2666: A Novel Paperback – September 1, 2009

`2666` is a writers novel, best appreciated by academics (or so inclined) and other writers, often commenting on itself, the craft of writing and the creative process. For the average reader the ending lacks coherence, seemingly 900 pages of often depressing anecdotal tangents about death. It's a generous work in that regard, there are 100s of stories, within stories, most of them entertaining and worth reading, but characteristic of Bolano, they don't really "end" in any traditionally satisfying way - one doesn't read this novel to find out what happens - although paradoxically, mystery is what drives the book forward.

Bolano successfully breaks one of the basic rules of fiction writing - rather than showing what happens, he tells what happens, like a journalist. Thus he is able to say as much in one paragraph that others take in a chapter. Bolano says as much in 900 pages that might normally take 2500. He does not use line breaks and quotes for dialog (except in book 5), so there are often long blocks of text with no white space - it's a 900 page novel of high word count, but smooth reading. Ironically I never felt I was wasting my time, as if every detail mattered, even though I guess none of it did, all of it did.

The novel is certainly an investment of time and energy. I would recommend it to anyone interested in European avant-garde literature, Latin American literature, literature in translation and a sprawling kind of dreamy (strange) ambiguous work resistant to classification and open to interpretations.

I, like most other readers, was first intrigued by the reviews of this book. From The New York Times and The New Yorker all the way down to my local paper, everyone had something to say about it. Dreamlike, epic, worldly, etc.

I don't normally purchase books, but I purchased this one.

I adored the first part, the second part, the last part, but the third part left me cold and confused and the fourth part, as you may have gathered thus far, is a collage of police response, political response, and personal responses to the hundreds of murders on the Mexico/US border.

I felt as though Bolano was trying to weave together his ability to write the personal narrative of a few characters, his ability to write almost fairy tale-like history, and an objective, raw account of reality. Instead of weaving them together, though, he placed them side-by-side, a sort of sampler plate of Bolano's abilities. It meant that most readers will most likely enjoy only some of the five sections.

His knowledge and perspective are astounding. The prose, when meant to be, is unique, intriguing, whimsical, or completely emotionless and succinct. Definitely written for a modern audience, as, unlike past authors, Bolano doesn't stretch anything beyond necessity, doesn't linger on any side story unless it's something the reader will inevitably feel to be vital. He keeps up a swift pace.

I recommend reading it. I recommend it for the pithy little quotations, for the little things that tie each part together, details from one clarifying mysteries from another, for the feeling that you're being taken on a crazy journey across multiple continents throughout the twentieth century, for the fact that you, as a reader, are bound to adore at least one of the five sections.

It's not perfect. We know that Bolano didn't have the opportunity to give it the time it deserved. But it's worth your time.

According to Mrs. Bubis, wife of publisher Mr. Bubis, one of the only people alive that knew Benno von Archimboldi, "how well anyone could really know of another person's work?"

Reading "2666" by Roberto Bolaño, I feel the same way. It has been quite a journey for the English reader with a talent of his kind. From "By Night in Chile" to the chilling "Romantic Dogs," (which I finished a week before this novel) to "2666," one of Bolaño's "longer" works, preceded by the fantastic "Savage Detectives."

Much has been written (and will be) concerning this novel (see the great reviews, beginning with the one in the New York Times). In short, and without giving too much away, the story revolves around five intervals, which Bolano wanted to be released separately (in 5 year increments), involving a cast of characters as thick as the book itself. Part 1 (About the Critics) concerns four critics: Jean-Claude Pelletier from France, Manuel Espinoza from Spain, Piero Morini of Italy, and Liz Norton who, through their love of Archimboldi, come together and discuss and revel in the mysterious nature of the man. Part 2 (About Amalfitano) and Part 3 (About Fate) concerns a Chilean college professor, Amalfitano, and his dealings with his daughter and a strange geometry books; and an African-American, Quincy Williams aka Fate, who takes a assignment in Mexico covering a boxing match, which soon gets derailed due to his interest in the murders of the women detailed in the next chapter. Part 4 (About the Crimes) concerns the cornerstone of the novel, the parts tying all these people together: the murders of women, detailed by Bolaño, in the city of Santa Teresa (Cuidad Juárez) in the Sonora Desert in Northern Mexico on the US border. Part 5 (About Archimboldi) gives the final insights into our characters and ends the novel much as we began.

With Bolaño, it is the manner of his story-telling that wins him fans as well as enemies. In "2666," he pushes the boundaries that he may have placed on himself before his death in 2003. My favorite passage, in which Liz Norton realizes the genius of Archimboldi, gives you a sense of his style, if you have not read him before. This could also sum up how some readers felt reading Bolaño their first time they tried to pay attention:

"It was raining in the quadrangle, and the quadrangular sky looked like a grimace of a robot or a god made in our own likeness. The oblique drops of rain slid down the blades of grass in the park, but it would have no difference if they had slid up. Then the oblique (drops) turned round (drops), swallowed up by the earth underpinning the grass, and the grass and the earth seemed to talk, no, not talk, argue, their comprehensible words like crystallized spiderwebs or the briefest crystallized vomitings, a barely audible rustling, as if instead of drinking tea that afternoon, Norton had drunk a steaming cup of peyote."

His style is attractive and inviting (although for some the large blocks of text and absence of quotations is a turn off) and the story itself is superb. If this was unfinished. If this novel was not how Bolaño envisioned or felt represented him, help us all what a complete "2666" would look like. Nevertheless, this is Bolaño's masterpiece. The hype is for real.