2666: A Novel
by Roberto Bolano
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Book Reviews of 2666: A Novel
Book Review: thought I would love it...
Summary: 1 Stars
I enjoy reading, a lot. So, when I heard this book reviewed on NPR, read about it in 'The Week' and heard/read about it a third time - I said to myself, okay, I got it, I got it, I should be reading this book, it is going to be outstanding...So I really wanted to like this book.
I didn't. At all. I tried, I really tried. There are many reviews here that are way more specific than the ones I had heard/read, and I appreciate that some people really like this book. I am fascinated to meet one of them live some day and have a conversation.
I found this book to move so slowly...like get around to what you are saying already and say it - and then move on please. Maybe that is my personality. I felt as if it took a really long time to get across the point - of whatever story was being told. Maybe that is a sign of my times! Also, in many cases, I really didn't feel as if the story was going anywhere, so maybe I missed the point, I am not sure.
I did really appreciate the reviewer that said this is a "writer's novel" - or something to that affect - because I am not a writer, so maybe that is what I am missing - the part of my brain that is not developed there - so I am just not getting it!
I felt a need/want to write a review because with all the hype over this book, I think it important to share that there are totally different points of view and that it is okay to really like it...or not. But given all the rave reviews I had heard (and some of the strong negations to those who have given it less than three stars), I wanted to share my one star opinion.
I do thank all of you who have taken the time to comment, in length, and give a full review of the book and some insights to things I may not have thought about as completely, while fighting my way in this book.
Cheers, Maurya
Book Review: I'm baffled by the hype.
Summary: 2 Stars
Maybe I just don't get this book. Like many, I bought this on the strength of the reviews, and it's the positive reviews that forced me to plow through this relatively incoherent mess.
It seems that most reviewers readily acknowledge that the book doesn't have much by way of plot. Fine, I'm a pretty highbrow sort of person. I watch PBS. I do the Sunday crossword. I'm willing to accept the premise that a great work of literature doesn't necessarily need a plot. I'm a fan of Beckett, for instance. I'm a grown-up, more or less. I don't have to get a rip-roaring tale from everything I read.
The great disappointment isn't just the plotlessness, it's that this book provided nothing much of anything else, either. There is not a single character to care about here. Not the critics, not Archimboldi, not the dead Mexicans, nobody. The prose, while definitely competent, is nowhere near as engaging as the author clearly thought it was. There are no grand ideas introduced. There is no new light shed on the human condition.
Maybe I'm supposed to delight in the wicked send-up of literary academia. Maybe the ossified ineptitude of the Mexican bureaucracy is supposed to raise my dander. Maybe the dispassionately related saga of Reiter cum Archiboldi is supposed to fill me with awe. Maybe it's something else that makes this the greatest book written since the dawn of time.
Whatever it is, I just don't get it. I did not enjoy this book. I did not grow as a result of reading it, except in the sense that whatever doesn't kill me makes me stronger. Let the academics and posers wax lyrical over the merits of this book, such as they are. But if you're just, say, a typical college-educated person who loves books, move on. There's nothing to see here.
Book Review: The Evil of Indifference
Summary: 3 Stars
This novel is about the evil of indifference. The lovers pursue their affairs with indifference and lose their lover; the police in Santa Teresa pursue the serial killer with indifference and never catch the evil-doer; the great author lives his life with indifference and watched unspeakable evils and the professors are unable to find him or true satisfaction in their own lives. Absent from the nearly 300 pages of the cold description of the crimes is the impact on the families that lost their little girls to such brutal rapes and murders; many are lost to no one as they are never even identified. What could be more sad than being murdered and no one even misses you--the file is shortly closed on your life, which has no past, present or future. As Elie Wiesel said in his speech at the Seventh White House Millennium Evening on April 12, 1999, "to be indifferent to that suffering is what makes the human being inhuman." Those characters in the novel who try to make a difference are chastised for it, as when Lalo Cura tries to actually investigate the murders and is told to never do it again. Isn't that why the the final chapter harkens back to World War II? To remind the reader of Hitler, one of histories personifications of evil and the worlds indifference to what was going on in the death camps? There is no character that maintains an interest in stopping the deaths of the women and girls--even those that have an initial fascination, such as the journalist, soon move on with their lives without being deeply touched by the tragedies. None of that, however, makes it the best novel I have ever read. It is gruesome and unsatisfying, but not so profound as to move me to want to change the world. That would have made it a great novel and masterpiece.Book Review: Year's best novel 2008 here's why........
Summary: 5 Stars
I bought this book because most of the reviews were interesting but ambiguous. The reviews just left me curious. Really, the scope of this book is large and hard to decribe but the reason I would suggest it is that it is completely fascinating. Bolano's characters are spellbinding, odd and they hold your attention so well it's almost hypnotic. Reading this book has the effect of driving up on a bad car accident where bodies are strewn in the road: you keep looking whether you mean to or not. Another thing that I love about Bolano's writing is that he does not give you the option of becoming bored. He writes in short, vivid scenes. Scenes where something could go wrong, someone could get hurt, the character is scared or lost. Everything makes you want to stay. If you pick this up it will speak to you no matter who you are and you may have trouble putting it down.........The s:econd part: the part about the crimes is equally fascinating but very graphic. The purpose of the second part covers the murders, one after another. The most disturbing scene (and When I say disturbing I mean disturbing!) is when four mexican prisoners are held down and castrated by other prisoners as the prison guards look on and take photos. Believe me, Bolano describes this in such vivid detail that as soon as you read it you're going to say to yourself...okay this dude actually saw this happen and this should never occur even in the caveman days. Still you keep reading. It's amazing the level of tension this book is able to maintain throughout. Something IS always happening and yet you feel like something is about to happen...Book Review: Those Who Toil
Summary: 5 Stars
Perhaps Bolano's own words best describes this work:
"Now even bookish pharmacists are afraid to take on the great, imperfect, torrential works, books that blaze paths into the unknown. They choose the perfect exercises of the great masters. Or what amounts to the same thing: they want to watch the great masters spar, but they no interest in real combat, when the great masters struggle against something, that something that terrifies us all, that something that cows us and spurs us on, amid blood and mortal wounds and stench."
Bolano's final, colossal work is just that. Weaving five disparate narratives that brush, grate, and engage in shadow play with each other around the still turning point of this work- Santa Teresa (Ciudad Juarez), Mexico- Bolano has undoubtedly attempted to impart upon the reader those feelings most essential to Death and Man's existence within a Universe dictated by Nature, Chance, and Uncertainty. The words painted across this ambitious masterpiece are unmistakably those of a dying man. After reading this work, I am left with more questions than when I began. Counterintuitively enough, that is a good thing. While this work by no means exhibits perfection, it spurs us on, coaxing us through its multitudes, to excavate and face our own questions, whatever those may be.
On a lighter note, the obscure literary, philosophical, and historical references make for interesting detective work as the novel is read. This is not a work to be missed and these sort are few and far between.