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By Night in Chile

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Roberto Bolano, alas, died this year. BY NIGHT IN CHILE is his only work translated into English (very sensuously and beautifully by Chris Andrews) despite the fact that he wrote nine novels, short stories and poetry in Spanish. Chilean by birth, but expatriated to Barcelona and Mexico City because of political issues, Bolano is an enormously gifted, unique voice. Hopefully Chris Andrews will continue to translate his other works for us as I know the reading public will demand more Bolano after reading this short novel.

In a brief but densely packed 130 pages, Bolano takes the voice of Fr. Urrutia who on his deathbed tries to organize the chaotic thoughts that have represented his life before he enters the ultimate climax of death. We learn of his childhood as a poor boy who longed to be a poet, his conversion to the priesthood, his contribution to the literary world of not only his own poems but literary criticism or other writers, and his rather bizarre ramblings of this life adventures - his 'assignment' to unravel the workings of the Opus Dei (with an hilarious metaphor of each church throughout Europe training a falcon to destroy the pigeons in order to keep the buildings free of pigeon excrement only to realize they were destroying the universal symbol of the Holy Spirit!), his conversations with the Chilean critic Farewell, meetings with Pablo Neruda, and his assignment to teach Marxism to Pinochet and the Junta after the fall of Allende, and more. All of this glowing stream of conscience is delivered in words and phrases that stand with the finest of writers - James Joyce, ee cumings, Ezra Pound, Neruda, Marquez - but at the same time they retain flavor which makes them uniquely Chilean. "...I cannot have been properly awake, for deep in my brain I could hear the voices of popes, like the distant screeching of a flock of birds, a clear sign that part of my mind was still dreaming or obstinately refusing to emerge from the labyrinth of dreams, that parade ground where the wizened youth [himself as a child] is hiding, along with the dead poets who were living then, and who now, against the certainty of imminent oblivion, are erecting a miserable crypt in my cranial vault, building it with their names...." or: "...flocks of starlings....appeared again like a lightening bolt, ...and stooped on the huge flocks of starlings coming out of the west like swarms of flies, darkening the sky with their erratic fluttering, and after a few minutes the fluttering of the starlings was bloodied, scattered and bloodied, and afternoon on the outskirts of Avignon took on a deep red hue, like the colour of sunsets seen from an aeroplane, or the colour of dawns, when the passenger is woken gently........and lifts up the little blind and sees the horizon marked with a red line, like the planet's femoral artery, or of the planet's aorta..."

These are but too brief abstracts of Bolano's luxuriant writing ( and Andrews' equally gifted translation!) that flow unceasingly from this richly succinct masterwork. This is easily one of the more rewarding new books I have read and I could not recommend it more highly. Read it all in one sitting..and I would gently wager you will immediately re-read it.

The narrator of Roberto Bolaño's surreal novella By Night in Chile is an Opus Dei priest, Fr. Sebastian Urrutia Lacroix. Using the image of "the wizened youth," Bolaño brilliantly portrays the struggle for the survival of the human spirit trapped in Opus Dei for many years. His imagery is so vivid and provocative that the reader feels as if he or she is lifted up into his dream. "The wizened youth," or Fr. Sebastian's true self is being slowly destroyed by Fr. Sebastian's new Opus Dei identity. This interior battle captures the essence of the Opus Dei experience, as if Bolaño himself had been a celibate member. Initially, it appears as if Fr. Sebastian's newly-formed spirit is soaring toward the heavens; for example, he says "my prayers rising up and up through the clouds to the realm of pure music, to what for want of a better name we call the choir of angels, a non-human space but undoubtedly the only imaginable space we humans can truly inhabit, an uninhabitable space but the only one worth inhabiting, a space in which we shall cease to be but the only space in which we can be what we truly are." In reality, however, Fr. Sebastian's spirit, manipulated by his Opus Dei superiors, Raef and Etah (Fear and Hate spelled backwards) is slowly crushed over a period of many years because he denies the truth and his former self, "the wizened youth."

Fr. Sebastian is ordained an Opus Dei priest at the age of 14, at which time there isn't much of a struggle at all. In fact, Fr. Sebastian is happy to bury the memories of his unpleasant childhood; and is filled with "immaculate hopes" about his future as the protégé of the finest literary critic in Santiago, Farewell. Like so many others who join Opus Dei at an impressionable age, Fr. Sebastian is lured by the promise of an appealing and exciting adventure. The fourteen-year-old is impressed by Farewell's attire, his grand estate, and the prestigious company of the literary elite with whom he shares an exquisite meal. The name "Farewell" symbolizes Fr. Sebastian's bidding his former self farewell. When Fr. Sebastian meets Pablo Neruda, the famous Chilean poet at Farewell's house, he says, "I bet the wizened youth has no stories like this to tell. He didn't meet Neruda." His new identity enthusiastically and blindly submits to the calling higher than himself - to change the tone of literature in society. As he matures in his career, his intentions become tainted when he gives himself a pen name H. Ibacache (meaning: was hidden) so that he could praise his own books and criticize those of his colleagues, calling for a return to the classics and more culture. His pen name symbolizes the burial of the universal truths found in literature as well as the concealment of his new identity as an Opus Dei member.

Even though Fr. Sebastian becomes a successful literary critic, his spirit starts to rebel as he becomes bored with his book reviews and starts to write deep meaningful poems, which he quickly destroys. His Opus Dei superiors immediately step in to crush his dissenting spirit. In his struggle, the wizened youth appears, "The wizened youth is watching from a yellow street corner and yelling at me. I can hear some of his words. He is saying I belong to Opus Dei. I have never hidden that, I say. But of course, he's not even listening to me. I can see his jaws and his lips moving and I know he's shouting, but I cannot hear his words." Fr. Sebastian's superiors reward him with a "delicate mission in Europe" as a distraction and to bolster his fidelity to the organization. Raef and Etah hope Fr. Sebastian will feel as if he is part of something greater than himself, something with a divine purpose that he should feel privileged to belong to - Opus Dei, which means "The Work of God." Throughout his jaunt through Europe, Fr. Sebastian is treated with great affection. In Spain, he says, "they introduced me to "the Opus Dei publishers and the principals of the Opus schools and the Rector of the University, which is also run by Opus Dei, and all of them showed an interest in my work as a literary critic, poet and teacher, and they invited me to publish a book with them . . . and then they gave me a letter addressed to me and written by Mr. Raef, in which he asked How's Europe going, what's the weather like and the food and the sites of historical interest, a ridiculous letter but somehow it seemed to conceal another, invisible letter, more serious in content, and this hidden letter, although I couldn't tell what it said or even be sure it really existed, worried me deeply." Even though Fr. Sebastian has let his guard down and the wizened youth is absent in Europe, he still feels that something is not quite right. But, how can his spirit protest now that everything is going so well for him?

The actual mission in Europe is a portent of the death of Fr. Sebastian's spirit. He learns that the cause of the dilapidation of the exteriors of the European churches is pigeon droppings. The pastors throughout Europe solve this problem by becoming falconers, whose pet falcons murder the pigeons. As Fr. Sebastian travels through Europe, he is not troubled by the blood until he meets Fr. Antonio, who thinks it is a grave error for the predators to kill God's creatures since pigeons and doves are the symbol of the Holy Spirit, "who is far more important than most lay people suspect, more important than the Son who died on the cross, more important than the Father who made the stars and the earth and all the universe." His words haunt Fr. Sebastian who dreams of "falcons, thousands of falcons flying high over the Atlantic ocean, headed for America." The falcons represent predators of the spirits and Fr. Sebastian subconsciously fears for the deaths of many more spirits in the church.

When Fr. Sebastian returns to Chile, he and his spirit have a second, more tumultuous battle. As the country flares up in political turmoil, he starts having doubts again and his personal writing becomes so shocking and disturbing, that even he does not recognize it as his own. This time, however, Raef and Etah do not reward him; rather, they give him a punishment. They manipulate Fr. Sebastian into agreeing to give private lessons on Marxism to Pinochet and his generals. After they cleverly get him to admit that he has some books on Marxism in his personal library, Fr. Sebastian feels as if he must defend himself, saying "You know me, I'm not a Marxist." He describes himself in the scene as "trembling from head to toe and feeling more than ever as if it were all a dream." Raef and Etah try to reassure him "You'll be serving your country. . . Serving in silence and obscurity, far from the glitter of medals. . . you're going to have to keep your mouth shut." Soon after he gives the classes, he is confused about the moral ambiguity of what he has done. However, after some time has passed, Fr. Sebastian justifies his actions, "At the end of the day, we were all reasonable (except for the wizened youth, who at that stage was wandering around God knows where, lost in some black hole or other), we were all Chileans, we were all normal, discreet, logical, balanced, careful, sensible people, we all knew that something had to be done, that certain things were necessary, there's a time for sacrifice and a time for thinking reasonably." He has convinced himself that if there had been any unpleasant consequences from his lessons, they were necessary, and the wizened youth has lost another battle.

Toward the end of the novella, Fr. Sebastian's spirit no longer fights. During the literary soirées in the home of María Canales, whose husband was using their basement as a torture chamber, the wizened youth is invisible. Fr. Sebastian says "I can picture the wizened youth's face. I cannot actually see him, but he is there in my mind's eye." Because curfews were in effect, Fr. Sebastian admits that he sensed that something was not quite right at those lovely literary gatherings, "I thought how odd it was that, with all the racket and the lights, the house was never visited by a military or police patrol." But his ignoring of his conscience had now become such an entrenched habit, that the wizened youth appears to have died. Finally, Fr. Sebastian realizes that he no longer sees the wizened youth. "Where is the wizened youth? Why has he gone away? And little by little the truth begins to rise like a dead body. A dead body rising from the bottom of the sea or from the bottom of a gully. I can see its shadow rising. Its flickering shadow. Its shadow rising as if it were climbing a hill on a fossil planet. And then, in the half-light of my sickness, I see his fierce, his gentle face and I ask myself: Am I that wizened youth?" He realizes that he has spent his entire life fleeing from the wizened youth. He has denied his own eyes, memories, thoughts, and even his own writing. If he had not been a sleepwalker through his life, perhaps he would have come to the truth much sooner; instead, he was in a battle with his own spirit and almost killed it, as the falconers had killed so many of the pigeons or doves in order to save the churches from the pigeon droppings. It is sad that Fr. Sebastian doesn't see the truth until he is almost dead, but by having liberated his trapped spirit, he can finally be at peace with himself.

It is tempting when reading this volume, to check Chilean literary history or the politics of the Allende era ... but it is better to simply read the novel as a good read - at least for the first time. This is a novel that almost invites a study of its references and techniques, to the point one may gloss over the universal aspects of the story. While the novel is deliberately Chilean, the motifs of professional and ethical social climbing and compromising are universal. A young priest is "seduced" by the opportunity to be in the best literary circles - seduced into support of the right wing side of the Church and of politics. This volume is his own telling of his story, near the end of his life, in an attempt to excuse/explain/confess his choices throughout his life. The author's brilliance is in his compact telling of a universal condition in the very specific details of a particular life in a particular time.

Over a dozen readers have published on Amazon their thoughts about "By Night in Chile." Collectively, those reviews convey a sense of the difficulties and pleasures of this short novel.

"By Night in Chile" takes the form of a deathbed confession delivered by a Chilean priest, poet and conservative literary critic, Fr. Urrutia. The book's principal challenge to the uninitiated reader is that it is set in a time, place, culture and political atmosphere unknown to all but a few American readers. If you've read the positive reviews of readers who were enthralled by the novel, you understand their urge to place its challenges in context. For example, one reviewer, Rhoda, felt compelled to shed light on just one of the esoteric aspects of the book -- namely, how Opus Dei, an organization within the Catholic Church, misguides the fictional priest and bends the arc of his life toward fatal choices. An understanding of all the foreign details of this sort, and a familiarity with the real life figures who pop up in the priest's stream of memories (Pablo Neruda, Ernst Junger, Marta Harnecker) are useful, without doubt. But I believe such foreknowledge is not essential to an immediate enjoyment of the book, so long as you are the kind of reader who takes greater delight in experiencing a literary tour de force that draws you toward a readily understandable moral, a simple truth.

"By Night in Chile" is a bravura performance by Bolaño in which the author has found a distinct way to enwrap and deliver each recollection, each story within a story, each aside, each shift in time, each gruesome discovery, and each blow to the soul, that passes through the dying priest's sometimes clear, sometimes feverish, mind. The reviewer named Lost High Guey cites as a defining characteristic of the book, this constant outpouring of side-stories, little morsels, poetry masked by prose. Two or three reviewers found this "meandering" style off-putting, but others of us appreciate the strategy as Bolaño's signature mode. For us it is an ever-surprising joy. The reviewer Giordano Bruno describes a social occasion the Spanish refer to as a "tertulio" at which guests discuss literature, read their works, and hold forth in competitive intellectuality. He likens it to boastful conversations heard in an Ivy League dining hall. Even closer to the mark -- and closer to what I think is the generative force of Bolaño's communicative charm -- is the practice and spirit of an all-night "bull session" conducted in college dorms or in fact anywhere the young are assembled in strange new quarters as they undergo mind-altering training. If you typically avoided invitations to join in such sessions, you should avoid "By Night in Chile."

According to available biographical details, Bolaño life was bohemian -- peripatetic, but immersed in the social lives of other poets, painters, musicians, actors. One imagines him as a great talker and a great listener. (In a moment of fantasy -- never to be fulfilled, alas -- I imagine a chance meeting of Roberto Bolaño and the painter/collagist Robert Rauschenberg. What amazing things would have flowed forth had those two spent an afternoon interviewing each other. In my dream I imagine hidden microphones and cameras capturing the sparkling flow of dialog, an outpouring which turns heavenward after I bring to the gentlemen a bottle of Jack Daniels, for RR, and a drug of his choice, for RB.)

Literature has been enriched by the confessional form. Think of Coleridge's "The Rime of the Ancient Mariner," Browning's "My Last Duchess," Camus' "The Fall." The confession is a hospitable device for an author interested in psychological exploration and revelation. A man unspools a story of some evil he witnessed or participated in, a sin that weighs upon him, a sin he now owns up to or, alternatively, seeks to justify. His speech ends with a request, express or implied, for the listener (the reader) to understand, to expiate. The framework of "By Night in Chile" borrows from this tradition, and yet the book is frustrating as a confession. Perhaps it is as much of a confession as the present era allows. The state of Fr. Urrutia's soul at the close of his tale is, at least to me, uncertain. That uncertainty led me to trace my steps back to the beginning of the book, where I found the priest's opening statement of purpose.

Then I understood this is a deeply religious tale, a profoundly moral story. The dying priest, who hoped he could convince himself he had committed no crimes, is by his own reckoning guilty of sins of omission. It is on page one that he reveals a simple credo. The reader, when first encountering these words, may dismiss them as a bromidic utterance, jejune, self-congratulatory. But when read a second time, after curling back from the novel's end, the words shine clear:

"One has a moral obligation to take responsibility for one's actions, and that includes one's words and silences, yes, one's silences, because silences rise to heaven too, and God hears them . . . so one must be very careful with one's silences."

(Mike Ettner)

What I have come to appreciate reading Bolaño's book is the fact that he takes you on several small journeys getting you from plot-point to plot-point. You almost don't realize that he is doing it until you finish one of these tangents and get led carefully back to the main storyline. That Bolaño trusts his talents enough to introduce characters that are only there to make a single point, that they exist in the novel just to die or to cease to exist just so some small nuance of Chile, the Church or his personal imagination can be revealed is truly something. For instance, a "Guatemalan Painter" is introduced and given depth and perspective before being assigned his lonely fate which is to fade away to nothingness despite having great talent just so that the author can depict the grim experiences of displaced foreigners and to introduce Don Salvador Reyes to Ernst Jünger. He introduces Salvador Reyes and rounds him out as a character, portrays him as a man of principles and position, an erudite pillar of society. The meeting of the three men only accomplishes one single thing, a book translated in French is passed from Reyes to Jünger providing the context for the only mention in the history of World War II of a Chilean ever taking part in the greatest conflict known to man. As if to say, one of us took part in this great endeavor, and although nothing of the man exists or of the painter who made possible the acquaintance with the German officer and writer, Ernst Jünger who documents the existence of our participant, but one of us was there and here is the proof and displaced and erased we may be in this gigantic, Western history, at least ONE of us was there. One Chilean. One man. One proof. And without further explanation, the whole tale falls under the title "Landscape: Mexico City an hour before dawn". It is a poem, not a story.

Bolaño does this to you again and again with such a light touch in these side-stories hidden among what is actually happening. And if you focus too closely on what is more obviously happening to Urrutia Lacroix as he becomes party to Mr. Fear and Mr. Hate, to the falconers and their destruction of spirit, to the Marxists he teaches and disowns, to the suppressed homosexuality of Farewell and the more literary circles, to the duality of his roles as liberal writer and conservative critic, and the old man denouncing and finally ceasing to renounce his wizened youth only at the end, etc...if you look at only these more blatant metaphors you will miss the really fine morsels hidden in the tedious little filler pages, poetry masquerading as fluff, revelation in the side-notes.

I think I would have appreciated this book more if I was more into Chilean literature. Some characters, like Pablo Neruda, I could recognize right away, but most were unknown to me. Still I could follow the story, but I might not have understood all the nuances. If you aren't informed about Chile and have the will to look stuff up, this book could be a good starting point about Chile without being deliberate like a travel guide.

The novel also captures other aspects of Chilean history and society, such as the time leading up to Allende's downfall and Pinochet's dictatorship, the role of the Church in the mid- to late-twentieth century, the importance of politics, and other topics.

The voice and tone of the novel is unique. It flows as one stream of consciousness without paragraphs or chapters, and with many run-on sentences. At times the reader forgets that the page is the medium through which the voice is communicating, because it almost comes as direct as someone speaking. However, the narration is lacking for passion, which perfectly reflects Fr. Urrutia's low energy and apprehensiveness towards his vocation, but the book is not for those seeking an exciting narrative.

Sebastian Urrutia Lacroix, Jesuit priest and well-known Chilean literary critic, feeling himself close to death, "rummages" through his memories in a night-long monolog about his life, his friends and achievements. "... One has a moral obligation to take responsibility for one's actions, and that includes one's words and silences..." he muses early on. But what follows in his "confession" should put the reader immediately on their guard. Is this an overlong self-eulogy, an apology, or justification? Has Urrutia been judged for his actions or non-actions? Are we to be the judges? Or is the real audience the "wizened youth" who seems to be hanging around for most of the night like his shadow? Using the priest's uninterrupted confession as the conduit, Roberto Bolaño delves into the complexities of decades of political upheaval in twentieth century Chile. The outcome is a thought provoking, often satirical, at times surreal, always hard hitting critique of Chilean society and especially of the role that the intellectual and literati elites played leading up to and throughout the Pinochet regime. In many cases, silences may have been "immaculate" whether in Chile or under any other totalitarian system. But what about "complacency", the "I wasn't there and then it was too late", and similar, explanations that Urrutia also brings forward?

Urrutia, having grown up a poor boy with ambitions to become a great poet, ends up as a less than dedicated priest, an ambitious critic and a member of the notorious Opus Dei organization that assigns him two very strange "secret" tasks, first in Europe and then back in the Chile of Pinochet. Both are actually quite ridiculous and he may have had reasons to exaggerate his fear of being detected. No doubt, his life, for the longest time, follows rather pleasant paths, bringing him in contact with the famous writers and poets of the day, Chilean Nobel Prize laureate Pablo Neruda being one of the best known among them. Urrutia introduces Neruda, well-known German author Ernst Jünger and others through several extensive side stories that may or may not keep the non-Chilean reader's attention. With his reputation as a literary critic growing, Urrutia pats himself increasingly on the back: all writers and poets are seeking him out to receive his critical praise for their writing, even the "Communist" ones. Eventually, and only towards the end, does the brutal reality of the regime raise its ugly head and in the circle that Urrutia frequents...

Reading Roberto Bolaño's flowing prose that does not allow for chapters or even paragraphs is exhausting, engaging and, yet, at times, irritating. The author's personal experiences under the Pinochet regime -imprisonment and exile - have informed his characterization of Urrutia and his mentor, Farewell. One had to admire his restraint in depicting his anti-hero. There are few sections where allusions to Chilean reality could suggest that Urrutia may have been more conscious of events around him than he lets on. But in one - watching the shadows around him and Farewell appearing and disappearing, clearly irritating Urrutia - in the end, it is a question for him to "close his eyes". Even the discovery of the brutal events hidden in the basement of the house where the literary saloons take place, are described in an understated way. For Chilean readers, however, the known identity in real life of the persons on whom the hosts as well as other key figures were based would have added a chilling aspect to such a low-key account. And what about the wizened youth at the end? Is he the final judge and conscience? Probably. Personally, I found the ending, after high expectations, disappointing but that may have been the intention of the author. [Friederike Knabe]

I am afraid that, in describing this book, I may make it seem oblique, abstruse, or difficult. Yes, it is all of these -- but it is also fascinating, horribly compelling, and virtually impossible to put down. Written in one unbroken paragraph, in short phrases often strung into sentences that can go on for pages at a time, it is the death-bed musings of one Sebastián Urrutia Lacroix, a Chilean Jesuit and, under a pseudonym, one of his country's leading literary critics. At its most obvious level, this is a book about literature. Pablo Neruda makes occasional appearances, and the book is laden with references to writers alive and dead, from a 13th-century troubadour to the Chilean author of a contemporary hit. Chilean readers would surely pick up on the many references almost as codes: the rumored homosexuality of this writer, the suicide of another, the fascist leanings of yet a third. This is a book that could easily be swelled to twice its size with footnotes, except that notes would break the sprung rhythms of Bolaño's prose; sometimes a hypnotic incantation, sometimes working on the reader like an itch, it exerts its own power, and the sense of layers and layers lying beneath the surface is a large part of that. What I have seen of Chris Andrews' translation truly catches Bolaño's style, though reading the book in Spanish did add an extra veil of darkness.

[SPOILER ALERT: The power of this book, I believe, is less in what happens than in how it is told. Readers who fear otherwise, however, should stop now.]

The Spanish title is NOCTURNO DE CHILE, but this nocturne is no soothing music to go to sleep by, rather a waking nightmare in which names and memories rise up from the darkness to accuse and condemn. Urrutia is haunted by a "wizened youth" (joven envejecido) who forces him to face the past. Brilliant and cultured though he is, he realizes he has been the plaything of others. He is taken under the wing of the leading critic of the day, a wealthy homosexual known as Farewell. He is sent to Europe by two right-wing businessmen whose names, Oido and Odeim, are the Spanish words for "hate" and "fear" spelled backwards. His task is to study the preservation of crumbling churches, but what he finds is a series of priests who hunt the defecating doves with trained falcons, heedless of the symbolism of the Church killing the Holy Spirit in its zeal for self-preservation. Returning to Chile, Urrutia sees a huge flock of falcons crossing the ocean with him. Back home, indeed, the birds of prey are already in full power, with the murders and abuses as the Marxist government of Allende is overthrown by the ultra-right Pinochet. Some time later, Urrutia is recruited for a secret task, to give classes on Marxism to Pinochet and his generals, so they may better extirpate their enemies.

It is chilling how the literary and political strands interweave. Two real-life poet-diplomats, one Chilean the other German, argue about art in occupied Paris while their mutual acquaintance, a Guatemalan painter, starves to death. Urrutia talks literary theory with Pinochet while his generals set their sights on a dangerous young activist writer, Marta Harnecker. The intellectuals of Santiago gather weekly in the salon of a mediocre author, María Canales, waiting out the all-night curfew, while her American husband does work for the state in the basement: "We never heard anyone yell; the electricity just cut out and then came back."* Towards the end of the book, Urrutia dreams of standing beneath a huge tree in the center of a Renaissance square, a single falcon perched in its branches, barren of all leaves. He recognizes the tree of Judas, the symbol of his country, and his personal Calvary. Rightly so.

*This is actually based on a real case of a CIA operative named Michael Townley.

This novel is narrated in the first person by the ill and ageing Father Sebastian Urrutia Lacroix over the course of a single evening. Father Urrutia believes that he is dying, and in a feverish monologue, with a not entirely reliable memory, he revisits some of the crucial events of his life as a Chilean priest, member of Opus Dei, a literary critic and a mediocre poet.

`Words emerging from one dream and entering another.'

In his delirium, Father Urrutia sees various characters, both real and imaginary, as monsters. Monsters they may be, many of them, in life as well as in fiction. As Father Urrutia's monologue ranges from Opus Dei to falconry, to private lessons on Marxism for General Augusto Pinochet, the `wizened youth' reminds him of his shortcomings. And during this long night, while we hear Father Urrutia's `confession' and feel his need to find himself without blame in the events he describes, the imagery signals differently. If the `wizened youth' represents both dormant conscience and repressed consciousness, then it is not a burden for Father Urrutia to bear alone.

`One has a moral obligation to take responsibility for one's actions, and that includes one's words and silences...'

The Chilean literary establishment is also complicit: how else can a house used by those with literary aspirations double as a torture centre? This may be satire, but it is highly disturbing as well.

`.. a white shirt as immaculate as my hopes..'
I am currently reading my way through Roberto Bolaño's work. This novel was first published in 2000, and was the first of Bolaño's novels to be published in English (in 2003).

Jennifer Cameron-Smith

The basic description given for this novel is the death bed confessions of a dying priest, but that in no way begins to describe this novel.
This was the first Bolano novel I read, and I thought it was weird but good. After I got more into him, I read it again and was blown away by it. While I couldn't praise this novel enough, it wouldn't be the first of his books I would recommend to read. I'd read Last Evenings or Amulet first. However, this novel does deserve to be read. It's beautiful and strange, and not at all what people will expect.
It's not a novel I can guarantee you will like: he has a style that will frustrate some people. It doesn't exactly have characterization, and the characterization is does have is different than most.
What I love about this novel, as with all of his work, is the emotional levels. It goes from being hilarious (the part with the falcons) to being incredibly sad (the part with the painter) and it is so unpredictable it's mind boggling. I beg you to try Bolano. He deserves to be read.