La Pista De Hielo (Spanish Edition) [Paperback]

Roberto Bolano (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: November 1, 2003

Tres versiones de un crimen surgen en esta novela que transcurre en un pueblo de la costa española: la de un chileno con pretensiones de escritor que ha ejercido toda clase de oficios hasta salir adelante; la de un mexicano, también poeta y desarraigado, que sobrevive como vigilante nocturno en un camping, y la de un emprendedor catalán metido a político, capaz de todo por llamar la atención de una caprichosa patinadora. Los peores presentimientos de cada protagonista tienen relación con una pista de hielo construida ilegalmente dentro de una casona abandonada. Esta novela contiene las claves del universo literario de Roberto Bolaño, la clave policíaca, los amores rotos, las ilusiones perdidas. Aquí están también su capacidad de observar la realidad de forma singular, su pulso narrativo o su humor feroz, cualidades que lo han convertido en un escritor de referencia indispensable en la actualidad.

--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Editorial Reviews

Language Notes

Text: Spanish --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Product Details

• Paperback
• Publisher: Planeta Publishing (November 1, 2003)
• Language: Spanish
• ISBN-10: 8432211753
• ISBN-13: 978-8432211751
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 5.2 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 9.6 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #3,637,371 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Author of 2666 and many other acclaimed works, Roberto Bolaño (1953-2003) was born in Santiago, Chile, and later lived in Mexico, Paris, and Spain. He has been acclaimed "by far the most exciting writer to come from south of the Rio Grande in a long time" (Ilan Stavans, The Los Angeles Times)," and as "the real thing and the rarest" (Susan Sontag). Among his many prizes are the extremely prestigious Herralde de Novela Award and the Premio Rómulo Gallegos. He was widely considered to be the greatest Latin American writer of his generation. He wrote nine novels, two story collections, and five books of poetry, before dying in July 2003 at the age of 50. Chris Andrews has won the TLS Valle Inclán Prize and the PEN Translation Prize for his Bolaño translations.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

2 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Bolaño's best novel, January 31, 2009

By 

Luder (Saddam City) - See all my reviews

This review is from: La Pista De Hielo (Spanish Edition) (Paperback)

_La pista de hielo_ is, in my view, easily B's best novel. It is on par with his best short stories. The praise and attention the big novels have garnered are altogether out of proportion to their merit. _Estrella distante_ and _Nocturno de Chile_, B's other short novels, are mighty annoying, and _Amberes_, a somewhat unclassifiable book, is downright unreadable. That leaves some of the short stories and _La pista_, a short and affecting and indeed rather conventional novel that takes place in a small and seemingly tight-knit beach town.

The depiction of the town, as it happens, is one of the attributes of this novel. The reader feels as if he is walking its streets and meeting its people; in _Los detectives salvajes_, by contrast, towns and cities are evoked simply by listing names of streets. The impression is one of reading an index to a city atlas.

The characterization of the novel is also successful. Here, as I recall, there are only three voices, and all of them are, as it were, a joy to listen to. The pennilessness of a couple of the characters is moving (unlike that of the wretches in _Los detectives_, who seem to me to get exactly what they deserve), and they don't talk too much. In the streams of consciousness in B's other short novels, or with the scores of voices in the big novels, there is no room for silence. For me, silences are essential in a novel, and their absence in most of B's work is one of the things I miss most. Let me quote another Latin American writer, who expresses some of what I'm trying to say, though applying the quotation to B's work is perhaps unfair, as B's plainspokenness is hardly oratorical: "Have you read his latest novel?" his friends ask him, referring to a famous writer. "What musicality, what rhythm, what richness of voice! It's a true oratorio!" "Let him sing it," replies Luder.

The mature irony of _La pista_, is another thing that, in my view, makes it B's best novel. The humor of the big novels, by contrast, is mostly juvenile, and in the other shorter novels you'd be hard pressed to find anything funny at all.

Finally, in _La pista_ there's a plot. A plot! Where was it in the other novels? In vain did I search. A plot need not be intricate, or even the primary reason for reading a book, but books that don't intrigue their readers can only be judged failures.

I may not have convinced you that _La pista_ is B's most successful novel, but think what you might have read about the big novels. The NYT, the New Yorker, Harpers, the Atlantic, Slate, and so on--and that's just in the US! Nearly all unanimous in their gushing praise. Nary a dissenting opinion! How right Edward Abbey was to liken literary critics to giant schools of minnows, all turning in the same direction at the same time! Good Lord!