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Amulet Paperback – May 17, 2008

by
Roberto Bolaño (Author)
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Roberto Bolaño (Author), Chris Andrews (Translator)
4.3 out of 5 stars 21 customer reviews
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Product Details

  • Paperback: 192 pages
  • Publisher: New Directions (May 17, 2008)
  • Language: English
  • ISBN-10: 0811217469
  • ISBN-13: 978-0811217460
  • Product Dimensions: 5.2 x 0.6 x 8 inches
  • Shipping Weight: 8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
  • Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (21 customer reviews)
  • Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #26,319 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Top Customer Reviews

5.0 out of 5 starsVery memorable -- almost too memorable
By James Elkins on January 5, 2008
Format: Hardcover
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.

One of the more acute reviews of Bolano recently was, I think, in the "London Review of Books"; the reviewer noted thaqt 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.

Wonderful book. I dare you to forget it.
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4.0 out of 5 starshaunting short novel, hard to shake
By huetenan on May 12, 2007
Format: Hardcover
A haunting hallucinatory story. The central event is hinted at but never directly mentioned, as far as I remember: namely, the cold-blooded murder of its own students by the Mexican state in 1968. This unsolved crime poisons and pollutes the very structure of the time and space that the heroine wanders like a ghost. She lives for poetry but there doesn't seem to be a poem that can cope with the violence she unwillingly experienced and survived. Her prophecies and dreams finally say what ordinary language can't.

Sounds too arty? No, it's lively and readable. The whole thing is held together and made compelling by the heroine's unique voice. You won't want to stop listening to her, even at her most confused. I suspect that this will be a classic that our great grandchildren will be reading and puzzling over too.
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5.0 out of 5 starsThe work of a great author?
By R. M. Peterson TOP 1000 REVIEWERVINE VOICE on May 20, 2008
Format: Hardcover Verified Purchase
AMULET is different, confusing, and disconcerting . . . and quite haunting. Although it probably is most readily classified as a novel, it does not easily wear that label. AMULET is a first-person narrative, but there is no real plot. Instead, what the narrator -- Auxilio Lacouture, a woman poet originally from Uruguay but now in Mexico City (and a character in another of Bolano's works) -- relates is more of a memoir of her years as a kind of groupie in the vibrant literary world of Mexico City in the mid-1960s to late-1970s. But this "memoir" is not chronological or linear, and it continually veers between the impressionistic and the realistic. Rather than "memoir", maybe it is better thought of as an all-night oral account (and accounting) of her "literary life" delivered by Auxilio to a small group of fringe literati in a cheap and shabby university apartment.

The central event in Auxilio's story is the police crackdown on the student movement and occupation of the National Autonomous Mexican University in September 1968. While the riot police cleared the campus of students and dissidents (an actual historical event, with fatalities) Auxilio cowered in the women's room on the fourth floor of the Philosophy and Literature building. Again and again Auxilio returns to this event, with evident uneasiness about having hid out in a bathroom stall.

Auxilio fancies herself the "mother of Mexican poets," and during the course of her bohemian life in Mexico City she has come into contact (or claims to) with a number of Latin literary figures and artists, including "Arturo Belano" (an obvious alter ego for the author Roberto Bolano, an alter ego who has appeared in other of Bolano's works).Read more ›
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4.0 out of 5 starsA Ringing in the Ears
By G. Bestick VINE VOICE on February 12, 2009
Format: Paperback Verified Purchase
I picked up Amulet for two reasons. First, Roberto Bolano is the "it" boy of Latin American novelists at the moment - critics and the literary fashionistas are climbing all over The Savage Detectives and 2666. Second the massacre at Tlateloco, which is what this book is about, is a shameful, neglected event in Mexican history.

Tlateloco first. In 1968, many thinking Mexicans were pushing the PRI, the ruling party in a one party country, to become more open and democratic. Some specific demands were: the repeal of an article in the penal code that allowed people to be locked up for "crimes of opinion;" the freeing of certain political prisoners; the removal of Mexico City's police chief. On October 2, 1968, students from the Autonomous University and elsewhere gathered for a meeting in Mexico City at the Plaza de Tlateloco. The army surrounded the plaza and opened fire. By the best estimates, over 300 people were killed and thousands more injured and arrested. Even by the harsh standards of Latin American politics, it was a massively brutal response, one that went largely unnoticed outside of Latin America in that turbulent year.

Amulet is a book that wants to bear witness. The story is told by Auxilio Lacoutre, an eccentric Uruguayan who fancies herself as the "mother of Mexican poetry" for the disinterested love and attention she showers on Mexico City's aspiring poets, including one Arturo Belano, a stand-in for the author. Auxilio becomes a heroine, at least in her own mind, because in 1968 she was holed up for almost two weeks in a ladies room at the Autonomous University while it was under siege by the police and the army.Read more ›
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Most Recent Customer Reviews

5.0 out of 5 starsCaptivating voice sustains this novel

A powerful book, yet accessible and easily read in an afternoon or over a weekend. I read this book because I was captivated by the character of Auxilio Lacouture in The Savage... Read more

Published 2 months ago by J Ludic
3.0 out of 5 starsSomewhat Obscure but Worthwhile Intro to This Author

This book was published in Spanish in 1999 and English in 2006. Along with By Night in Chile, it's been called a good introduction to the work and themes of Bolaño. Read more

Published 7 months ago by Reader in Tokyo
3.0 out of 5 starsBolano is a fair writer but this book doesn't contain much of any real...

I heard a lot of great things about Bolano. I don't have that character on my keyboard for the 'n'. Anyway, I heard a lot of great things but frankly I was disappointed. Read more

Published 7 months ago by Lupiyardo Poomiha
3.0 out of 5 starsNaw

eh. Bolano fan, didn't see what the fuss was about this. There is some talk about how much of Bolano's work published is not as good as the novels he's known for.

Published 18 months ago by BronxRev
5.0 out of 5 starsFive Stars

gift.

Published 18 months ago by frank crescenti
5.0 out of 5 starsToo bad he died so young

It is a monologue narrated by a female. How hard would it be for a male writer to write as a female protagonist in first person. Read more

Published 24 months ago by Elena
5.0 out of 5 starschilling

am always amazed by the way Bolano spins his thoughtful webs of ghosts and delusion. i will forever read bolano

Published on March 28, 2014 by Bernard F. Pilon
5.0 out of 5 starsOne of Bolano's Best Works

I am a great fan of Bolano and this book did not disappoint. I have read all of his novels and have moved on to reading his short stories now. Read more

Published on November 25, 2013 by Mahi Joe
4.0 out of 5 stars"How right they are, dust and literature, from the beginning..."

Roberti Bolano was a Latin American author who was born in Chile, and subsequently lived in several other countries, including Mexico. He died in 2003, at the age of 50. Read more

Published on February 15, 2013 by John P. Jones III
5.0 out of 5 starsShort, dreamy, gritty

I'd never read Roberto Bolano before. I will again. I just finished Amulet and was struck by a number of things. Read more

Published on July 13, 2011 by euonymous

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