A review by faulkneribarelyknowher
Last Evenings on Earth by Roberto Bolaño

adventurous dark medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Loveable characters? Yes

4.0

beautiful stories. the narrator is often kinda Poe-like—sometimes breaking the fourth wall—and is sometimes omniscient and sometimes forgetful. the shapes of the stories are similar: often the plot would build to a climax, the climax would occur or almost occur, and then the story would end. sometimes the climax was a death, or a meeting of two characters, or a supernatural event, but always lacked relief.

Dance Card confused me, though it entertained me. i’m not very familiar with Neruda, or any of the other authors mentioned, but i loved the semiautobiographical moments (i think every story featured a writer of some kind)…and the tongue-in-cheek 69 item-long list

i love the pseudo-recurring characters (like Arturo Bolaño, or A/B). i love the universality of the sex and travel and death and writing