asked for it to be published as five separate novels (to support his family), but for the sake of “literature” this request was overridden.

The first part tells of four academics, three men and a woman, who are obsessed with the works of an obscure German writer, Benno von Archimboldi. Part-way through, Archimboldi disappears, and the narrative is a quasi-mystery of what happened to him. Other than that, it focuses on the sexual tensions among the three show more men and the woman. Toward the end, they arrive in Mexico, and dream sequences take over the storyline. We get a foreshadowing of the increasingly violent content when two of the seemingly innocuous academics beat their cab driver within an inch of his life.

“After that moment, reality for Pelletier and Espinoza seemed to tear like paper scenery, and when it was stripped away it revealed what was behind it: a smoking landscape, as if someone, an angel, maybe, was tending hundreds of barbeque pits for a crowd of invisible beings.”

Part Two follows expat Professor Oscar Amalfitano. He performs a supporting role in the first story and becomes the protagonist of the second. He and his young adult daughter, Rosa, travel to (fictional) Santa Teresa (which is based on the real Ciudad Juárez), Mexico. It begins with the background of Amalfitano’s mentally unstable wife, Lola, who abandoned the family when Rosa was a toddler. This is where we become aware of the violence plaguing the city. Murders of women are becoming a regular occurrence. Amalfitano fears for his daughter’s safety but finds himself unable to leave. He appears to be “catching” his wife’s mental illness. He argues with the voices in his head.

Part Three follows a Harlem reporter nicknamed Oscar Fate. Fate is assigned to cover a boxing match in Santa Teresa, where he hears about the murders. He interacts with Oscar and Rosa Amalfitano. He interviews a man being held in custody who is believed to be responsible for the serial killings.

Part Four is a forensic recounting of over a hundred (I didn’t count them) rape-murders of women, interspersed with vignettes about the investigation. It is a series of gruesome facts about these deaths told in a detached (and stomach-turning) manner. It did not surprise me that this section was coming, since the previous three had gradually ramped up the violence and disturbing content. I am not the right audience for this type of subject matter, but I got the point.

Part Five returns to Archimboldi. This section is the most likely to have succeeded as a stand-alone novel. We learn Archimboldi’s origin story, how he became an author, and why he went to Mexico. It covers his experiences during World War II. There are many literary references. The truth about the writer is different from what the critics (from Part One) believed and perpetuated. It is my favorite of the five.

Overall, this is a sprawling 900-page densely written, complex, and occasionally meandering social commentary. It recounts in detail the murders, individual victims, and possible perpetrators of the crimes, but it is not a “murder mystery.” It is more focused on the social factors that enable these types of crimes to take place, including economic, cultural, and political systems. It touches on many disparate topics (e.g., literature, academia, misogyny, madness, violence), and brings them together into a scathing indictment. As a society, unrelenting violence leads to desensitization and apathy. There is no closure here, similar to the lack of closure for the families of the victims. I cannot say I “enjoyed” this book, but I appreciate the viewpoint.

“The style was strange. The writing was clear and sometimes even transparent, but the way the stories followed one after another didn’t lead anywhere: all that was left were the children, their parents, the animals, some neighbors, and in the end, all that was really left was nature, a nature that dissolved little by little in a boiling cauldron until it vanished completely.” - 2666, Roberto Bolaño show less

Returning to write a full review --

A spellbinding, dreadful, beautiful, and yes- a world-encapsulating book, one that really does capture our era.

There are notable similarities between this book and Twin Peaks: The Return, another monument analyzing the darkness of this century. One striking resonance stuck with me:

“He doesn't look uncomfortable. He's in prison, but I don't get the sense he's uncomfortable. He doesn't seem calm or relaxed, either. And he doesn't seem angry. He has the face of a dreamer, but of a dreamer who's dreaming at great speed. A dreamer whose dreams are far out ahead of our dreams. And that scares me. Do you understand?"

What frequencies were Bolaño and Lynch tuned into? Both definitely paid special attention show more to the unconscious, where the real movement of our time is always happening. Like Lynch, Bolaño is a master at depicting dreams. So much so that, for the first couple of weeks of reading this, I started having vivid, fucked up and portentous dreams too. I had an almost identical sequence to Morini’s dream in part 1, where he senses a deeply evil presence behind him but cannot turn around to face it. Only Bolaño could bleed into my life and make me experience that.

Part 4 ruined me, and is honestly indispensable for understanding the violence constantly afflicted upon those outside of society, outside of the narrative of history— and part 5 lifted me back up without ignoring the horror of the world, of the 20th century leading up to now. It turned the mirror back on the century and on Bolaño himself, who wrote this masterpiece on his deathbed, and who I think placed a lot of himself in Archimboldi. The words of Arch.’s publisher Bubis sum up just how I felt after finishing:

"... and despite the chaos of the text, in the end he was left with a feeling of great satisfaction, because Archimboldi had lived up to all the hopes he had placed in him. What hopes were these? ... Bubis didn't know, although he felt it, and not knowing didn't trouble him in the least, among other reasons perhaps because knowing only led to trouble, and he was a publisher and God's ways truly were mysterious."

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This seems to be one of those books that no one is neutral about--people either love it or hate it. However, regardless of your ultimate reaction to the book, it is a remarkable read. I loved it, and I think that even if you are one of those who may ultimately end up hating it, the journey it takes you on, the rollercoaster ride, makes it well worth the time invested, even if you don't know or like where you ultimately arrive.

The novel consists of 5 books, and the introduction to the novel states that Bolano originally intended each as a stand-alone book to be published separately. I would not have been satisfied if I had to read each book separately, and wait a while for the next book to appear. I would have felt that each book in and show more of itself was in some way 'unfinished.' However, after I read the entire novel, I thought that it would have been possible, though not necessarily better, to present the books in a different order. That's one game I've been playing with myself since I finished the novel--what if it started with Book 4 instead of Book 1, etc. etc.

Book 1, The Part About the Critics, is about 4 European academics, friends and lovers, who specialize in an obscure and reclusive German novelist, Archemboldi. When they hear that Archemboldi has been sighted in Santa Teresa, Mexico, they go there to track him down.

In Book 2, The Part About Amalfitano, an Argentinian exile literature professor at Santa Teresa University ponders his life, and worries about the safety of his daughter, as the number of women missing or murdered in Santa Teresa increases.

In Book 3, The Part About Fate, an American reporter sent to Santa Teresa to report on a boxing match finds himself involved with the drug and criminal underside of Santa Teresa.

In Book 4, The Part About the Crimes, Bolano makes us feel the enormity of the deaths of more than 200 women in Santa Teresa. Some have described this chapter as gruesome. The litany of deaths is certainly appalling, but the description of the murders is more clinical than gruesome, which makes the deaths and the victims all the more real.

Book 5 is supposed to tie this all together, but suddenly you're in Prussia between the World Wars with a one-legged veteran of World War I and his one-eyed wife, and their young son, who is most at home underwater among the seaweed.

By the end of Book 5, the mysteries are somewhat cleared up, but there is still much to reflect on, and that's what a good book is for, isn't it? show less

"An Oasis of horror amidst an ocean of tedium"

There is nothing unfinished about 2666. Upon Bolaño's death, the first four parts were already finished and the last was only being reviewed. Furthermore, the parts are much better read as a single piece.

2666 is a book that challenges definitions due to its radical approach to the genre. The bulk of its narrative does not contain any of the traditional elements of familiarity inherent to romances prior to it: there is no hero's journey, no central conflict permeating all of its parts, and most of it does not seem to lead to any sort of catharsis. This book abandons any sort of pathos in favor of the display of several disparate ethos that can be interpreted in more than one way. For show more instance, the part on the crimes is deeply political, having been based on real occurrences on the real Ciudad Juárez - it is a display of violence that invites the reader to think of the capitalist relationships between first and third-world countries, the communist purge and a passion for horror, all of which are ingrained in the current latin america.

It is this very characteristic that makes readers who do not immediately realize what the book is about disappointed when not finding sufficient answers at the end. 2666 is not about answers. It is not even about questions, in a sense. It simply is. It is a post-modern monument that twists the idea of a romance and delivers answers only where they are pertinent. We can draw a parallel with a human life where one is confined to one's own perspective of the world, filtering information through a peculiar ethos built upon one's culture, given each part of the book happens on a different place with different people. We are shown that seeing the same period through the lenses of individuals from three different continents does not suffice to build a complete picture of the world as experienced by the author. Some parts are clarified, others wait on the future for a resolution. A resolution on the year 2666 where all of the involved parties are already dead?

But six centuries from now, not only would it not matter, but it would not be possible to come to a complete panorama of the story. Because one could also interpret 2666 as an attempt to communicate the human condition of never truly knowing the world we live in. But a world in which one can still find meaning - again, it is about the path, not the ending. Not walking in a particular path, but simply being in a path at all. That's how the book should be read. Every path is filled with coincidences and seemingly random encounters, ruled by the logic of chances, filled with human values from which one can apprehend - morals, culture, values. It is a path filled with meditations and emblematic moments, and also with the most prosaic of daily life.

It is hard to see at first how Bolaño would write so many descriptions of seemingly banal activities while considering himself a poet first and foremost, but when the reader is accustomed to his style, it all flows very mellifluously. The dry style gives way to the possibility of either searching for a real meaning or accepting it how it is. Just like how the story itself is left open at various ends, waiting for a closure that never happens. And so the final stroke of genius lies on the last part, that elucidates part of the earlier Sonora narratives while still keeping the sense of incompleteness that permeates the rest of the book.

"No one pays attention to these murders, but within them hides the secret to the world." show less

This is a book in five parts

The Part about the Critics
Four European academics, all professors of German, one from France, one from Spain, one from Italy, and one from England, have a common bond. They all specialize in the writings of a reclusive German writer with an Italian name. Over the years of attending conferences together they gradually become acquaintances, then friends, and then lovers. But the object of their academic fascination, the author Benito von Archimboldi, remains elusive, until they hear a rumor that he may be living in Santa Teresa a Mexican city in the Sonoran Desert close to the border of the United States, and three of them go there in search of him. However, in Santa Teresa, Archimboldi is hardly the talk of show more the town. The talk of the town is the hundreds of murdered women whose bodies have been turning up in the desert, along the highway, and in illegal dumps. Most have been strangled and raped.

Bolaño, is as witty and snarky as Jane Austin. In “The Part about the Critics,” he presents characters that cover their bad behavior with intellectual pretension. Their opinion of themselves as intellectuals they think makes them superior to the common class of humanity, so that their sexual appetites and indulgences override and ignore the impact on others, whether it’s a Pakistani taxi driver, a professor of literature in a small Mexican university, their partners, and even each other, much like the eponymous protagonist of The Tale of Gengi. And behind a veneer of politeness they envy and compete with each other.

The part about Amalfitano
After the departure of the Europeans from Mexico, Professor Amalfitano, the melancholy professor Literature at the University of Santa Teresa, Chilean exile, father of a seventeen-year-old Spanish daughter Rosa, and translator of Archimboldi from German into Spanish, sit on the porch of his modest home in Santa Teresa and remembers his late wife Lola. Lola was an unstable personality who always traveled with a switchblade and abandoned her family two years after Rosa’s birth when they were all living in Spain. Now each morning as he drinks his coffee he gazes into the back yard where he’s hung a geometry text on the clothes line, in imitation of Dadaist Marcel Duchamp. Lately two things have been troubling him. His concern that Rosa could become one of the victims of the mass murderer, or murderers, and a voice claiming to be the voice of his dead father has been speaking aloud to him at night when he’s home alone. The voice from beyond the grave, or wherever it’s source, is cynical, homophobic, and depressing. “There is no friendship, said the voice, there is no love, there is no epic, there is no lyric poetry that isn’t the gurgle or chuckle of egoists, the murmur of cheats, the babble of traitors, the burble of social climbers, the warble of faggots.”

The part about Fate
A few days after his mother dies Oscar Fate, a writer for a Harlem magazine, gets an unusual assignment from the magazine’s sports editor, go to Mexico to cover a prize fight. It’s unusual, because Fate is not a sports writer, but the boxing writer has just unexpectedly died, stabbed by a jealous husband in Chicago. Fate’s in Detroit interviewing a former Black Panther, and feeling a little sick, when he gets the call. So he flies to Tucson, rents a car and drives south to Santa Teresa. There he befriends several Mexican journalists, from them he learns about the ongoing murders of women and young girls, one of them introduces him to Rosa Amalfitano. He’s persuaded by her father to take her back with him to the United States, and out of danger. But before they leave, they and another journalist, make a visit to the prison to interview one of the chief suspects in the murders, a very tall, blond German American called Klaus Haas.

The part about the murders
The longest of the parts chronicles murder after murder in a mixture of police procedural and true crime reportage. It chronicles, in seemingly endless clinical details, the tortured, mutilated and discarded corpses of women found in illegal dumps, by the side of the road, in the Sonoran Desert, and in the streets. Interspersed with these are the bored and uncaring majority of the police and a few frustrated officers who actually want to see the crimes solved, and whose efforts are continually frustrated.

The part about Archimboldi
Hans Reiter was a boy that liked to be underwater. Born in Prussia to a one-legged veteran of the Great War and a one-eyed mother, young Hans grew tall and clumsy. He loved to dive and became enamored of seaweed. When he walked on land he moved like a diver. He observed but did not interfere with others, “because he was a diver, which is to say he didn’t belong to their world, where he came only as an explorer or a visitor.”

An inattentive student he leaves school and after several failed attempts at a trade he goes to work with his mother as servant in an aristocrat’s home. There he meets and is befriended by the baron’s nephew, who introduces him to big city life in Berlin. But then, in 1939 Reiter is drafted into the Wehrmacht as an infantry soldier. As a tall soldier, he is an easy target for the enemy, but because of his seeming indifference to his own wellbeing, he accrues a fearless and heroic reputation. Wounded in Crimea he receives an Iron Cross, and is sent to a small village of abandoned houses behind the lines. There he discovers the journal of Boris Ansky, a Soviet Jew, which he finds fascinating. He reads of Ansky’s friendship with a Russian science fiction writer who falls out of favor with Stalin, and Ansky’s chaotic life following his friend’s death.

It’s in Ansky’s notebook, long before he sees a painting by the man, that Reiter first reads about the Italian painter Arcimbolo, Giuseppe, or Joseph or Josepho or Josephus Arcimoldo or Arcimboldi or Arcimboldus (1527-1593)

Reiter begins to dream about Ansky, and to become horrified at the thought that he might have been the soldier that killed him. He retreats back with the rest of the German Army, surrenders to the Americans, spends some time in a POW camp, released he drifts to Cologne. He is reunited with his girlfriend, they wander around getting what work they can, and Reiter begins to write. He rents a typewriter, and when the owner asks his name. “Reiter said the first thing that came into his head, ‘My name is Benno von Archimoldi.’”

He is also the uncle of Klaus Haas.

What can be said about a vast sprawling work like 2666? I think the author himself has an answer. In The part about Amalfitano, Professor Amalfitano muses about a conversation he had with a young pharmacist. To make conversation he asked him what he likes to read.

Without turning, the pharmacist answered that he like books like The Metamophosis, Bartleby, A Simple Heart, A Christmas Carol. And then he said that he was reading Breakfast at Tiffany’s. … there was something revelatory about the taste of this bookish young pharmacist …[he] clearly and inarguably preferred minor works to major ones. He chose The Metamophosis over The Trial, he chose … A Christmas Carol over A Tale of Two Cities or The Pickwick Papers. What a sad paradox, thought Amalfitano. Now even bookish pharmacists are afraid to take on the great, imperfect, torrential books, books that blaze paths into the unknown. They choose the perfect exercises of the great masters. Or what amounts to the same thing: they want to watch the great masters spar, but they have no interest in real combat, when the great masters struggle with something, that something that terrifies us all, that something that cows us and spurs us on, amid blood, and mortal wounds and stench.

And that’s what 2666 is, a great, imperfect, torrential book that terrifies us all about human existence and the inevitable evil that is inherent in the world we inhabit. Praise to Bolaño for his vivid prose and for Wimmer for translating it into English that sparkles. show less

Bolano's "2666" is not really a book you can recommend to friends. People will glance and politely ask what you're reading and you have to say "some Spanish novel" instead of "an up-close confrontation with rape". The book matter-of-factly presents the ineptitude and cowardice of the human race, as well as such a detailed description of a minor character's inner thoughts they become romantically heroic. Amongst the horror are humorous moments (in fact the novel is just a great big bunch of moments) that are genuinely hilarious.
There is a juxtaposition between the physical, procedural description of the crimes and the spiritual. Between the said and unsaid. There is a suggested spiritual perpetrator of the crimes, the phantom of death show more and decay and moral depravity of an empty modern world. A world where "critics" might say there is no such thing as a supposed moral depravity. Bolano shows that there explicitly is.

But in the end, what is the point? Archimboldi ends talking to a German shop owner about legacy. The German's father an aspiring writer, ends up being remembered for his ice cream. Archimoldi's sister describes his final novel: "The style was strange. The writing was clear and sometimes even transparent, but the way the stories followed one after another didn't lead anywhere: all that was left were the children, their parents, the animals, some neighbors, and in the end all that was really left was nature, a nature that dissolved little by little in a boiling cauldron until it vanished completely." This is 2666. Time moves on and (growing numb to numerous crimes and crimes) faces only remain. Soon it's only the landscape: dumps and endless Sonoran Desert. As the year 2666 arrives all that is left is dust. show less