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A review by frazzle
Amulet by Roberto Bolaño
challenging
lighthearted
mysterious
reflective
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.0
I don't really have words for this book. It's madcap, hallucinatory, bizarre, quirky. But Bolaño's prose balances a disarming, almost conversational directness, with a poet's lyricism.
I loved the creeping hallucinatory quality of this story. But unlike some authors who seem to use it indiscriminately, Bolaño's hallucinatoriness had a narrative purpose.
His narrator is based on a woman who was trapped in the women's bathroom of a Mexican university during the army's siege of the building in 1968. She drifts in and out of consciousness, between memory and abstraction.
Bolaño really is something else.
I loved the creeping hallucinatory quality of this story. But unlike some authors who seem to use it indiscriminately, Bolaño's hallucinatoriness had a narrative purpose.
His narrator is based on a woman who was trapped in the women's bathroom of a Mexican university during the army's siege of the building in 1968. She drifts in and out of consciousness, between memory and abstraction.
Bolaño really is something else.