What's the hook? What this book is even about? I mean I know it's about literary critics and murders in Juarez, but what is it about thematically? The most praise I've seen is about a segment detailing all the gruesome killings, but apparently that's only 1/5 of the book.
It's a book about "Evil". About people circling a void, be it intellectual, moral, or literal, or all three altogether; and what it means to keep looking at horror without ever fully understanding it.
Thematically I felt it was about the vastness of the world and the diversity of human experiences contained within. The individual characters have little understanding of the greater picture, and even the reader will be left with many unanswered questions by the end of the book. I liked it quite a bit.
>>25174509I don't like unanswered questions.
>>25174363The hook is the mystery, both about Archimboldi and the murdered women.As for thematically, I think this guy puts it best:>>25174405
>>25175176Is this true? After reading some of his poetry I wouldn't be surprised, quite frankly. But I don't necessarily dislike postmodernist stuff
>>25174363>What's the hook?There's no hook, it just throw you in...well, the first part is about searching for an enigmatic author but I would hardly call that a hook.>What this book is even about?Misogyny mostly with some idealogical ideas.I believe it's not worth reading. I stopped midway of the third part, the Part about Fate.
>>25175176This. It’s fucking boring and not well written.
>>25174363it's about how evil mutates but never disappears, how even the most educated are incapable of grasping how bloodthirsty the world is because their abstract education proves irrelevant in the face of real violence and they are dulled by trivial pursuits
>>25175722I think its well written for what the plot is but to bad the plot is shit.
why is it on top /lit/ books ranking while nobody really likes it
>>25176522Silent majority. I like it.
>>25175187if you consider yourself "heckin based" and pop an aneurysm at anything left-wing you'll hate 2666, if you're able to set aside your own political faggotry to enjoy literature you'll love it. one of the best novels of the 21st century so far IMO>>25174405fpbp. as I remember the book is 5 loosely connected novellas. really brutal book, unflinching, unforgiving, but propulsive and explosive. worth the time but not the place to start with bolano if you're new to him, better to start with picrel or Last Evenings On Earth, selected short stories. Nazi Literature in the Americas also very good and very darkly funny >>25175722>not well writtentruth to this desu. bolano is akin to dostoevsky in this regard; not saying that the two are literary equals, more saying that both are excellent novelists but poor writers. bolano's prose is fine. it's not anything special, kinda just gets the job done. if you read for prose style / lyricism, you might not like bolano as much>>25176522/lit/ is nothing if not contrarian
>>25176713>one of the best novels of the 21st century so farthat's not a high bar
>>25176713When he died, Bolano could be seen as left-wing, but with his own views.Today, he would be classified as alt-right and, last but not least, based. His books are full of masculine energy, without a shred of DEI correctness. Raw depictions of life are filtered through a fierce, Latin American sensibility. One moment, Bolano is describing how hard it is for a Pakistani taxi driver because of racism, the next, he's nearly murdered by angry, sensitive leftist literary scholars. If THAT isn't based literature, I don't know what is.
>>25178706The only """based""" thing in this book is how much he hates Mexicans.
>>25178706he was very homophobic as well (as any latin american man is to be)
>>25176713>if you consider yourself "heckin based" and pop an aneurysm at anything left-wingNo I'm not retarded, thanks for asking. It's just that the way the other guy described it, it could be either an hyperbole or what actually happened in the book (sounded like a scene Houellebecq would describe completely unironically)
>>25178706>Today, he would be classified as alt-right and, last but not least, basedyou've equated violence, death, and cruelty with being le heckin based, so when someone writes frankly about violence, death, and cruelty, you think they're on the right. which in its own way is fascinating and revealing
>>25176713>if you read for prose style / lyricism, you might not like bolano as muchFunny. The guy did it as a pure poet for most of his life and then switched to prose in his later years, only because it sold and he wanted to make money to sustain his family. Imagine what a giant of literature he would have been hadn't he died so young or had he gotten an interest in writing novels much earlier
>>25179473Poetry is a far more worthy endeavor for a writer than prose.
>>25179478I did not present an argument to the contrary
>>25175722>>25176713Did you read him in Spanish or in translation?
>>25174509thisotherwise, this thread is full of morons
>>25179456Those things both actually happen in the book, there's no hyperbole, at most there is lack of context.
>>25179574English of course
>>25179693He has a pretty insightful idea of it I agree. However just because someone didn’t like the book you like doesn’t make them a moron.
>>25179899Every literate man should know Spanish
>>25174363discordgg/zfVbW8yZm
>>25179919Only for literature from Spain though. Fuck that spic shit.before you get worked up, I’m joking
I'm currently reading the Part about Almalfitano, that faggot. Yet to see if he is capable of heroism or is yet another faggoty Italian.
>>25178904Bájale de pasas a tu cake.
>>25175176magats are such pussies
>>25178706lol no.
Threadly reminder, if your read this in english you have NOT read the book. You have just sucked of the smegma out of a translators cock and think you have actually gotten the real deal.
threadly reminder if you have sex but dont have multiple orgasms, say at least two digits worth, you havent had sex
Is his other work as good? This is my first South American writer.
>>25181691>This is my first South American writer.It makes no sense not to have read Borges. Get serious.
>>25181694I will get serious, anon.
It’s the closest thing to Blood Meridian that I’ve read (besides McCarthy’s border trilogy series). There is a detached feeling and harshness and emptiness that’s similar to BM. The one thing you have to know is the author died before it was finished and there is a lot of editing that should have been done. Like entire sections of fluff. In one part, very basic crime reports of female victims are repeated over and over to the point of boredom. You might skim certain sections. I liked the detective character a lot and the American reporter character was good too. Probably the best “new” book of the last few years, but I’d only recommend it to someone who can stomach the darker bits of life.
>>25174363
>>25182234But McCarthy, unlike Bolaño, can actually write well
>>25182234>doesnt get the book
Read the first "chapter" (there's only 5 chapters and they are hundreds of pages long each) in spanish, thought it was navelgazy and meandering. I figured the whole mistery would probably never be solved, I checked on google and it doesn't.IMO it isn't worth reading. I appreciate that he was going to die and chose to left something to his heirs. I also appreciate that his inheritors figured this was too crap to publish in five separate books.
>>25182453ok, proust. wont be subscribing to your substack
>>25182234Let me guess, 2666 and BM are the only two books you have actually read? Sorry, that’s probably not true and I’m just being an asshole. But, this reads like a 19 year old who’s describing a book he read but has a tenuous understanding of it is describing what he likes about it, which boils down to “the vibes”. I don’t see how they’re that similar except for a couple of themes, the actual writing is completely different; and as another anon stated, McCarthy’s is much better (not that I particularly enjoy him either.)
