2666

dlbrows:

2666 - Roberto Bolaño

Soooo I was in this tumblr book club where we read 2666 together. I was waiting and waiting for people to post their thoughts… apparently it happened a month ago. No idea how I missed that.

Anyway, reviews from me months after I finished a book are borderline pointless. If I don’t take notes, and I didn’t, my memory of the story is all over the place. Even when it comes to some of my favourite reads. 

(you should hear me when I meet someone who enjoyed The Brothers Karamazov. I get all excited and try and talk to them about it and it goes a little something like this; Oh man wasn’t that one brother, like, totally, like mean and stuff? But the other brother was super nice! The third was medium. I liked that they had trains in the story. I like trains.) 

This book. Ugh. This book. Great and bad at the same time.

It’s split up into five parts that Bolaño had originally requested be five novels. I wish so much, and wished while reading, that they had done this instead of publishing it as one book. Then I could have read the first part by itself and just been amazed. The first part of this book, titled “The Part About the Critics”, is terrific. Great story, surprisingly hilarious, and has insightful things to say about love, relationships and academic conferences. 

The second part was kind of dull, but had a great side story about one of the characters hanging a book on Geometry in his backyard on a clothesline so the book could learn something about real life. 

The third part was ok, has some intense scenes and had some boxing scenes soooo that’s a positive. Also had one of the worst paragraphs I’ve ever read. No idea what it said anymore, all I know is I wrote (in pencil) in the library’s copy of this book, “weak” with an arrow pointing to the paragraph. 

The fourth part, oooooh the fourth part. Horrible. Bolaño basically takes you through 2000 deaths, some just as a mention but many he describes in great detail. Young women, young girls, being raped, stabbed and cut up. Over and over. Page after page. It was far too much. 

I get it, Bolano wants these deaths to weigh on you while you read them over and over, as it would have weighed on the people of this city where all these killings were happening. But it crossed a line to me and became crude. And boring to be honest (how many times can you read about the same kind of death over and over? Or read about a character’s back story knowing she would be raped and murdered once you turned the page). 

Nevertheless I pushed through it. Pretty much because I told my tumblr homies I would. 

Part five was much better and reminded me how much I liked the first part of this book. The character of Benno von Archimboldi, who connects a lot of the stories, is really well done. And it was fun to see some of the story lines finally come together.

Overall, would I recommend this book to someone? No. I wouldn’t go out of my way to discourage it though as I’d be interested in hearing what they thought.

Would I read Roberto Bolaño again? I’m reading By Night In Chile right now, so yes. I loved part one of this book. Loved it. So I’m giving  Bolaño another try (well, with a book that is only 130 pages) and so far it has been really good.