Review: "2666" by Roberto Bolano

This is the reason I don’t like reading dead authors that much. The amount of books published by them that you are able to get your hands, while may be great, is always going to be limited. The argument can be made that what we have is great enough, but I may be a little greedy in wanting more. Having said that, it is a shame that 2666 and another big novel, The Savage Detectives, are the only two major works by the great Roberto Bolano that we have on Earth. I really loved this book, for its readable, yet exhausting qualities, and the way it crafts an almost living nightmare out of the squalor of the border city Santa Teresa. This is by no means a brisk read that goes by quickly. It is probably the most arduous read I have undertaken since I started seriously reading. It really is a book meant for breaks and vacations. Reading it when you have things to do is a big mistake. It starts to swallow you whole in a way, and you start thinking about it at odd hours, the book itself haunting your everyday activities like the guilt of a crime. And it is absolutely brilliant, despite its excessive nature. The meandering plot involves two seemingly separate ideas: one focuses on the reclusive German writer Benno von Archimboldi, who no one has seen in years and is a sort of fetish object for the literary elite, the other one concerns the almost preposterous number of female homicides in Santa Teresa. We see these two ideas threaded through three different stories that involve three academics searching for the writer in said border town, a philosophy professor slowly going insane with paranoia in the same town, and a black journalist covering a boxing match in the same town who gets involved with the crimes investigation. It isn’t until the last two, very long parts do we go almost too in depth to the main two ideas of the novel, and when we find out how each one is related, the reader will be in awe of Bolano’s mastery of extraneous details and the way he hides important facts in seemingly useless narrative tidbits. From what I can gather from reading it, I see a couple of themes Bolano might have been writing about. Santa Teresa is a city that is being destroyed from within, like a cancer no one seems to care enough to find it and cut it out. The town itself reminded me a lot of Derry, Maine, the town Stephen King’s It takes place in. Santa Teresa might as well have a killer clown committing these horrific crimes; it makes more sense then the reality. I also say themes of the uselessness of academic elitism, and how it really has no affect on the person’s goodness or character, and a smart English professor can be just as cowardly as any individual. But really, a lot of this books magic comes from its inherent mystery and puzzle like structure that confuses and entices the reader all at once. It might seem appropriate for Bolano to die prematurely, because he may have left us the books biggest mystery. The book can’t really be put into words, just read it, in all its maddening glory.

Rating: 5/5