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schoenbergesque's review against another edition
challenging
dark
mysterious
reflective
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
4.25
rev's review against another edition
challenging
dark
reflective
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
5.0
slink's review against another edition
adventurous
dark
mysterious
sad
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
5.0
rasorina's review against another edition
challenging
dark
reflective
slow-paced
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
5.0
vegantrav's review against another edition
3.0
2666. The English translation of Bolano's magnum opus is 898 pages, and if you finish all 898 pages (as did I), you will be physically exhausted and probably somewhat disappointed.
Touted by the NY Times as the best work of fiction published in 2008, I was unable to resist the lure of 2666, and 2666 begins with great promise. Divided into five sections (each really a novella that could stand alone) that are tangentially related to each other (tied together around a mysterious German writer, who writes under the pseudonym Benno von Archimboldi, and a ghastly series of murders of young women in northern Mexico), the intrepid reader (especially those with an academic background in university literature departments) will no doubt love the first section, titled, bluntly enough, "The Part About the Critics." The critics are four professors of German literature who teach at universities in England, France, Spain, and Italy, and are all obsessed with Archimboldi. Their personal and academic lives revolve around the German author, whom none of them have ever met; in fact, no one in the reading public knows Achimboldi, who is a complete recluse who has no desire for any type of fame or recognition. The four professors, due to their love of Archimboldi, become great friends and even fall into a rather interesting love quadrangle. Alas, they never attain their Golden Fleece: their quest to meet and to get to know their literary god is fruitless. Their story is the best of the five stories in this mammoth novel.
The next three parts of the novel are about a Mexican literary professor, an American journalist who travels to northern Mexico to cover a boxing match, and the murders of young women in northern Mexico. The former two parts are well written and well crafted, but they are more character studies than plot-driven stories, and, to be honest, the lead characters in these two sections really aren't all that interesting. The section about the murders (by far the longest section of the novel), delves a bit into the character of some of the Mexican police detectives and others connected to the murders, but it is, for the most part, a long series of descriptions of one murder after another, almost in the style of a police blotter. And the murders are not all the work of some brilliantly wicked serial killer; rather, most of the murders are completely unrelated cases of domestic violence or involve prostitution and drug violence. The murders are tangentially connected to Archimboldi only in that his nephew, a German who emigrated to the US and then to Mexico, is arrested as a murder suspect.
Only in the final section, well over 600 pages into the novel, do we finally get to meet the protagonist, Benno von Archimboldi. Here again, for me, anyway, the story becomes once more rather interesting. Archimboldi's life story (his youth in a rural Prussian village, his experiences as a German soldier during World War II, his immediate post-war life, his career as a writer, and his highly anticlimactic final reunion with his sister, Lotte) is laid out in exquisite detail, but, disappointingly, Bolano never really gives us much of an insight into why this German peasant became such a great writer. In fact, there is nothing in his life to indicate that he will become a great writer, nor does Bolano relate anything substantial of the content of Archimboldi's novels to show why Archimboldi is such a surpassingly great writer. Although his life story is full of interesting vignettes, there is no overarching theme, no conflict driving the overall plot. Even the end of Archimboldi's story is rather a severe letdown.
The five stories are only very tenuously related, and even the title, 2666, seems somehow far removed from the story: it seems that Bolano believes that the events in the novel 2666, which all occur roughly between the 1910s and the early 2000s, will somehow gain an overall unity when viewed from the perspective of the year 2666 (though here I may be reading something more into Bolano than he really intended). But even were we to look back on these events from the year 2666, I don't think that we would see them somehow holding together any more tightly than we do reading about them in the early 2000s.
There is no doubt that Bolano is a brilliant writer. In these 898 pages, he spins hundreds of tales, taking numerous tangents to tell the stories of an exceedingly diverse array of characters in far-flung geographical and cultural settings. Yes, the man is a brilliant, but this novel was not, alas, for me, on of the best of 2008. I felt in the middle sections as if I had to force myself to continue, and I truly feel a sense of relief now that I can lay this book aside.
Touted by the NY Times as the best work of fiction published in 2008, I was unable to resist the lure of 2666, and 2666 begins with great promise. Divided into five sections (each really a novella that could stand alone) that are tangentially related to each other (tied together around a mysterious German writer, who writes under the pseudonym Benno von Archimboldi, and a ghastly series of murders of young women in northern Mexico), the intrepid reader (especially those with an academic background in university literature departments) will no doubt love the first section, titled, bluntly enough, "The Part About the Critics." The critics are four professors of German literature who teach at universities in England, France, Spain, and Italy, and are all obsessed with Archimboldi. Their personal and academic lives revolve around the German author, whom none of them have ever met; in fact, no one in the reading public knows Achimboldi, who is a complete recluse who has no desire for any type of fame or recognition. The four professors, due to their love of Archimboldi, become great friends and even fall into a rather interesting love quadrangle. Alas, they never attain their Golden Fleece: their quest to meet and to get to know their literary god is fruitless. Their story is the best of the five stories in this mammoth novel.
The next three parts of the novel are about a Mexican literary professor, an American journalist who travels to northern Mexico to cover a boxing match, and the murders of young women in northern Mexico. The former two parts are well written and well crafted, but they are more character studies than plot-driven stories, and, to be honest, the lead characters in these two sections really aren't all that interesting. The section about the murders (by far the longest section of the novel), delves a bit into the character of some of the Mexican police detectives and others connected to the murders, but it is, for the most part, a long series of descriptions of one murder after another, almost in the style of a police blotter. And the murders are not all the work of some brilliantly wicked serial killer; rather, most of the murders are completely unrelated cases of domestic violence or involve prostitution and drug violence. The murders are tangentially connected to Archimboldi only in that his nephew, a German who emigrated to the US and then to Mexico, is arrested as a murder suspect.
Only in the final section, well over 600 pages into the novel, do we finally get to meet the protagonist, Benno von Archimboldi. Here again, for me, anyway, the story becomes once more rather interesting. Archimboldi's life story (his youth in a rural Prussian village, his experiences as a German soldier during World War II, his immediate post-war life, his career as a writer, and his highly anticlimactic final reunion with his sister, Lotte) is laid out in exquisite detail, but, disappointingly, Bolano never really gives us much of an insight into why this German peasant became such a great writer. In fact, there is nothing in his life to indicate that he will become a great writer, nor does Bolano relate anything substantial of the content of Archimboldi's novels to show why Archimboldi is such a surpassingly great writer. Although his life story is full of interesting vignettes, there is no overarching theme, no conflict driving the overall plot. Even the end of Archimboldi's story is rather a severe letdown.
The five stories are only very tenuously related, and even the title, 2666, seems somehow far removed from the story: it seems that Bolano believes that the events in the novel 2666, which all occur roughly between the 1910s and the early 2000s, will somehow gain an overall unity when viewed from the perspective of the year 2666 (though here I may be reading something more into Bolano than he really intended). But even were we to look back on these events from the year 2666, I don't think that we would see them somehow holding together any more tightly than we do reading about them in the early 2000s.
There is no doubt that Bolano is a brilliant writer. In these 898 pages, he spins hundreds of tales, taking numerous tangents to tell the stories of an exceedingly diverse array of characters in far-flung geographical and cultural settings. Yes, the man is a brilliant, but this novel was not, alas, for me, on of the best of 2008. I felt in the middle sections as if I had to force myself to continue, and I truly feel a sense of relief now that I can lay this book aside.
dorito3d's review against another edition
challenging
dark
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
4.5