2666

[Guest]

Very much looking forward to this -- my copy should be arriving soon. The author died five years ago but just about managed to finish the book first. The English translation has taken this long to appear because of the length of the original (1,100 pages).

Review by Jonathan Lethem here

[Incandenza]

2666

Bolano first became well-known in America from his earlier novel The Savage Detectives; you might want to read that also. He also has a lot of short stories--the New Yorker has five available on their website.

[mafu]

2666

got curious after a mention on the xmas books thread and picked up a copy today. will make a start tonight

[Guest]

2666

Thanks for those Inca.

[radmonkey]

2666

I've been meaning to read 2666, I read savage detectives. It was especially enjoyable because I spent my summer in 2007 in Mexico City hanging out with the hipster/student set and attempting to get into the pants of upper-middle class Mexican girls (mirroring part of the book). It was great to read about the same streets 30 years in the past, I think I even hung out in the same coffee shop where a lot of the action takes place.
Honestly, if you have lived in Mexico City the book means so much more. It's like one giant love letter to "el DF".

I currently have two of his short stories collections on loan from the library. He's very good. I love how he finally freed latin american writers from magical realism, just for that alone he should be canonized.

Theres a bit of a Bolaño backlash and Denis Green style "If you want to crown him, crown him!" rants in the blogosphere. Something about not being able to appreciate his prose in translation. Jokes on them, I'm fluent in Spanish. I just have to track down some copies.

[Guest]

2666

Finally started reading this last night, and the first 150 pages are all about a love triangle between three European literary academics, which was not what I was expecting at all from the pre-release hype and the reviews. Presumably it veers off in a radically different direction fairly soon.

Still, very well written, even though there is one sentence around page 50 which seems to go on for months and does not exactly rival Philip Roth (the master of never-ending lines).

[Incandenza]

2666

11 more Bolano books previously unavailable in English to be translated in the next two years.

[Sam]

2666

Thought I'd revive this thread to announce that, having finished 'Faust' last week and the Mancunian football book today, I shall be embarking upon 2666 this evening. My thoughts will follow in about four years' time, when I've finished it. It's a fucking big book, isn't it?

[Anton Gramscescu]

2666

Well done. Keep us posted. I just finished The Savage Detectives a few days ago. Profoundly unimpressed with the first 150 pages or so (at least two of which are simply listings out of the phone book of 1970s Mexican poets), but I stuck with it and found it pretty rewarding in the end.

Not sure about 2666, though. The length is daunting and I'm a bit worried about too many more phone book pages.

[Sam]

2666

I'm back already. 35 pages in and already thoroughly enjoying it. There's a sentence starting on page 18 which goes on for nearly 4 1/2 pages and which I had to read a couple of bits of again to remind myself how it had started, but blimey. There's an extraneous 'that' in the very first sentence that didn't exactly fill me with confidence in the translator's abilities, but otherwise I think the prose is alright.

I'm off to have a shower now, before reading some more.

[Sam]

2666

Ok. Page 430ish now - about halfway through, and a fair chunk of the way into part 4 of 5. All I'll say is, this is a bloody brilliant novel. If you've looked at this thread and thought it looks interesting and you'll stick it on your 'books to buy' list, get it off that list now and order it. I love it.

[Sam]

2666

Page 570. It keeps getting bloody better. Even part 4, a fair portion of which is a litany of dead female bodies turning up at various points in the city.

I had a bit of a moment earlier this week where I implored everyone I know who likes (or claims to like) reading to buy it now. Someone on here must have finished it already - please don't spoil it, but don't feel you've got to leave this whole thread for me, either.

Also, my half-Colombian friend wants to read it partly on my recommendation and partly from having seen good reviews of it when he was visiting his cousins over Christmas. He's been unable to find it in Spanish at a reasonable price (my English edition, cover price £20, cost me about £8.50 from Amazon) - the cheapest Spanish-language edition he's located is €20, plus £16.50 postage. Even in Colombia he didn't find it for less than £40. Can anyone point me in the direction of an online bookshop for him?

[Guest]

2666

Sam - I always use The Book Depository - generally cheaper than Amazon and free delivery worldwide

http://www.bookdepository.co.uk/

They have 2666 in spanish for £27.61 (incl delivery) http://www.bookdepository.co.uk/book...graphicdata-26

[Sam]

2666

Thanks, Scouseroo.

I finished part 4 ('The Part About The Crimes') today, so only part 5 to go - which is 'The Part About Archimboldi', the author the critics who the first part is centred around are all disciples of. The way the first part is set up, and some of the second part, Archimboli has sort of loomed over the book so far as a shadowy figure, undefinable, even in parts 2 and 3, in which he's never once mentioned. I keep wondering if a background character is him. I suppose the next 270-odd pages are where I find out if I'm right. I don't expect to be.

I may well have this finished by the end of the bank holiday.

[Sam]

2666

I didn't, because I decided to go for a bike ride instead on Monday. But I finished it today, about 30 seconds before Didier Drogba's goal in the FA Cup final.

What an absolutely bloody staggering novel. VS, thanks for starting the thread and thus being the first person to bring it to my attention. It was evident from the structure throughout that the links between the various threads wouldn't all become clear until the final part, but I wasn't expecting it to run into the final 20 pages out of 893 before the wrapping-up - I won't say resolution - started.

I'm going to have to read it again and it being such a large book, and there being so many on my shelf that are as yet unstarted, that won't be for a while, but I'm so glad I did. It's in my mental list of 5 Favourite Novels.

What a novel.

[steveeeeeeeee]

2666

Antonio Gramsci wrote:

Well done. Keep us posted. I just finished The Savage Detectives a few days ago. Profoundly unimpressed with the first 150 pages or so (at least two of which are simply listings out of the phone book of 1970s Mexican poets), but I stuck with it and found it pretty rewarding in the end.

Just read the two phone book pages in The Savage Detectives. I'm really into it so far but the listing of poets as either faggots or queers tested my patience.

[steveeeeeeeee]

I'm half way through this and it's as good as Sam said it was. Glad I read Savage Detectives first (plus a load of other Bola?o stuff) because there are countless vsections where you just have to trust Bola?o as a story teller because he can really take you down some blind alleys.

Although it's difficult to say I've enjoyed it all, as "The part about killings" cannot be enjoyed, I actually had t just take a break because the last killing description really upset me. But I can't think of a writerI enjoy reading more than Bola?o, it's just so effortless and natural.

Anyway, Bobby Seaman's sermon in "The Part about Fate" has to be one of the most wonderful things I've ever read.

[Sam]

Glad it's living up to all that praise I gave it, steveeeeeeeee! Eleven years on, I should probably think about giving it that re-read at some point, although my English copy is with my parents and I don't know whether I'm brave enough to attempt it in Spanish ...

[Sporting]

Glad it's living up to all that praise I gave it, steveeeeeeeee! Eleven years on, I should probably think about giving it that re-read at some point, although my English copy is with my parents and I don't know whether I'm brave enough to attempt it in Spanish ...

On a similar note I read lots of Borges, Garcia Marquez (sorry no accents as that function is currently kaput) etc. in translation and I'm wondering if it's worth my time reading them again in the original. On the whole, I think previously unread novels are a better bet for me.

[Sam]

I resolved shortly after reading 2666 that from then on if something was originally published in Spanish, I'd read it in Spanish. That has resulted in my reading almost no Spanish or Latin American literature since then, because I read Spanish more slowly than I do English. Of the two authors you mention, though, I have read a lot of Borges in Spanish (some without having read it in English first), and Cr?nica de una muerte anunciada (I'm too pig-headed to not put the accent in there, even though I know it won't display properly until the next board upgrade), which I'd read already in English. I think brevity helped in both cases. Well let's face it, in the case of the Borges it clearly wasn't the uncomplicated language and ideas helping, because those aren't hallmarks of his writing. I'd definitely give Garc?a M?rquez's shorter stuff a go in Spanish without having read it in English. And veering back on topic, I've got one or two of Bola?o's shorter books* in Spanish still waiting to be read.

*Shorter in general, I mean, not just shorter than 2666, which would be literally everything else.

[Sam]

Oh, if you want to read some Borges in Spanish, though, might I suggest the Don Isidro Parodi stories, which he wrote with his best friend Adolfo Bioy Casares under the pen name H. Bustos Domecq (although mostly they're printed these days with Borges and Bioy Casares's names on the cover)? Several of them weren't translated for a good long while, and there's a good chance you've not read them unless you're a bit of a Borges obsessive (which as those who've been on this board a good while know, I am). They're very much inspired by Poe and Conan Doyle's detective stories. Great fun.

[Sporting]

No, I haven't read these. Gracias.

[steveeeeeeeee]

Has anyone read Hopscotch by Julio Cortazar? Think about making it my next read after 2666 based on the comparisons with Bolano.

Anyway, just got past page 500.

[Sam]

It's one of the ones I've had in Spanish since quite shortly after moving here, and which I still haven't read. I have read some other Cort?zar (in English and in Spanish), though, and he's dead good. Can't say how he compares to Bola?o's short stuff though, given I've read none of the latter.

[steveeeeeeeee]

Finished it the other night. As mentioned, I've read a fair bit of Bolano and can't think of a story he's written that has a decent end to it, but I really liked how 2666 closed and thought it was really clever the way it leaves the book open to accessed from any of the 5 stories/books within it. I get the idea this was Bolano's aim with the novel, for it to be separate and accessed in any order, but the order provided when the book is presented as a whole is definitely the better way to approach it.

If it were separate books, I doubt many people would want to read "The Part about the Crimes". One of the most unforgiving reads I've ever experienced but absolutely essential to the novel, it's what turns it from being an average Bolano story into a massive statement on humanity. I also would have liked to have read "The part about Archimboldi" on its own, not after 630 pages, many of which were punishing. "The Part about Archimboldi" is Bolano at his twisting narrative best, but f*ck me, you don't want to be taken on a side-journey about imaginary Russian science-fiction writers when all you want to know about is Archimboldi.

***spoilers***

What did I take away from it? That it is easy to see aspects of humans as less than worthless and when they die, disposal becomes the regret, not the loss of life. Fundamentally, it doesn't matter who does the killing, whether it be Santa Teresa serial killer, Nazi administrator or Stalinist secret police, everyone plays their part by following instruction, remaining silent and pretending the problem isn't there. That's why there is no solution to the killings in Santa Teresa. Generally, lots of things ensure whether your cards are marked or not, being poor, being a woman, being a Jew; all of these things decrease your significant worth. Whereas being rich protects you from all of these issues. Every time a rich person is killed in the book, their killer is found or will be found.

There's no way I'd recommend the book to someone who hasn't read Bolano before, it's at least 2 times as long as it need be, but enjoying Bolano is all about the journey he takes you on rather than a strong storyline. Really frustrating at times, but worth it in the end.