New Story: William Burns

The New Yorker has posted a new Bolaño story called “William Burns.”

It’s unclear (right now, to me) if this is part of some other draft of 2666 or just tangentially related, but it sure reads like an excerpt from a later section of the novel. Note that it is translated by Chris Andrews and not Natasha Wimmer.

William Burns, from Ventura, California, told this story to my friend Pancho Monge, a policeman in Santa Teresa, Sonora, who passed it on to me. According to Monge, the North American was a laid-back guy who never lost his cool, a description that seems to be at odds with the following account of the events. In Burns’s own words:

It was a dreary time in my life. I was going through a rough patch at work. I was supremely bored, though up till then I’d always been immune to boredom.

3 Comments

Matt, February 1st 2010 | Tags: , , , ,
Posted in stories

Week 2: The White Hind

by Maria Bustillos

So this morning I came across my loveliest find in the book so far. Pelletier and Espinoza are finally forced to discuss their joint and several loss of Norton at the symposium in Mainz. Everybody has left the bar, and Pelletier finally brings up the subject of Norton. How is she? Espinoza confesses that he does not know. The white phone in her apartment “floated in their conversation. Then:

Oh white hind, little hind, white hind, murmured Espinoza.

(What a strange, pretty phrase!)

“Pelletier assumed he was quoting a classic…”

Since I am attuned to the subject of quotation/rewriting in this book (see my earlier post,) I made haste to source this quote. My first instinct was to look up what I remembered of the phrase, “the white hind,” in English. On a Wiccan site I read that “According to Celtic myth, Otherworld deities sent a white hind or stag to guide chosen humans into their realm.”(http://paganismwicca.suite101.com/article.cfm/deer_pagan_symbol_of_gentleness)

And then, the White Hind is an old image of purity and immortality; an image of the pursued beast, eternally pursued, as in Dryden’s “The Hind and the Panther” (okay so the Hind also symbolizes the Catholic church, here, but still):

A milk-white Hind, immortal and unchang’d,

Fed on the lawns, and in the forest rang’d;

Without unspotted, innocent within,

She fear’d no danger, for she knew no sin.

Yet had she oft been chas’d with horns and hounds

And Scythian shafts; and many winged wounds

Aim’d at her heart; was often forc’d to fly,

And doom’d to death, though fated not to die.

Then I thought I’d better check the Spanish for this phrase, and it turns out that “La Cierva Blanca” is a freaking beautiful poem by Borges—a poem that came to him in a dream! A poem transcribed from the dream of a beautiful, fleeting, “one-sided” English hind. No, seriously. I am so blown away by beauty and complexity of this book, for I could quite easily have swept past this phrase without pausing; what else am I missing? (I haven’t even begun to unpack the Borges poem, really. What is the Persian reference, here?)

Here is the poem, in the original and in translation, and I promise you that it will knock your socks off.

LA CIERVA BLANCA

¿De qué agreste balada de la verde Inglaterra,
De que lamina persa, de qué región arcana
De las noches y días que nuestro ayer encierra,
Vino la cierva blanca que soñé esta mañana?
Duraría un segundo. La vi cruzar el prado
Y perderse en el oro de una tarde ilusoria,
Leve criatura hecha de un poco de memoria
Y de un poco de olvido, cierva de un solo lado.
Los númenes que rigen este curioso mundo
Me dejaron soñarte pero no ser tu dueño;
Tal vez en un recodo del porvenir profundo
Te encontraré de nuevo, cierva blanca de un sueño.
Yo tambien soy un sueno fugitivo que dura
unos días mas que el sueno del prado y la blancura.

In English:

THE WHITE HIND

From what rustic ballad out of green England,
from what Persian picture, from what secret zone
of nights and days that our yesterday encloses,
came the white hind I dreamed this morning?
It lasted only a second. I saw it cross the meadow
and lose itself in the gold of an illusive evening,
a slight creature made from a pinch of memory
and a pinch of forgetfulness, a one-sided hind.
The gods that govern this peculiar world
let me dream you but not be your master;
perhaps at a bend in the deep time to come
I’ll find you again, white hind of a dream.
I too am a fleeting dream that lasts
a few days longer than dreams of meadows and whiteness.

[Via http://ancienthebrewpoetry.typepad.com]

7 Comments

Matt, February 1st 2010 | Tags: , ,
Posted in 2666 Group Read

Week 2: pages 51-102

When we left off at the end of week 1, Morini was sitting in Hyde Park reading Sor Juana’s recipes aloud to a stranger. The next day, Liz Norton tells Morini the story of the tortured artist Edwin Johns, who cut off his own hand and then went mad. Clearly Johns’ story is a metaphor for an idea about the role of the artist, but what do we make of the role of the critic in relation to the artist? Why are these literary critics suddenly talking about painters?

We also learn about the article a Serbian critic published in Pelletier’s academic journal. The Serb’s article details the life of Archimboldi, mainly to confirm Archimboldi’s human, worldly existence. The four critics search for tiny clues in this article and offer their own interpretations of what those clues might mean in terms of where Archimboldi might be located at this very moment and even what Archimboldi might look like.

Liz Norton feels a need to change her life and effectively breaks up with both Pelletier and Espinoza. Despite some awkwardness at subsequent conferences, the two cannot be enemies and remain good friends. Three months later, they decide to pay a visit to Norton in London and then they meet Alex Pritchard. There is some name-calling and tension, but Pritchard leaves them alone. On a later visit, Pritchard tells Pelletier that Norton is The Medusa.

Pelletier and Espinoza continue to worry about the role of love and sex in their lives and what future the pursuit of either brings. In the midst of this, things take a turn toward the dark side. Pelletier and Espinoza get into an argument with a Pakistani cab driver in London and beat the man within an inch of his life. The two critics never felt more alive. Pelletier and Espinoza turn to prostitutes. Pelletier becomes involved with a prostitute named Vanessa. When Pelletier tells Espinoza about this involvement, Espinoza responds: “Whores are there to be fucked—not psychoanalyzed.”

The critics (minus Morini) unite in London and Espinoza tells Norton about the time that the three of them, oh yeah, went to Switzerland to see Edwin Johns. Morini asked Johns why he (Johns) cut off his own hand. Johns leans over and whispers in Morini’s ear and walks away. The next day, Morini has disappeared, fled back home to Italy without saying goodbye. Pelletier and Espinoza cannot reach him by phone for days. Norton tells them that during that time Morini has been in London. Morini tells Norton that Johns cut off his hand “for money.”

During a seminar in Toulouse, the critics meet a Mexican scholar named Rodolfo Alatorre. Alatorre tells Morini that one of his friends in Mexico City saw Archimboldi just the other day. Alatorre tells the story of El Cerdo (the poet Almendro) being called to Archimboldi’s hotel room, to rescue the old German. In the brief glimpse we have of El Cerdo and Archimboldi together, El Cerdo seems like the more charismatic and interesting person because the narration is from his point of view only. Bolaño does not give us access to any of Archimboldi’s thoughts or motivations. Go figure.

Nicole reports that there are no deaths to count this week. However, the gallery owner on page 97 mentions the death of his grandmother, who left him the gallery and may now be haunting it.

2 Comments

Matt, February 1st 2010 | Tags: , ,
Posted in 2666 Group Read

Week 1: Vocabulary

by Meaghan Doyle

abstruse

difficult to comprehend

 

anodyne

not likely to offend or arouse tensions

 

ascetic

practicing strict self-denial as a measure of personal and especially spiritual discipline

 

au pair

a usually young foreign person who cares for children and does domestic work for a family in return for room and board and the opportunity to learn the family’s language

 

charcuterie

dressed meats and meat dishes

 

cirrhosis

widespread disruption of normal liver structure by fibrosis and the formation of regenerative nodules

 

colophon

an identifying mark, emblem, or device used by a printer or a publisher

 

conflagration

fire; especially : a large disastrous fire

 

coprophagy

feeding on dung

creole

of or relating to Creoles or their language: a person of mixed French or Spanish and black descent speaking a dialect of French or Spanish

 

Dionysian

characteristic of Dionysus or the cult of worship of Dionysus; especially : being of a frenzied or orgiastic character

 

Eurylochus

second-in-command of Odysseus’ ship

 

flamenco

a vigorous rhythmic dance style of the Andalusian Gypsies; also : a dance in flamenco style

 

Fury

any of the avenging deities in Greek mythology who torment criminals and inflict plagues

 

garde du corps

bodyguard

 

gastronomic

the art or science of good eating

 

gaucho

a cowboy of the South American pampas

 

goulash

a stew made with meat (as beef), assorted vegetables, and paprika

 

Hecate

a Greek goddess associated especially with the underworld, night, and witchcraft

 

Huguenot

a member of the French Reformed communion especially of the 16th and 17th centuries

 

insularity

characteristic of an isolated people; especially : being, having, or reflecting a narrow provincial viewpoint

 

lacuna

a blank space or a missing part

 

licentious

lacking legal or moral restraints

 

macerated

to cause to become soft or separated into constituent elements by or as if by steeping in fluid

 

maestro

a master usually in an art

 

Mnemosyne

the Greek goddess of memory and mother of the Muses by Zeus

 

Nerval

was the nom-de-plume of the French poet, essayist and translator Gérard Labrunie

 

oblique

neither perpendicular nor parallel : inclined

 

oeuvre

a substantial body of work constituting the lifework of a writer, an artist, or a composer

 

omertà

conspiracy of silence

 

osmosis

a usually effortless often unconscious assimilation

 

 

 

 

pastoral

portraying or expressive of the life of shepherds or country people especially in an idealized and conventionalized manner

 

penultimate

next to the last

 

pergola

a structure usually consisting of parallel colonnades supporting an open roof of girders and cross rafters

 

petit comite

small group

 

peyote

a hallucinogenic drug containing mescaline that is derived from peyote buttons and used especially in the religious ceremonies of some American Indian peoples

 

phosphorescent

exhibiting phosphorescence : luminescence that is caused by the absorption of radiations

 

Promethean

daringly original or creative

 

prosody

the rhythmic and intonational aspect of language

 

purloined

to appropriate wrongfully and often by a breach of trust

 

quadrangle

a 4-sided enclosure especially when surrounded by buildings

 

redoubtable

causing fear or alarm : formidable

 

sardonic

disdainfully or skeptically humorous

 

scatology

interest in or treatment of obscene matters especially in literature

 

simulacrum

image, representation

 

solipsism

a theory holding that the self can know nothing but its own modifications and that the self is the only existent thing

 

soporific

causing or tending to cause sleep

 

spleen

feelings of anger or ill will often suppressed

 

 

structuralism

psychology concerned especially with resolution of the mind into structural elements

 

thrall

a state of servitude or submission

 

transmuted

to change or alter in form, appearance, or nature and especially to a higher form

 

Ulysses

Odysseus : a king of Ithaca and Greek leader in the Trojan War who after the war wanders 10 years before reaching home

 

Zapatista

The Liberation Army of the South was an armed group formed and led by Emiliano Zapata which took part in the Mexican Revolution.

4 Comments

Matt, January 29th 2010 | Tags: , , , ,
Posted in 2666 Group Read

UPDATED: Locations

Brooks Williams graciously volunteered to create this map of 2666 locations based on Sara’s list. We’ll keep updating it throughout the group read.


View 2666 Locations in a larger map

3 Comments

Matt, January 28th 2010 | Tags: , , , ,
Posted in 2666 Group Read

Q&A with Lorin Stein

Lorin Stein is a senior editor at Farrar, Straus and Giroux. He edited FSG’s translations of Roberto Bolaño.

Matt Bucher: When did you first hear about Roberto Bolaño?

Lorin Stein: I first heard about Roberto Bolaño from my friend Monica Carmona Carmona. Monica is an editor in Barcelona, but she was doing an internship in New York. I happened to see a group snapshot that included her and Bolaño, who she explained was a friend of hers, a brilliant writer, and very ill. In fact he died a couple of weeks afterward. Eventually, Monica gave me a copy of By Night in Chile, in translation, to read on the airplane home. I read it on the flight between Barcelona and Madrid. That was an eye-opener.

MB: Did you acquire The Savage Detectives? What led you to believe that The Savage Detectives could be a hit in the US?

LS: FSG acquired The Savage Detectives and 2666 at the same time. My boss, Jonathan Galassi, was very much part of the acquisition. Jonathan had read some of The Savage Detectives in its Italian translation. I had read the New Directions novellas, plus some short stories in French. It was obvious to us that Bolaño was one of the most important writers of our time, and that we were in a strong position to make that case to American readers.

What’s more, Natasha Wimmer had read The Savage Detectives in Spanish, and she gave us an enthusiastic report. And of course the Spanish press had been ecstatic.

MB: How involved were Bolaño’s heirs in the publication of the US editions of The Savage Detectives and 2666?

LS: As is usual, we dealt exclusively with the agents.

MB: I’m sure you expected 2666 to be successful, but did its success exceed your expectations?

LS: It did. It outsold The Savage Detectives, which I did not expect. I find it a more difficult book. Emotionally difficult. Weirder. I was afraid it would stand in relation to The Savage Detectives roughly as Gravity’s Rainbow stands to V., or Finnegans Wake to Ulysses. The book for hardcore Bolaño-heads.

MB: Were there parts of the book that had to be retranslated multiple times? What parts needed the most editing?

LS: The one section where Natasha undertook heavy revisions, as I remember, was The Part About Fate. Between drafts she did research into boxing, the Black Panthers, etc. We also discussed Father Mapple’s sermon in Moby-Dick as a precursor to Barry Seaman’s motivational speech.

MB: Were there any other Bolaño books or manuscripts you wanted to publish with FSG that ended up at New Directions? What is that arrangement like?

LS: It is a very amicable arrangement. New Directions had already signed up their books by the time FSG came along. They continue to publish the shorter works.

MB: How do you think Bolaño would have reacted to his posthumous literary fame in the US?

LS: I had a dream about this, because of course I don’t know. In the dream Bolaño complained that he just wished he could keep writing.

MB: Without going into too many spoilers, but looking at all the plotlines and characters, what would you say is the overall theme or main idea behind 2666? What is Bolaño trying to achieve here?

LS: If there’s an overall theme or main idea, I don’t know what it is. The murder of women in northern Mexico is clearly central to the book. More generally, 2666 strikes me as preoccupied with death–specifically, with the fear of death. One’s own death, the death of people one loves. That fear erupts throughout Bolaño’s work. It is a kind of existential terror. In most of the books it’s an undertone. But in 2666 those murders make the fear concrete.

I hope that doesn’t spoil the plot.

3 Comments

Matt, January 28th 2010 | Tags: , , , ,
Posted in 2666 Group Read

Week 1: Locations

by Sara Corona Goldstein

Week One (pp. 1-51)

Paris, France — Pelletier studied German literature at University here in 1980. (p. 3)

Munich, Germany — Pelletier travels here in 1981 and finds Archimboldi’s Mitzi’s Treasure and The Garden. (p. 4)

Turin, Italy — Morini teaches German literature here and is diagnosed with multiple sclerosis. (p. 6)

Madrid, Spain (El Escorial) — Espinoza is excluded from a trip here with the Jungerians. (p. 7)

Berlin, Germany — Norton lives here for three months in 1988, where she is introduced to Archimboldi. (p. 9)

Bologna, Italy — German literature colloquium held in 1993, attended by Morini, Espinoza, and Pelletier. They meet Liz Norton. (p.11)

Bremen, Germany — literature conference held shortly after Bologna conference. (p. 12)

Avignon, France — the four critics meet again at the postwar European literature colloquium at the end of 1994. (p. 15)

Amsterdam, The Netherlands— they meet again in 1995 at a panel discussion on contemporary German literature. They meet the Swabian. (p. 17)

Frisian town (unnamed), Germany — the Swabian met Archimboldi and the widow here while working as a cultural promoter. (p. 18)

Buenos Aires, Argentina — the widow traveled here in 1927 or 1928, where her husband won three horse races and the lady talked with the little gaucho. (p. 20)

Hamburg, Germany — Pelletier and Espinoza travel here to visit Archimboldi’s publisher. They meet with Mrs. Bubis. (p. 24)

Salonika, Greece— Morini, while attending a conference, suffers a mild attack of temporary blindness. (p. 35)

Salzburg, Germany — the four meet again in 1996 at the contemporary German literature symposium. They learn that Archimboldi may be a Nobel candidate and declare peace with the other faction of Archimboldi scholars. (p. 36)

Hyde Park, London — Morini, while on a visit to see Norton, sits here reading a book about Sor Juana Ines de la Cruz and her recipes. He talks with and reads to a bum. (p. 48)

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Matt, January 28th 2010 | Tags: , , ,
Posted in 2666 Group Read

Week 1: Timeline

1920 – Benno von Archimboldi born in Prussia

1956 – Piero Morini born near Naples

1961 – Jean-Claude Pelletier is born

1964 – The Berlin Underworld is published in Rome

1968 – Liz Norton is born

1969 – Colossimo translates The Leather Mask

1971 – Rivers of Europe is published in Italy

1973 – Inheritance is published in Italy

1975 – Railroad Perfection is published in Italy

1976 – Morini reads Archimboldi for the first time

25 Dec 1980 – Jean-Claude Pelletier reads Archimboldi for the first time

1981 – Pelletier discovers two more Archimboldi books

1983 – Pelletier begins translating D’Arsonval

1984 – Pelletier’s translation of D’Arsonval is published in Paris

1986 – Pelletier is a professor of German in Paris

1988 – Morini translates Bifurcaria Bifurcata into Italian

1988 – Liz Norton lives in Berlin for three months, first reads Archimboldi

1989 – Pelletier and Morini meet at a conference in Leipzig

1990 – Manuel Espinoza receives his doctorate in German literature

1990 – Pelletier and Morini meet Espinoza at a forum in Zurich

1991 – Morini translates Saint Thomas into Italian

1991 – Espinoza sees Pelletier at a conference in Maastricht

1992 – Pelletier, Espinoza, and Morini meet at a seminar in Augsburg

January 1992 – Pelletier and Espinoza attend a conference in Paris

1993 – Pelletier, Espinoza, and Morini attend a conference in Bologna

1994 – Morini, Pelletier, Espinoza, and Norton first meet at a German literature conference in Bremen

December 1994 – the four critics attend a conference in Avignon

1995 – the four critics attend a conference in Amsterdam

1996 – the four critics attend a conference in Salzburg

December 1996 – Morini has a nightmare about Norton diving into a pool

No Comments

Matt, January 27th 2010 | Tags: ,
Posted in 2666 Group Read

Week 1: Dreams

By Daryl L. L. Houston

Our first encounter with dreams in 2666 isn’t so much an encounter as a brush-by. On page 14, we’re told that Morini may have dreamed some horrible unrecollected dream.

On page 22, we have another non-dream, but a sleep disturbance, as the Frisian lady in the gaucho story the Swabian recounts is kept up one night, tossing and turning as she tries to unpuzzle the gaucho’s son’s revelation that her husband’s horse racing victories had been fixed.
Yet another false-start on the dream front is the sort of hypnotic state Norton enters after sex with Espinoza, as revealed on page 34.
Another curious episode could be construed to be a dream (pp. 35 – 36). Morini apparently wakes up blind one morning. After making his way over to the window he had been gazing out the night before and having a dizzy spell, he goes back to bed and wakes up an hour later with sight, then calmly goes about his morning. The episode is presented matter of factly as if it happened as described, but it’s tempting to suggest that Morini merely dreamed the blindness.
On page 40, we have again not a dream proper, but mention of dreaming: “with her words Norton managed to give substance to a being whom neither Espinoza nor Pelletier had ever seen, as if her ex existed only in their dreams.”
Finally, starting on page 45, we have not just a dream, but a full-fledged nightmare on Morini’s part. The three male scholars are playing cards around a stone table while Norton is diving into a pool situated behind Espinoza and Pelletier, who are absorbed in the game. As he plays, Morini watches people in the area, and they begin to leave. Pelletier seems to be winning the card game. Morini abandons the game and wheels himself to the edge of the pool, which turns out to be huge, with oily patches here and there. He’s looking for Norton. A fog appears, and suddenly the pool empties and turns out to be very deep. He sees a female figure at the bottom, and she starts to make her way to a rock jutting from the edge of the pool. Meanwhile, he senses someone behind him that he believes to be evil and who wants him to turn and look at his/her face. He backs away but finally turns and sees a young Norton’s face. He wonders who’s walking in the bottom of the pool and feels “deeply and inconsolably sad.” He turns to face Norton, and she says “There’s no turning back,” apparently via telepathy. She repeats it in German and turns paradoxically and walks away into a forest giving off a red glow. Note this utterance of Norton’s alongside Morini’s own thought, expressed on page 43, that nothing is ever behind us.

14 Comments

Matt, January 26th 2010 | Tags: , , , ,
Posted in 2666 Group Read

Crystallizations

Bleakonomy pointed out an interesting passage early in the novel that I think deserves a closer look. From page 9:

Five months later, back in England again, Liz Norton received a gift in the mail from her German friend. As one might guess, it was another novel by Archimboldi. She read it, liked it, went to her college library to look for more books by the German with the Italian name, and found two: one was the book she had already read in Berlin, and the other was Bitzius. Reading the latter, really did make her go running out. It was raining in the quadrangle, and the quadrangular sky looked like the grimace of a robot or a god made in our own likeness. The oblique drops of rain slid down the blades of grass in the park, but it would have made no difference if they had slid up. Then the oblique (drops) turned round (drops), swallowed up by the earth underpinning the grass, and the grass and the earth seemed to talk, no, not talk, argue, their incomprehensible words like crystallized spiderwebs or the briefest crystallized vomitings, a barely audible rustling, as if instead of drinking tea that afternoon, Norton had drunk a steaming cup of peyote.

I would love to see someone with the Spanish version give us an idea of the nuance here, especially the (drops) and the crystallized vomitings. Anyone care to take a shot at what this means?

21 Comments

Matt, January 25th 2010 | Tags: , ,
Posted in 2666 Group Read
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