#2666 by roberto bolano

[saisons-en-enfer]

Jupiter et Sémélé

By Gustave Moreau (1894-95)

Oil on canvas

[areadersquoteslibrary]

"Something was missing. The decisive step, the bold stroke. The moment at which the larva, with a reckless smile, turns into a butterfly."

- Roberto Bolaño, ‘2666’

[mergist]

"Their work, it goes without saying, is of a very low standard. They employ rhetoric where they sense a hurricane, they try to be eloquent where they sense fury unleashed, they strive to maintain the discipline of meter where there’s only a deafening and hopeless silence. They say cheep cheep, bowwow, meow meow, because they’re incapable of imagining an animal of colossal proportions, or the absence of such an animal."

Roberto Bolano, 2666

[olympicwhite]

- The Woes of the True Policeman by Roberto Bolaño (translated by Natasha Wimmer)

[macrolit]

The 100 Best Books of the 21st Century.

As voted on by 503 novelists, nonfiction writers, poets, critics and other book lovers — with a little help from the staff of The New York Times Book Review.

NYT Article.

*************

Q: How many of the 100 have you read? Q: Which ones did you love/hate? Q: What's missing?

Here's the full list.

100. Tree of Smoke, Denis Johnson 99. How to Be Both, Ali Smith 98. Bel Canto, Ann Patchett 97. Men We Reaped, Jesmyn Ward 96. Wayward Lives, Beautiful Experiments, Saidiya Hartman 95. Bring Up the Bodies, Hilary Mantel 94. On Beauty, Zadie Smith 93. Station Eleven, Emily St. John Mandel 92. The Days of Abandonment, Elena Ferrante 91. The Human Stain, Philip Roth 90. The Sympathizer, Viet Thanh Nguyen 89. The Return, Hisham Matar 88. The Collected Stories of Lydia Davis 87. Detransition, Baby, Torrey Peters 86. Frederick Douglass, David W. Blight 85. Pastoralia, George Saunders 84. The Emperor of All Maladies, Siddhartha Mukherjee 83. When We Cease to Understand the World, Benjamin Labutat 82. Hurricane Season, Fernanda Melchor 81. Pulphead, John Jeremiah Sullivan 80. The Story of the Lost Child, Elena Ferrante 79. A Manual for Cleaning Women, Lucia Berlin 78. Septology, Jon Fosse 77. An American Marriage, Tayari Jones 76. Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, Gabrielle Zevin 75. Exit West, Mohsin Hamid 74. Olive Kitteridge, Elizabeth Strout 73. The Passage of Power, Robert Caro 72. Secondhand Time, Svetlana Alexievich 71. The Copenhagen Trilogy, Tove Ditlevsen 70. All Aunt Hagar's Children, Edward P. Jones 69. The New Jim Crow, Michelle Alexander 68. The Friend, Sigrid Nunez 67. Far From the Tree, Andrew Solomon 66. We the Animals, Justin Torres 65. The Plot Against America, Philip Roth 64. The Great Believers, Rebecca Makkai 63. Veronica, Mary Gaitskill 62. 10:04, Ben Lerner 61. Demon Copperhead, Barbara Kingsolver 60. Heavy, Kiese Laymon 59. Middlesex, Jeffrey Eugenides 58. Stay True, Hua Hsu 57. Nickel and Dimed, Barbara Ehrenreich 56. The Flamethrowers, Rachel Kushner 55. The Looming Tower, Lawrence Wright 54. Tenth of December, George Saunders 53. Runaway, Alice Munro 52. Train Dreams, Denis Johnson 51. Life After Life, Kate Atkinson 50. Trust, Hernan Diaz 49. The Vegetarian, Han Kang 48. Persepolis, Marjane Satrapi 47. A Mercy, Toni Morrison 46. The Goldfinch, Donna Tartt 45. The Argonauts, Maggie Nelson 44. The Fifth Season, N.K. Jemisin 43. Postwar, Tony Judt 42. A Brief History of Seven Killings, Marlon James 41. Small Things Like These, Claire Keegan 40. H Is for Hawk, Helen Macdonald 39. A Visit from the Goon Squad, Jennifer Egan 38. The Savage Detectives, Roberto Balano 37. The Years, Annie Ernaux 36. Between the World and Me, Ta-Nehisi Coates 35. Fun Home, Alison Bechdel 34. Citizen, Claudia Rankine 33. Salvage the Bones, Jesmyn Ward 32. The Lines of Beauty, Alan Hollinghurst 31. White Teeth, Zadie Smith 30. Sing, Unburied, Sing, Jesmyn Ward 29. The Last Samurai, Helen DeWitt 28. Cloud Atlas, David Mitchell 27. Americanah, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie 26. Atonement, Ian McEwan 25. Random Family, Adrian Nicole LeBlanc 24. The Overstory, Richard Powers 23. Hateship, Friendship, Courtship, Loveship, Marriage, Alice Munro 22. Behind the Beautiful Forevers, Katherine Boo 21. Evicted, Matthew Desmond 20. Erasure, Percival Everett 19. Say Nothing, Patrick Radden Keefe 18. Lincoln in the Bardo, George Saunders 17. The Sellout, Paul Beatty 16. The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay, Michael Chabon 15. Pachinko, Min Jin Lee 14. Outline, Rachel Cusk 13. The Road, Cormac McCarthy 12. The Year of Magical Thinking, Joan Didion 11. The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao, Junot Diaz 10. Gilead, Marilynne Robinson 9. Never Let Me Go, Kazuo Ishiguro 8. Austerlitz, W.G. Sebald 7. The Underground Railroad, Colson Whitehead 6. 2666, Roberto Bolano 5. The Corrections, Jonathan Franzen 4. The Known World, Edward P. Jones 3. Wolf Hall, Hilary Mantel 2. The Warmth of Other Suns, Isabel Wilkerson 1. My Brilliant Friend, Elena Ferrante

[weaselandfriends]

I was wondering, why specifically classic literature? I think I remember you mentioning that the "50 pages of of classics a day" thing was intended as a training method for improving your prose, do you believe there's a major difference between the quality of prose in classic fiction compared to more modern well-regarded fiction? Do you consider your personal style to be notably 'classic' or older-fashioned in any way? Finally would you recommend your strategy to other aspiring writers? In your opinion was it a smart choice to focus on the classics as you did?

For a very long time, until about 2017, I had an innate, unquestioned belief that people generally liked good things. Thus, if something was good, it would be become popular. And what is good? Why, classic literature is good! It is consensus, agreed-upon good, tested by time. To me, reading classic literature was just an obvious decision, not even really a decision at all. If wanted to be popular, I needed to be good. If I wanted to be good, I needed to be like other good things.

(Modern Cannibals is what divested me of these notions. I truly believed Modern Cannibals would be a bigger hit than Fargo, in fact a mainstream hit, something that would win the Pulitzer. Its dramatic lack of readers on release was a major blow to my psyche.)

In regards to prose, you can actually find pretty good prose stylists among the MFA literary fiction crowd even today. The main issue is that they have no artistic ambition and nothing to write about but themselves. In genre fic no, the prose is pretty bad. Brandon Sanderson, the titan of fantasy literature right now, intentionally attempts to make his prose as bland as possible, and that's probably the best you're going to get from anything anyone is reading. Someone told me to read The Name of the Wind, which they claimed had the best prose in any fantasy novel, but it was actually one of the worst books I've ever read. The most recent novel published that I would consider "great" is 2666 by Roberto Bolano, which came out in 2004.

I wouldn't consider my style old fashioned. It's probably more similar to the aforementioned MFA litfic crowd than, say, Gustave Flaubert. I am a product of my time, and for as much as I may be influenced by classic literature, I'm also influenced by the latest trashiest anime. (Oshi no Ko kind of a banger, no?)

I would certainly recommend reading classic literature to all aspiring young writers. It's essential to learn where the medium has been and what has been done with it, across eras and cultures. Prose is a tool that can itself have meaning, it is not simply a vehicle by which you impart the meaning inherent in plot and character. And if you don't learn your past, you just become rootless.

[frances-baby-houseman]

Genuine question for science:

2666 by Roberto Bolano

[charlott2n]

I think you'd love 2666 by Roberto Bolano then!!

currently read thatttt 😁 but tyyyyy!!!!

[etrangersvoyageant]

2023 favorites

Tagged by @godzilla-en-mexico

Albums

It was a pretty good year for music. These are my favourites (only records released in 2023):

Croatian Armor – A Part of You in Everything

Debby Friday – Good Luck

Deena Abdelwahed – Jbal Rrsas

Fatima Al Qadiri – Gumar

Field Lines Cartographer – Phases of This and Other Moons

HAAi - DJ Kicks

Nathan Micay – To The God Named Dream

Nabihah Iqbal – Dreamer

oqbqbo – Water Tiger

RatPajama – Drunken Lost Tapes

Schacke – Synchronized Breathing

SØS Gunver Ryberg – Spine

Tzusing – 绿帽 Green Hat

zaké & friends – Live at the Gothic Chapel

VA – Kotti Island Disc – An Auditive Snapshot

Books

Disclaimer: A few years ago I took a look at my ‘read’- shelves and found them too male and too white. So hence, I like to challenge myself. As for 2023 I put these goals up: - At least 50% LGHBTQIA authors. - At least 50% female authors (I’d like it to be as high as possible, but I wasn’t planning to only read lesbians.) -Read 2666 by Roberto Bolano.

Unbeknownst to me at the start of the year, I had a lot of trouble with my own work, which limited reading in general. However, I did manage to hit all my targets. I read 21 women (63%), 17 LGHTQIA authors (51%) and dedicated a part of Summer to Bolano’s epic novel.

Looking back, my favourite books were written by the LGBTQIA authors. Audre Lorde's Sister Outsider was the definite #1, but there were also some other great efforts:

Slavenka Drakulić – How We Survived Communism and Even Laughed

Akwaeke Emezi – The Death of Vivek Oji

Shola von Rheinhold – Lote

Adrienne Rich – Arts of the Possible

Lisa Weeda – Aleksandra

Film I’m not much of a movie watcher in general, but I have m moments when I make time to watch something that seems interesting to me. Last year Nomadland (Chloé Zhao), Anatomy of Time (Jakrawal Nilthamrong) and Atlantique (Mati Diop) stayed with me.

I'd like to tag some people, but we're already a week in the new year, so I can imagine if you're not interested. That being said, if you do make one, please tag me.

[fipindustries]

Given how you feel about Bojack, I'm curious how far you'd make it into 2666 (Or any Roberto Bolano novel, really) before you started using the pages as toilet paper.

i could check, my mom has some of his books.

Ill say though, i would judge literature by wildly different standards. Characters monologuing and giving large speeches about life works a lot better in written form

[lasatfat]

Tag nine people you’d like to get to know better

I was tagged by @findswoman. Always a pleasure, my friend and fellow lasat connoisseur.

Three ships: Finnreylo, 

First ever ship: Can’t remember. Probably something to do with Harry Potter.

Last song/album: 21st Century Breakdown from Green Day.

Last movie: Savageland. It’s available on YouTube if you’re curious. Never been truly scared of zombies before I saw it.

Currently reading: 2666 by Roberto Bolano. Slow going at the moment, but I’m enjoying it.

Currently watching: My mum and I are working our way through the Doctor Who revival series. 

Currently consuming: I’m not eating anything until 7pm, because we’re going out to a nice Italian restaurant.

Currently craving: 7pm

Anyone who fancies a go, take this as a tag from me. <3

[areadersquoteslibrary]

"Healthy people flee contact with the diseased. This rule applies to almost everyone. Hans Reiter was an exception. He feared neither the healthy nor the diseased. He never got bored. He was always eager to help and he greatly valued the notion—so vague, so malleable, so warped—of friendship. The diseased, anyway, are more interesting than the healthy. The words of the diseased, even those who can manage only a murmur, carry more weight than those of the healthy. Then, too, all healthy people will in the future know disease. That sense of time, ah, the diseased man's sense of time, what treasure hidden in a desert cave. Then, too, the diseased truly bite, whereas the healthy pretend to bite but really only snap at the air. Then, too, then, too, then, too."

- Roberto Bolaño, ‘2666’

[colonna-durruti]

È ben noto, pensò Arcimboldi, che la storia è una puttana molto semplice, che non ha momenti cruciali ma è una proliferazione di istanti, di attimi fugaci che competono fra loro in mostruosità.

Roberto Bolano, 2666

[itslegribou]

Les Couvertures (38)

2666 de Roberto Bolano (2004), éditions françaises chez Christian Bourgois, Gallimard, l'Olivier et Points.

[smithlibrary]

NYT's Best Books - 21st Century A book from the New York Times 100 Best Books of the 21st Century

My Brilliant Friend by Elena Ferrante (Fiction)

The Warmth of Other Suns by Isabel Wilkerson (Non-fiction 304.809 WIL)

Wolf Hall by Hilary Mantel (Fiction)

2666 by Roberto Bolano (Classics)

The Underground Railroad by Colson Whitehead (Fiction)

Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro (SFF)

Gilead by Marilynne Robinson (Fiction)

The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao by Junot Diaz (Fiction)

The Year of Magical Thinking by Joan Didion (BIO)

The Road by Cormac McCarthy (Fiction)

Outline by Rachel Cusk (Fiction)

Pachinko by Min Jin Lee (Fiction)

The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay by Michael Chabon (Fiction)

Lincoln in the Bardo by George Saunders (Fiction; also available as eBook or eAudiobook)

Say Nothing by Patrick Radden Keefe (364.152 KEE)

Evicted by Matthew Desmond (Nonfiction 339.46 DES)

Behind the Beautiful Forevers by Katherine Boo (Non-fiction 305.569 BOO)

The Overstory by Richard Powers (Fiction)

Atonement by Ian McEwan (Fiction)

Americanah by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie (Fiction)

Cloud Atlas by David Mitchell (Fiction)

Sing, Unburied, Sing by Jesmyn Ward (Fiction)

Salvage the Bones by Jesmyn Ward (Fiction)

Fun Home by Alison Bechdel (BIO)

Between the World and Me by Ta-Nehisi Coates (Non-fiction 305.8 COA)

A Visit From the Goon Squad by Jennifer Egan (Fiction)

H Is for Hawk by Helen Macdonald (Nonfiction 598.944 MAC)

Small Things Like These by Claire Keegan (eAudiobook)

A Brief History of Seven Killings by Marlon James (Fiction)

The Fifth Season by N.K. Jemisin (SFF Fiction)

The Goldfinch by Donna Tartt (Fiction)

A Mercy by Toni Morrison (Classics)

Persepolis by Marjane Satrapi (BIO)

The Vegetarian by Han Kang (Fiction)

Trust by Hernan Diaz (FICTION)

Life After Life by Kate Atkinson (Mystery)

Tenth of December by George Saunders (Fiction)

The Looming Tower by Lawrence Wright (Non-fiction 973.931 WRI)

Nickel and Dimed by Barbara Ehrenreich (Non-fiction 305.569 EHR)

The Story of the Lost Child by Elena Ferrante (Fiction)

Stay True by Hua Hsu (BIO)

Middlesex by Jeffrey Eugenides (Fiction)

Heavy by Kiese Laymon

Demon Copperhead by Barbara Kingsolver (Fiction, eBook, eAudiobook, Large Print)

The Great Believers by Rebecca Makkai (Fiction)

Far From the Tree by Andrew Solomon (YA Non-Fiction YA 362.408 SOL)

The Friend by Sigrid Nunez (Fiction)

The New Jim Crow by Michelle Alexander (Non-fiction 364.973 ALE; also available for download as eBook and eAudiobook)

The Passage of Power by Robert A. Caro (BIO)

Olive Kitteridge by Elizabeth Strout (Fiction; also available as eBook and eAudiobook)

Exit West by Mohsin Hamid (Fiction)

An American Marriage by Tayari Jones (Fiction)

Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow by Gabrielle Zevin (Fiction)

When We Cease to Understand the World by Benjamin Labatut (Fiction)

The Emperor of All Maladies by Siddhartha Mukherjee (Non-fiction 616.994 MUK)

Frederick Douglass by David W. Blight (BIO)

The Sympathizer by Viet Thanh Nguyen (Fiction; also available as audiobook)

Station Eleven by Emily St. John Mandel (Fiction)

Bring Up the Bodies by Hilary Mantel (Fiction; also available as audiobook)

Men We Reaped by Jesmyn Ward (BIO)

Bel Canto by Ann Patchett (Fiction; also available as eAudiobook)