2666: A Novel by Roberto Bolano Summary and Reviews
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Book Reviews of 2666: A Novel
Book Review: Five wonderful novels that have brought the evolution of the novel a step forward
Summary: 5 Stars
Balano orginally wished to publish these books as five seperate novels to be released 1 year apart. His heirs decided that one "novel' in 5 parts was a better way to bring this to market.
The five novels in these books are releated to each other by sharing minor characters and minor characters. But each novel could stand alone.
The translation is wonderful and riveting also.
I think that the humor in the first book The Part About the Critics is misundersood. Balano has chritics who are self important and name drop who are supposedly enlightented and forward thinking. But they are stimied in idiotic sexual leasions and brutal attacks sometimes verbal and often physical. The first book is a parody of the relation of critics giving there lives to an authors work they neither understand nor can own.
The second book often I think throughs readers because it is no longer a parody but a story of a man going into madness. He is driven made by the city Santa Teresa which is corrupt and deadly. His enlightened mind falls appart because of his enviroment. It shows how men who aproach insanity can function normally but slowly loss a grip of the world. Also there is a cautionary note that the insane often know things about reality that the rest of us try to ignore.
The third book is about a reporter who is almost destroyed by Santa Teresa. It validates the second books main characters insanity. As well as shows the danger the same city Santa Teresa has for the sane.
The Santa Teresa saga continues in the fourth part about the crimes. Where we see that Santa Teresa is a vailed description of Jarez Mexico and the killings of women that are still to this day going on. This section is graphic and chilling. But as you read of the murders you become more and more empatheic with their plight.
The final section is about a reclusive author who haunts the first five books and ties everything together but leaves the ending of the book open to our minds.
The books are allgedly unfinished but my opinion is that the last book was finished but some final cuts were not made. I believe the story is intact and an extra 20 pages that were not edited out of this 900 page book make little difference to the story. the first five books are highly polished and the last book is great but could have had a few unnecessary things cut. Again this does not distract greatly from the beauty of the last book nor the sum of all five novels.
This book is a new step forward in the idea of the novel. I am sorry that Balano will not write again, his death is a tragedy to literature. His previous books I found distracted and lacked what this book did not. this is a mature writers legacy. I am sure Balano's imment death greatly shaped the book and brought it a richness that deserves a place in anyones libary.
The book begins with three Quitoxe and ends with a reluctant Cyrano.
This is the best book I have read this year. I have to say that the joy of reading this book and Nathan Englanders Ministry of Special Cases has made my recent reading completely satifying and exillerating.
Book Review: GREAT read
Summary: 4 Stars
This latest novel by Roberto Bolano goes with me wherever I go, and the hardback is a heavy book to carry around! Bolano's complicated love story/mystery has woven itself into my life. I am not finished yet, but I can be sure this will be my favorite novel in years.Book Review: Good in part
Summary: 3 Stars
Had the five parts of this long work been published as five separate novels- as it could well have been without giving room for any sense of being disjointed- part five would have got 5 stars, part one 3 stars and the rest no stars at all.
Part 1 describes the activities of three critics-two men and a woman- united in their common interest and adulation of a postwar German writer who goes by the surprising name , Benno von Archimboldi.Their common interest in literature develops into a common interest in sex amongst themselves.But the two male critics continue their friendship while each of them sleeps with the female critic to the knowledge of the other.They seem immune to natural jealousy. Is it because of their maturity or because their common interest in Archimboldi overrides all petty feelings? At one point they even suggest a menage a trois!.Ultimately, the two male critics go to Mexico in the hope that they will be able to meet Archimboldi face to face.
Part 4 is nearly 300 pages long and gives details of the many women killed at Santa Teresa close to the U.S.-Mexican border. Most of the women killed were prostitutes and all most all of them had been raped and strangled.Bolano's description of how the corpses were dressed is complete. But this part contributes nothing vital to Archimboldi's story except through Klaus Haas who is arrested as a suspect killer.
Part 5 is the best of 2666.The reclusive dreamer, Hans Reiter, becomes a war hero and finally finds his metier as Archimboldi.He is in the German advance into Russia, sees his comrades killed in the fight,is himself wounded seriously. While recuperating he comes across the diary of the Russian Ansky and learns how Ivanov first feted as a writer in the early of years of the Soviet Revolution, was killed in the purge of 1936 because his work was thought suspect by the powers that be. So, Reiter, presumably, understands that the Soviet power structure was as ruthless as Nazism.Interestingly, Reiter claims to have strangled Leo Sammer, a German civil servant, who confessed to having killed several Jews on orders from above. Perhaps because as a civil servant Sammer might have escaped the dragnet cast by the allies to catch perpetrators of atrocities Reiter metes out unilateral justice! Part 5 shows the horrors of war on the eastern front, the indiscipline of defeat and the total loss of moral values leading to the crucifixion of the commander of the defeated division.Bolano indulges in digressions with sentences Proustian in length though not equally involved. He gives a non-Homeric lineage to Ulysees saying he is the son of Sisyphus. Such digressions detract from the flow of the work.
Klaus Hans, the suspect serial Killer of Mexico is revealed to be Archimboldi's nephew who is persuaded by his sister to go to Mexico to assist in Hans' defence. And thus the murders in Mexico become the coalescing point for 2666.B.T.Sampath
Book Review: HIGH IQ NEEDED
Summary: 1 Stars
I bought this book based on reviews, big mistake this time. I spent most of my time looking up defintions to 100's of words. I hated the spewing of authors I'd never heard of. The writing or words are geared towards intellectuals. I haven't even finished this book, I can't seem to get past the long winded boring little stories leading me somewhere in the slowest pace possible to nowhere. Maybe I'll get around to finishing it, but based on the 1 star reviews, I may not end up enjoying this book at all, even in some of the 4 star reviews they claim this book is more for academics or writers interested in the creative processes. BORINGBook Review: Hard Read, Not My Style
Summary: 2 Stars
I was very excited about the reviews both on Amazon and in other various places. I was excited to explore an author from a different country. I could not get past the first part of the book. It was interesting. Bolano does an amazing job of developing each character. I could not follow the plot very well. It is very possible that it is just not my style. It was a very slow read and difficult to understand. If you are new to Bolano and are looking for a new type of read, I would probably steer clear. I'm sure for Bolano fans this book is a masterpiece, but to the outsiders, it may be the opposite.