You need to sign in or sign up before continuing.
Take a photo of a barcode or cover
3.85 AVERAGE
3.85 AVERAGE
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
Interesante autobiografía disfrazada sobre lo que es tener que exiliarse por una dictadura (Chile). No me encanto el estilo de narración pero hay mucho para interpretar.
Bolano’s work is always haunted by the short time he was detained by Pinochet forces during the Chilean coup d’etat. Many would speculate on how long he was detained, but it has grown to mythical proportions. This work, Distant Star, was expanded from a chapter of another of his works, Nazi Literature in the Americas. This book still follows his major themes of death, Nazis, terror, Murder, and new Chilean poetry. Bolaño was always a frustrated poet forced to use prose since his poetry failed him.
Distant Star is often cited as a core work of Bolaño. I had a hard time finding and finally purchased it to complete my reading of Bolaño. I haven’t read everything by him, but I have read enough to know that characters and situations repeat themselves. It is the result of a master craftsman improving what they can do.
This work is earlier and doesn’t seem to have the same punch as his later work. The work covers the coup as well, prisoners and those subject to the harsh regime would look up to the sky to see a military plane curiously sky-writing:
Death is Friendship
Death is Chile
Death is Responsibility
Death is Love
Death is Growth
Death is Communion
Death is Cleansing
Death is my heart
This poem encapsulates much of his work. It's a good one to finish or to begin reading Bolano, but for me, not one of his strongest.
Distant Star is often cited as a core work of Bolaño. I had a hard time finding and finally purchased it to complete my reading of Bolaño. I haven’t read everything by him, but I have read enough to know that characters and situations repeat themselves. It is the result of a master craftsman improving what they can do.
This work is earlier and doesn’t seem to have the same punch as his later work. The work covers the coup as well, prisoners and those subject to the harsh regime would look up to the sky to see a military plane curiously sky-writing:
Death is Friendship
Death is Chile
Death is Responsibility
Death is Love
Death is Growth
Death is Communion
Death is Cleansing
Death is my heart
This poem encapsulates much of his work. It's a good one to finish or to begin reading Bolano, but for me, not one of his strongest.
The best yet. Not only one of the best starting places for reading Bolaño I’ve come across this far but also one of the shining examples of why he is so important to literature. I’ll think about this book forever.
challenging
dark
funny
mysterious
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
Never read anything like it. It reads like a good humoured story but is about a brutal regime and a brutal man. It was odd, but a good read. I'm not clever enough to know if it was brilliant, it's certainly left me a bit dazed and confused.
reflective
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
No
dark
tense
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
Content Warnings
Moderate: Genocide, Torture, Murder, War
First time I read Bolaño. It took me a while to get it. At first, I thought, juvenile. Clear and fluent, but juvenile, in that the novel was exuberantly creative but lacking a sense of purpose, a direction. I was of course coming from my profoundly marxist self, in that I imagine that things progress, there's a macrostructure that defines lives acc to class, race, gender, etc, that moral equals good and so forth. Bolaño is fractal. The first one hundred pages set up a story, but then, at each chapters, the story splinters into micro stories, unessential characters, lists of imaginary magazines or books or poets, preposterous events. So, the point is not the story. The point is not the characters. The point is not the setting. There are no real feelings. What is the point then? Writing as cartooning. Like the best cartoonists, William Steig, Edward Gorey or Chris Ware. Humorous, acute, perceptive, satirical, exasperating, super cool, abstract, peculiar, boogie-woogie, visionary. The jouissance of this reader comes from following Bolaño's jouissance in the composition of the story. An acquired taste for sure, I can give that.
Not really impressed by it and hated writing the essay... Biased? Perchance
challenging
reflective
slow-paced