Book One of 2666 — “The Part About the Critics” — introduces four literary critics obsessed with a reclusive author named Benno Von Archimboldi. Archimboldi is as autobiographically unknown as Pynchon, and as built up with legendary accomplishments as Kurtz. Each of the four critics are introduced by way of their introduction to Archimboldi, as […]
Bolano’s 2666 packs more names per square foot of text than a Pynchon novel. It’s especially dense in the fourth book of the novel, “The Part About the Crimes” as Bolano relates the stories of the mysterious murders of women in the Sonora desert of Mexico. These women are occasionally anonymous, but usually have names, […]
Everyone says Roberto Bolano’s 2666 is titled in a “mysterious” way. That’s a euphemism for not having any idea what it means. Part of the mystery is that 2666 never appears in any of the five sections of the novel. 2666 does, however, take on the form of a date, and by a date in […]
In the New York Times, Steven Millhauser recently wrote about the distinctions between the genre of the short story and the novel. These distinctions are very well classified, although Millhauser manages to infuse some fresh poetic verve into the discussion. But there’s just as much difference between the compact, 300 page novel and the loose […]
I’m going to devote the entire upcoming week to Roberto Bolano’s magnum opus 2666, which FSG publishes in November. Perhaps because of its size, I’m not going to do anything as comprehensive as a book review. Instead, I’ll be posting disparate thoughts on various sections of the novel, posts with more of a conversational bent. […]
The French writer Jean-Marie Gutav Le Clezio just won the 2008 Nobel prize for Literature. He was eleventh on the list of betting sites, offering 14/1 odds, just between Inger Christensen and Michael Ondaatje. He’s published thirty-odd books, a few of which have been translated into English. Many people identify two distinct periods in his […]
The National Federation of the Blind is protesting the film adaptation of Jose Saramago’s Blindness. The director of the Federation, Marc Maurer, claims that “Blindness doesn’t turn decent people into monsters.” Jose Saramago has already dismissed the protesters quite emphatically, calling the protest a “display of meanness based on nothing at all.” The protest couldn’t […]
The Minnesota Review is in danger of shutting down, due to Carnegie Mellon’s intransigence regarding funding. It’s an age-old struggle between English departments squeezed for money, who want to shift funds to other seemingly more tangible benefits, and literary journals that are rarely self-supporting. David Kaufer, the head of the English department, insists that The […]
Nothing could be more foolish than betting on the Nobel. At least with the National Book Award and the Man Booker you have a shortlist to choose from. With the Nobel, it’s anyone’s guess. Besides, I’ve lost plenty of money betting on the stock market, which these days might be even more foolish than betting […]
So now that the British publishers of Sherry Jones’ “The Jewel of Medina” have been firebombed, do you think that Random House is congratulating themselves on a prudent decision? In terms of cost-analysis, and in terms of potential danger, and in terms of (some) public relations, Random House clearly took the correct path. If nothing […]
