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
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.
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
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.
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?
Week 1: Characters
by Brooks Williams
Jean-Claude Pelletier
Born 1961. Discovered Archimboldi (D’Arsonval) while studying German literature in Paris, Christmas 1980 at the age of 19 (3). Read Mitzi’s Treasure and then The Garden. Translated D’Arsonval into French in 1983. A professor of German in Paris (by 1986). Translated two other (unnamed) Archimboldi works. “…regarded almost universally as the preeminent authority on Benno von Archimboldi across the length and breadth of France” (4).
Experiences a sort of rebirth while translating D’Arsonval. Not unlike the biblical story of Jacob wrestling with the angel (Genesis 32:22-32). “…first, that his life as he had lived it so far was over; second, that a brilliant career was opening up before him, and that to maintain its glow he had to persist in his determination, in sole testament to that garret.” (5)
First met Morini in 1989 at a German literature conference. First met Espinoza in 1990 at a conference. First meets Norton in 1993 or 1994 (12).
Realizes he loves Liz Norton (16) and is first to sleep with her after the meetings with Schnell and Mrs. Bubis in 1995 (30).
Piero Morini
Born 1956, near Naples. Discovered Archimboldi in 1976. Translated Bifurcaria, Bifurcata to Italian in 1988. Shortly afterwards, published two studies – “one on the role of fate in Railroad Perfection, and the other on the various guises of conscience and guilt in Lethaea, on the surface an erotic novel, and in Bitzius, a novel less than one hundred pages long, similar in some ways to Mitzi’s Treasure…” (6). Also translated Saint Thomas in 1991.
Has multiple sclerosis, “suffered [a] strange and spectacular accident that left her permanently wheelchair-bound.” (6)
Teaches German literature at the University of Turin.
First met Pelletier 1989 at a German literature conference. First met Espinoza in 1990 at a conference. First meets Norton in 1993 or 1994 (12).
Manuel Espinoza
Younger than Pelletier and Morini (no date of birth given). Originally wanted to be a writer and studied Spanish literature. Had a brief period of interest in Ernst Junger before becoming interested in German Literature. Completed his doctorate in German literature in 1990. Never translated any German author “since the glory he coveted was of the writer, not the translator.” (6)
First met Morini and Pelletier in 1990 at a conference. First meets Norton in 1993 or 1994 (12).
Realizes he loves Liz Norton (16) and sleeps with her after the meetings with Schnell and Mrs. Bubis (33-34).
Some additional thoughts:
Bolano infers that in The Sorrows of Young Werther Espinoza would find a “kindrid spirit” (6). As a plot device it infers that Espinoza is chasing a career in writing that he will never have and he ought to just murder that desire and get on with it. At the same time Espinoza’s character is illuminated – he is emotional and likely to perform mellow dramatic acts of passion that have grave consequences. Or maybe not.
Espinoza seems fundamentally immature. Example – “He also discovered that he was bitter and full of resentment, that he oozed resentment, and that he might easily kill someone, anyone, if it would provide a respite from the loneliness and rain and cold of Madrid.” (7-8) I guess it’s supposed to reflect some kind of Spanish passion, but to me it just feels immature. Rather emo, really.
Liz Norton
Born 1968 in England (9). She is divorced (33). Discovered Archimboldi in 1998 when visiting Berlin – was loaned The Blind Woman by a friend. Later discovered Bitzius in a college library (9).
Teaches German literature at a university in London. Not a full professor. Discovered by Pelletier, Morini, and Espinoza via an article in Literary Studies (#46) in 1993 or 1994. Met them around the same time at a conference (12).
Has no close friends (44).
Sleeps with Pelletier in 1995 (30). Some time afterwards sleeps with Espinoza (33-34).
The Opposing Group of Archimboldians
Schwartz, Borchmeyer and Pohl (11) and later Dieter Hellfeld (37).
The Swabian
Unnamed, obscure German author that speaks at a 1995 penel discussion on contemporary German literature in Amsterdam. Tells a story about being a cultural promoter “for a Frisian town, north of Wilhelmshaven, facing the Black Sea coast and the East Frisian islands…” (18) where Archimboldi had come to do a reading.
Notes that Archimboldi had read two chapters from his second novel, a work in progress. His first novel, according to the Swabian, was short – between 100 and 125 pages [Lüdicke] . Archimboldi is 29 or 30 years old [so this is probably around 1950]. After the reading, the Swabian and Archimboldi go to dinner with a teacher and a widow. The latter tells a long story involving a gaucho, a horse race, and a riddle. By the next morning Archimboldi had disappeared.
The Swabian reappears via an article in the Reutlingen Morning News in which a bit more information is given about Archimboldi and the widow (38).
Schnell
Editor in chief of Archimboldi’s publisher (in Hamburg). Pelletier and Espinzoa visit him shortly after the encounter with the Swabian (and believe him to be gay) (24).
Mrs. Bubis
Widow of Archimboldi’s publisher (Mr. Bubis). Visited by Pelletier and Espinzoa. Tells a story about how the work of George Grosz affects her (joy) versus how it affects a critic friend (sorrow) (26-27).
Shares an odd review of Archimboldi’s first novel by someone named Schleiermacher (27-28).
Mr. Bubis
Archimboldi’s publisher. Knew (and was loved by) all of the famous German writers, according to his wife (26). Aside from the publicity director and the copy chief, he is the only person at the publishing house that had actually met Archimboldi in person (24).
Liz Norton’s Ex-Husband
“… six foot three and not very stable…”
“…the worst husband a woman could inflict on herself, no matter how you looked at it. ” (34)
“…a horribly violent monster, but one who never materialized…” (40)
Referenced again in an email from Norton to Morini (43).
The Stranger
First mention: (48)
The stranger sits next to Morini in a park in London while Morini is visiting Liz Norton (48).
“The stranger had straw-colored hair, graying and dirty, and must have weighed at least two hundred and fifty pounds.” (48)
The stranger worked for a mug company that shifted their focus from text to pictures. This shift made the man very unhappy and he quit his job. He said that it was the new modernness of that caused his unhappiness (“they’re destroying me inside”) (49-50).
He asked Morini to read him some recipes from the book Morini is reading (Il libro di cucina di Juana Inés de la Cruz) (50-51)
Historical Characters
- Page 6
- Friedrich H̦lderlin (1770 Р1843) РGerman Romantic poet. A Swabian (!!)
- Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749-1832) – German writer and polymath. Famous works: Faust, The Sorrows of Young Werther. Interesting trivia – the second part of Faust was published posthumously.
- Friedrich Schiller (1759 – 1805) – German poet and playwright. Schiller was buddies with Goethe from 1794 until his death. A Swabian (!!)
- Ernst Jünger (1895 – 1998) – German writer. A leader (?) in the Conservative Revolutionary movement of the 1920’s. Among the forerunners of magical realism (which would be later used to great acclaim by Gabriel GarcÃa Márquez).
- Page 7
- Camilo Jos̩ Cela (1916 Р2002) РSpanish writer. Fought on the side of Franco in the Spanish Civil War. Nobel Prize (Literature) in 1989.
- William James (1842 – 1910) – American psychologist and philosopher.
- Page 10
- Heinrich Heine (1797 – 1856) – German Romantic Poet (assumed reference here, only the last name is used in the text)
- Arno Schmidt (1914 – 1979) – German author and translator.
- Page 11
- Miguel de Unamuno (1864 – 1936) – Spanish essayist, novelist, poet, playwright and philosopher
- Page 12
- Heinrich B̦ll (1917 Р1985) РGerman writer. Nobel Prize (Literature) in 1972
- Günter Grass (1927 – ) – German writer. Novel Prize (Literature) in 1999
- Friedrich Dürrenmatt (1921 – 1990) – Swiss writer. Member of the Gruppe Olten
- Hans Jakob Christoffel von Grimmelshausen (1621 – 1676) – German author
- Andreas Gryphius (1616 – 1664) – German poet and dramatist
- Theophrastus Phillippus Aureolus Bombastus von Hohenheim (Paracelsus) (1493 – 1541) – German lyric poet and dramatist
- Page 19
- Gustav Heller, Rainer Kuhl, Wilhelm Frayn – invented authors
- Page 26
- Chaim Soutine (1893 – 1943) – “… Jewish, expressionist painter from Belarus. He has been interpreted as both a forerunner of Abstract Expressionism and as a proponent of painting in the European tradition”
- Wassily Kandinsky (1866 – 1944) – Russian painter. Early abstract painter
- George Grosz (1893 – 1959) – German artist. Known for caricature work in his early career. A member of the Verist-wing of the New Objectivists group.
- Oskar Kokoschka (1886 – 1980) – Austrian expressionist painter
- James Ensor (1860 – 1949) – Belgian painter
- Thomas Mann (1875 – 1955) – German writer. Nobel Prize (Literature) 1929. Younger brother of Heinrich Mann.
- Heinrich Mann (1871 – 1950) – German writer. Exiled in 1933. Older brother of Thomas Mann
- Klaus Mann (1906 – 1949) – German writer. Son of Thomas Mann. It’s notable that each mentioned member of the Mann family lost their German citizenship between 1933 and 1936 and ended up living (and dying) in the US.
- Alfred Döblin (1878 – 1957) – German expressionist novelist. Heavily influenced Günter Grass.
- Hermann Hesse (1877 – 1962) – German born Swiss writer. Nobel Prize (Literature) 1946.
- Walter Benjamin (1892 – 1940) – “a German-Jewish Marxist philosopher-sociologist, literary critic, translator and essayist”
- Anna Seghers (1900 – 1983) – German writer.
- Stefan Zweig (1881 – 1942) – Austrian writer.
- Bertolt Brecht (1868 – 1956) – German poet and playwright
- Lion Feuchtwanger (1884 – 1958) – German novelist and playwright
- Johannes Becher (1891 – 1958) – German expressionist writer and politician.
- Oskar Maria Graf (1894 – 1967) – German writer. Sometimes used a pseudonym – Oskar Graf-Berg.
- Hans Fallada (1893 – 1947) – German writer. Born Rudolf Wilhelm Friedrich Ditzen.
- Marlene Dietrich (1901 – 1992) – German-born American actress and singer.
- Page 42
- Charles Baudelaire (1821 – 1867) – French poet and translator. “Baudelaire’s name has become a byword for literary and artistic decadence.”
- Page 44
- Marquis de Sade (1740 – 1814) – French aristocrat and writer, famous for his erotic novels.
- Page 47
- Gustave Moreau (1826 – 1898) – French Symbolist painter focused on biblical and mythological figures
- Odilon Redon (1840 – 1916) – French Symbolist painter.
Misc. References
The Sorrows of Young Werther – published 1774, written by Johann Wolfgang con Goethe. Plot summary is essentially that there’s this dude (Werther, a thinly disguised Goethe) who falls in love with this girl (Charlotte) but she’s already with another guy (Albert). Regardless, Werther becomes very close to Charlotte and Albert. The marriage of Charlotte and Albert cause Werther all kinds of mental anguish and after Charlotte sends him away, Werther commits suicide.
Huguenot (38) – “…members of the Protestant Reformed Church of France (or French Calvinists) from the sixteenth to the eighteenth centuries. Since the eighteenth century, Huguenots have been commonly designated ‘French Protestants’, the title being suggested by their German co-religionists or ‘Calvinists’. “
Some Additional Notes On The Works Of Archimboldi:
D’Arsonval – possibly a reference to Jacques-Arsene d’Arsonval, who was a French physicist. The D’Arsonval phenomenon is commonly referred to as the Tesla Current (“An alternating current having a frequency of 10 kilohertz or greater produces no muscular contractions and does not affect the sensory nerves”). Remember that this is the first Archimboldi that Pelletier reads and is also the first that he translates from German to French. We’ll discuss this more next week…
Saint Thomas – Thomas the Apostle was known mostly for disbelieving in Jesus’s resurrection (John 20:28). The phrase “doubting Thomas” finds its origins in Saint Thomas. It is Morini that translates this work – I wonder if there’s any significance?
Lethaea – Lethaea – From Wikipedia:
“a mythological character briefly mentioned in Ovid‘s Metamorphoses. Due to her vanity, she was turned to stone at Ida by the gods. Her lover Olenus wished to share in the blame, and so shared her fate. The story is used a metaphor for how stunned Orpheus was after a failed attempt to bring back his wife from the underworld. It was as if he too were turned to stone.”
Again, this work is linked to Morini through a paper he authored on “on the various guises of conscience and guilt in Lethaea, on the surface an erotic novel…” The paper also uses Bitzius as a primary reference.
Bifurcaria, Bifurcata – Some science-y stuff here – Bifurcaria is a source of unique diterpenoids which may prove pharmaceutically beneficial. In one preliminary study, an extract of Bifurcaria bifurcata halted the proliferation of cancer cells. This work of Archimboldi was also translated by Morini, who has multiple sclerosis. So maybe there’s a link between this stuff that might offer some kind of cancer relief and the one character that’s confined to a wheelchair? Also, Bifurcaria, Bifurcata makes me think of Faulkner’s Absalom, Absalom! mostly for the sound and the shape of the words.
Bitzius – Probably a reference to Albert Bitzius, who wrote under the pen name Jeremias Gotthelf. All we know of Bitzius is that it’s a short novel, less than 100 words. More of a novella, really. This one is tied to Morini again, but I don’t see a clear connection within the context of 2666.
2666 Hours & more links
The publication of the German edition of Infinite Jest (Unendlicher Spass, translated by Ulrich Blumenbach) coincided with the end of Infinite Summer. Looking to replicate the success of that project, the German publishers, Kiepenheuer & Witsch (aka KiWi), launched their own read-along site: http://www.unendlicherspass.de/
Well, word comes yesterday that there is also a German equivalent of the Infinite Summer/Las Obras-esque read-along site & project for 2666: http://zwei666.de/ They even have their own twitter account (2666de) and hashtag. Perhaps the coolest part of their project was the challenge to read the whole thing in 2666 hours (111 days), which I’m just now realizing is about the same amount of time we’ve allotted on our schedule. They have reached the end of 2666, however and moved on to The Savage Detectives and Bolaño’s other works: http://www.wilde-leser.de/ All this to say: over the next few weeks we are going to feature some posts on this site from Marvin Kleinemeier and our German counterparts.
In other news…
The Infomaven’s Desktop is geared up for the 2666 challenge. Darby over at The Grue is contemplating jumping into the fray. Come on! Just do it! You know you want to! (No pressure, though…) And he links to Stephen King’s Top 10 Novels of 2009 which of course includes 2666 (even though it was published in 2008; whatever):
This surreal novel can’t be described; it has to be experienced in all its crazed glory. Suffice it to say it concerns what may be the most horrifying real-life mass-murder spree of all time: as many as 400 women killed in the vicinity of Juarez, Mexico. Given this as a backdrop, the late Bolano paints a mural of a poverty-stricken society that appears to be eating itself alive. And who cares? Nobody, it seems.
Again, if you’re planning on posting about 2666 on your own blog during the group read, please leave a link the comments!
2666 Group Read
Well, it looks like the planned read of 2666 is not going to materialize on Infinite Summer. If at some point it does materialize, I will probably refrain from posting too much here in favor of taking advantage of the infrastructure they already have in place over there. BUT until then, I plan to coordinate the group read here on this blog and on bolano-l (a google group/mailing list).
The format here will be similar to Infinite Summer’s group read of Infinite Jest. There will be a schedule, a weekly recap, and some analysis from guides. There will also be a Twitter hashtag. Since this read is not limited to or sponsored by Infinite Summer, I propose #2666 instead of #infsum partly because it’s one character shorter and partly because people are already using it. (My personal twitter account is @mattbucher)
The group read is scheduled to kick off January 25, 2010, so there is still time to order the book if you have not already done so. It’s available (in the US) in three editions: a three-volume paperback, a single paperback, and hardcover. There is also an audiobook. I believe all three editions have the same pagination (I don’t have the single-volume paperback to verify this).
We will work in different sized-chunks per week. The average-sized chunk will be about 50 pages. Some of the sections read faster than others and some demand more explication than others, so there will be some weeks (toward the end) that cover 60 or even 70 pages per week. I believe this is better than dragging out the read for four or five months, when participation drops off significantly.
The tentative schedule is as follows (the part in parentheses refers to the subject line for bolano-l messages, where x=week #):
The Part About the Critics (GR-Critics-x)
Week 1: January 25 – pages 1-51
Week 2: February 1 – pages 51-102
Week 3: February 8 – pages 102-159
The Part About Amalfitano (GR-Amalfitano-x)
Week 4: February 15 – pages 163-228
The Part About Fate (GR-Fate-x)
Week 5: February 22 – pages 231-290
Week 6: March 1 – pages 291-349
The Part About the Crimes (GR-Crimes-x)
Week 7: March 8 – pages 353-404
Week 8: March 15 – pages 404-465
Week 9: March 22 – pages 466-513
Week 10: March 29 – pages 513-564
Week 11: April 5 – pages 565-633
The Part About Archimboldi (GR-Archimboldi-x)
week 12 : April 12 – pages 637-701
week 13 : April 19 – pages 702-765
week 14 : April 26 – pages 766-830
week 15 : May 3 – pages 831-893
Like Infinite Summer, we will attempt to read this novel without spoiling any plot points for you. However, that doesn’t mean we can’t talk about background or events surrounding the book.
Roberto Bolaño died shortly after presenting the first draft of 2666 to his publisher, Anagrama. It was reported that he was not completely finished writing or editing the novel at the time of his death. Realizing he was terribly sick, he instructed Anagrama to publish one part of the novel per year, hoping to stretch out the amount of money that his heirs could receive. His heirs were convinced that if he were not sick, he’d want the book published as a complete novel. After his death, the novel was published as a single volume with five parts.
The Part About the Crimes received the most attention when the book was published. It presents a fictionalized version of the Juarez feminicidios, or the murder of women in Ciudad Juarez. Since 1993, almost 400 women (usually young, often poor, factory workers) have been murdered in and around the city of Juarez, Mexico. Often their bodies are dumped outside of town and discovered well after the time of death. Most of the crimes are unsolved. 2666 contains a multitude of other stories, though. There are stories about academics and writers (one of Bolano’s favorite subjects), stories that slightly cross paths with The Savage Detectives, and stories of love, infatuation, and dreams of death. If this is your introduction to Roberto Bolano, you are in for a remarkable ride.
2666 on the Stage
This is old news in Spain, but news to me. In November 2007, Teatre Lliure in Barcelona presented a five-hour theatrical adaptation of Roberto Bolaño’s masterwork, 2666.
This video shows a few brief clips of the production (complete with a blood-covered corpse in the desert). IYI, Liz Norton is played by Chantal Aimée and Rosa Amalfitano is played by Cristina Brondo. Directed by Alex Rigola, the play is described as “an inquiry about the stark human wickedness between humor and horror.” There is also an impressive PDF dossier (in English) that includes press clippings, reviews, photos, and interviews with the director.
how did this project come about?
I really wanted to tell a new, contemporary story, and my fascination for Bolaño’s work, and in particular for this novel, pushed me to do it, because it allows you to do a lot of stage-work. A play has a life of its own, it’s not really the novel any more, the materials are very different. The type of poetry you can produce in a novel is completely different from the poetry of the stage. In an adaptation you start with one material, one set of contents and an underlying story, but the way of telling it is very different. I believe the project makes sense because the story is only relatively well-known. If it was a novel that absolutely everybody had read, then I would have to think again, but very few people have actually read it, amongst other things because its sheer size is off-putting.
Now I just need to build a time machine so that I can go back to 2007, fly to Barcelona, and learn Spanish enough to enjoy this.
