Scan barcode
A review by bennyandthejets420
Distant Star by Roberto Bolaño
4.0
Not sure why I waited to read this one during my initial Bolaño binge. It's incredible, an expansion of the Weider ending to Nazi Literature in the Americas and which points to all of his other concerns about exile from one's country, literature as being formed by and both positioned against darkness and evil, and the mania of reading, authors, and books. It even points to wargaming at one point.
I think what I like so much about Bolaño is just how direct it all feels despite the weight of history and the cultural difference every time I read him I can feel him sitting at my elbow and telling me about author after author, who's worth reading and who isn't, who ended up happy and who didn't, and while I'm lulled into a kind of trance he springs a horrifically surreal image or psychological probing that takes me completely by surprise. Using two of my favorite artists it's like he's combined Jorge Luis Borges (the tendency to comment rather and expound to fragmentize and epitomize rather than expand and of course the obsession with literature) and David Lynch (probing the subconscious and the foundation of stable reality can be quite horrifying, don't you think?)
Some stray thoughts: the digression about the artist with no arms suggests pretty much all of his story collection The Return, the bit about the war games Wider designed suggests all of The Third Reich, and imagine my delight at Bolaño noting how the servant of fascist power Fr. Ibacache both anointed Weider initially and soon realized the enormity of his error. Also I love how Bolaño borrows from pulpy genres like detective stories to ramp up the sheer physical effect of his writing. He simply walls me in and walks me slowly down the corridor to show me the horror at the end.
I think what I like so much about Bolaño is just how direct it all feels despite the weight of history and the cultural difference every time I read him I can feel him sitting at my elbow and telling me about author after author, who's worth reading and who isn't, who ended up happy and who didn't, and while I'm lulled into a kind of trance he springs a horrifically surreal image or psychological probing that takes me completely by surprise. Using two of my favorite artists it's like he's combined Jorge Luis Borges (the tendency to comment rather and expound to fragmentize and epitomize rather than expand and of course the obsession with literature) and David Lynch (probing the subconscious and the foundation of stable reality can be quite horrifying, don't you think?)
Some stray thoughts: the digression about the artist with no arms suggests pretty much all of his story collection The Return, the bit about the war games Wider designed suggests all of The Third Reich, and imagine my delight at Bolaño noting how the servant of fascist power Fr. Ibacache both anointed Weider initially and soon realized the enormity of his error. Also I love how Bolaño borrows from pulpy genres like detective stories to ramp up the sheer physical effect of his writing. He simply walls me in and walks me slowly down the corridor to show me the horror at the end.