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A review by imthechillalex
Nazi Literature in the Americas by Roberto Bolaño
5.0
A confederacy of cowards and hacks.
FEB 2023 reread: Reread this for a book club with my friends this February and the first 180 pages are funny in a loserdom, hack way. Loser fascist authors and their work never truly gaining much of a success but written in a very dry and scholarly way that lends itself to moments of deadpan comedy. But then the Ramirez Hoffman chapter happens— it shifts to a first person testimonial and it becomes haunting. Pulling the rug out from under you and saying “this is what this ideology leads to, the crimes of dictators and fascists and sadists”. I’m surprised this is only Bolaño’s second published novel and he wrote is still relatively young because this has the concept and hyper-literacy of a seasoned intellectual, but I don’t want to risk sounding like our unnamed encyclopedic critic here. A real master work.
FEB 2023 reread: Reread this for a book club with my friends this February and the first 180 pages are funny in a loserdom, hack way. Loser fascist authors and their work never truly gaining much of a success but written in a very dry and scholarly way that lends itself to moments of deadpan comedy. But then the Ramirez Hoffman chapter happens— it shifts to a first person testimonial and it becomes haunting. Pulling the rug out from under you and saying “this is what this ideology leads to, the crimes of dictators and fascists and sadists”. I’m surprised this is only Bolaño’s second published novel and he wrote is still relatively young because this has the concept and hyper-literacy of a seasoned intellectual, but I don’t want to risk sounding like our unnamed encyclopedic critic here. A real master work.