A review by mrswhatsit8
Nazi Literature in the Americas by Roberto Bolaño

5.0

Extraordinary, a novel that shouldn't for a second work but does because of Bolaño's enormous talent, biting humor, and expansive imagination. Reading this encyclopedia of far-right writers who never were elicits some of the pleasures of a great sci-fi novel, where you are plunged into a fully lived-in reality and must work out the details, and is always compelling (Bolaño can evoke whole epic tragedies in phrases, worlds in clauses). But the strongest feeling when reading it is that of being stalked by a shadow, an ominous force that raises the hairs on your neck but you can never quite see. Bolaño never loses hold of the dangerous cruelties of the Nazi culture-making he depicts even as he unveils its absurdities and human personalities, and the rotting underneath is never over explained but viscerally felt. I'm sure greater knowledge of mid-20th century American fascism and literature would have made the experience even richer, but worth a read for everyone, and provides illumination to some of the mechanisms of Nazi cultural production taking place today.