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A review by blueyorkie
A Literatura Nazi nas Américas by Artur Guerra, Roberto Bolaño, Cristina Rodriguez
4.0
How does the question of evil arise? By retracing the life and works of around thirty fictional authors of the 20th century fascinated by fascism or Nazism, this anthology of the infamous but delectable in its form finds a unique way to ask this question.
"Nazi Literature in America" is a fascinating and dizzying book, of the profusion of details in the invention, a biography of the authors and their classification by categories. The details provided on correspondence, notes, dedications, supports, the lists of criticisms and insults with which the authors showered, the information on the structure of the poems, the speculations on the authors' intentions, the links between the fictitious authors, etc.
"Among the qualifiers used by his critics are the following: paleonazi, crazy, a standard-bearer of the bourgeoisie, puppet of capitalism, agent of the CIA, bad poets with cretinizing intentions, plagiarist of Euguren, plagiarist of Salazar Bondy, plagiarist of St -John Perse [...], a henchman of the cesspools, junk prophet, rapist of the Spanish language, versifier with satanic intentions, a product of provincial education, people who show wealth to get attention, hallucinated mestizo, etc."
That's a dizzying book by its double-bottom, when it tells anecdotes invented in lives that are just as much, or when Bolaño evokes manuscripts that never existed, burned by their author for lack of publisher.
"About his life in Havana after his release from prison, an infinite number of anecdotes are told, mostly invented. It is said that he was a police informer, that he wrote speeches and harangues for a famous politician of the regime, that he founded a secret sect of fascist poets and assassins, that he visited all the writers, painters, musicians by asking them to intercede for him with the authorities. "
This work is fascinating finally by the irony and the leniency with which the authors are treated here ("its infinite enthusiasm compensates its accidental lack of verbal rigour"), never to lose sight of the fact that "real" literature is itself, the vehicle of barbarism.
"Nazi Literature in America" is a fascinating and dizzying book, of the profusion of details in the invention, a biography of the authors and their classification by categories. The details provided on correspondence, notes, dedications, supports, the lists of criticisms and insults with which the authors showered, the information on the structure of the poems, the speculations on the authors' intentions, the links between the fictitious authors, etc.
"Among the qualifiers used by his critics are the following: paleonazi, crazy, a standard-bearer of the bourgeoisie, puppet of capitalism, agent of the CIA, bad poets with cretinizing intentions, plagiarist of Euguren, plagiarist of Salazar Bondy, plagiarist of St -John Perse [...], a henchman of the cesspools, junk prophet, rapist of the Spanish language, versifier with satanic intentions, a product of provincial education, people who show wealth to get attention, hallucinated mestizo, etc."
That's a dizzying book by its double-bottom, when it tells anecdotes invented in lives that are just as much, or when Bolaño evokes manuscripts that never existed, burned by their author for lack of publisher.
"About his life in Havana after his release from prison, an infinite number of anecdotes are told, mostly invented. It is said that he was a police informer, that he wrote speeches and harangues for a famous politician of the regime, that he founded a secret sect of fascist poets and assassins, that he visited all the writers, painters, musicians by asking them to intercede for him with the authorities. "
This work is fascinating finally by the irony and the leniency with which the authors are treated here ("its infinite enthusiasm compensates its accidental lack of verbal rigour"), never to lose sight of the fact that "real" literature is itself, the vehicle of barbarism.