Woes of the True Policeman - Roberto Bolaño

"According to Padilla, remembered Amalfitano, all literature could be classified as heterosexual, homosexual, or bisexual. Novels, in general, were heterosexual. Poetry, on the other hand, was completely homosexual. Within that vast ocean of poetry he identified various currents: faggots, queers, sissies, freaks, butches, fairies, nymphs, and philenes."

When Chilean writer Roberto Bolano died, he left us with a large treasure of manuscripts , including the magnum opus 2666, which was published posthumously. The 5 part novel, which was complete in all sense, was rumored to have an unfinished part 6. Hence, when this manuscript of "The Woes of a True Policeman" was received, it was largely speculated as the part 6 of the 2666. The similarity in names and the province, added to the speculation. However, this book, published 7 years after his death is not a sequel to the 2666, but read more like a parallel story, or a book which was in preparation, in line with the 2666 theme, as if filling the gaps of the narrative in 2666. This book will be delicious for the Bolano fans, as it repeats his characters and places from the magnum opus 2666.

Amalfitano, 50, literature professor at the University in Barcelona, "for the first time, slept with a man".  "I am not a man" said Padilla, "I am your Angel". That relationship, however did cost him the job, yet again. While he lost his previous teaching assignments for across various countries, starting from his homeland Chile, Argentina, Brazil, Mexico, Canada, Germany, France etc for political reasons, this time was for his personality issues.  He , a widower, is now staying with his 17 yr old daughter, has to now find a new job.  It is thus, he was offered a job, back in Mexico, with the help of one of his early student ( who had a crush on him) , and herself a professor at the Santa Teresa University. 

The location of the plot, now shifts back to Santa Teresa, the fictional town famous by the book 2666. The bordering town near the US, the town notorious for the death of young girls, is a continuation of where 2666 left us with.  Finding his foothold in the new place, he continue to find people of his choice,  including a art forger selling his forged paintings of Larry Rivers to wealthy Texans,  while continuing his correspondence with his love Padilla in Barcelona, who interestingly in the process of writing a novel titled "The God of Homosexuals", while staying with a local drug dealer and an AIDS victim, which he himself get diagnosed with.  The only continuity in this kaleidoscopic book is through the letters of Padilla and Amalfitano.

The fourth part of the book is a detailed study on the fictitious French write JMG Arcimboldi. Boleno spends a lot of pages and energy on the works and the reviews of the books of Arcimboldi. Unlike the 2666, the writer Arcimboldi here is a French writer ( also note the change in spelling) and is not as profound as we see the writer in 2666. 

This book, to me was intended to be another huge work in the likes of 2666, which was cut short due to his untimely death. This leave you with a feeling of incompleteness. Most of the subplots are fragmented and inconclusive, be it the Padilla , his daughter who in line with the reputation of the town, disappeared mysteriously.  Though the editors say, it was at different stages of completion, and the book was originaly started in 1980s continued to write and modify by Bolano, until 2003, it still seems to be incomplete to me.  The title of the book itself, shows that the intent was different from being a story of a homosexual professor, which it turned out to be, in the end.

However, the book has some brilliant writings, in the typical Bolano style. The long sentences-paragraphs, the cross references,  to me it was a smooth read. This book will appeal to a die hard fan of Bolano, but leave a lot to be desired for the rest.  But one can see a masterpiece in the making. Interestingly, the book is dedicated to Philip K Dick and Manuel Puig, the Argentine writer, whom he admire ( so do I, after reading "Kiss of the Spider Woman", and "Eternal Curse on the readers of these pages").

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Woes of the True Policeman ( 2010 -posthumous )

Roberto Bolaño ( translated from Spanish by Laura Healy 2012 )

Picador

290 pages
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NY Times, Wall Street Journal, A V Club

Distant Star -Roberto Bolaño

Bolano, in his preface refer to the final chapters of 'Nazi Literature in America' as one of the reasons of this book. ;The story of Lietenant Ramirez Hoffman of the Chilean Air Force. I haven't read that book, hence I could not connect. However, Bolano and his Chilean friend Arturo B , got together to wrie a full version of it.

"So we took the final chapter and shut ourselves up for a month and half in my house in Blanes, where, guided by his dreams and nightmares, we composed the present novel."

Alberto Ruiz-Tagle, a timid young wanna be poet of the young Chilean generation influenced by Neruda, was first encounterd by the narrator during the early 70s at a poetry workshop in southern city of Conception. The early memories of Tagle was not very impressive, being friendly to the woman folks and maintaining a courteous distance with his own gender . However there were a few who believed he is going to be the new distinct voice of Chilean poetry, despite having no success with his art form. The days were Allende's government were short lived and the military coup took over the country under Pinochet. The university was ransacked and the news of arrest, murder and disappearances of 'people of words' were on the rise. Our narrator himself was arrested and was detained in an open prison.

Appearing now as a flight officer under the Pinochet's regime, Tagle, soon came to the limelight with his acrobatics in the sky, where he writes verses with some clever and dare devil maneuvers with his plane of World War II fame to the witnessing crowds at various city scapes.While the poets in ground failed to create any impact and were muted, Tagle, under the new name of Carlos Wieder, writing nationalist slogans in the air to the delights of the authorities.

Bolano's narrator, now released from prison, unable to come to terms with the new regime, exit Chile doing odd jobs in Europe. Now settled in Paris, he tries to reconnect with his old contacts trying to follow their fortune through various forms of correspondence and information that is available. Asked by a Chilean private detective, seeking his help to track Wieder down, he gets into the task of reconstruct his tales of adventure, his cruelty and survival through those troublesome years of oppression. It is through these searches, Bolano ( through his narrator) gives us the tale of missing people, gruesome murder, detention, torture and exile of the large number of poets and other writers from Chile. Before exiling himself from chile Wieder plans and sxhibition of his photographs, where he displays some of the gruesome pictures of torture and murder during the regime. Now out of Chile, living under disguise, Weider or his resemblance seems to have appeared at various places around the world at different times, writing and publishing in many neo-fascist journals. The task of identifying the 'hand behind' these writings as Weider is what is entrusted upon the narrator, helping to track down the fugitive.The investigative thriller now takes over to a typical finish.

Mixing politics and poetry together, Bolano weaves a story together. Rich, filled with sub-plots and mere descriptive journalistic writing, he creates an impressive tale. Short novel , in the size of 'One night in Chile', comes out in his impeccable style, used to a regular Bolano reader. Despite multiple diversion and a rather soft plot, this was an interesting and engaging read.

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Distant Star ( 1996)

Roberto Bolaño ( translated from Spanish by Chris Andrews 2004)

Vintage Books

149 Pages
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Other Reviews : Guardian, Complete Review , Telegraph, Biblioklept

2666 - Roberto Bolaño

It took a couple of years and a couple of other books of Roberto Bolano, to sum up enough courage to take up this mamoth book. Like many others, I too picked up this book in 2008 when it was a sensation around the world after its launch. However, I thought it would be premature to start reading Roberto Bolano without familiarizing with his writing. However even after a week finishing the reading, I am not able to gather my thought around it. Here is my failed attempt to get some thoughts together.

2666, the last work completed ( in haste apparently, as if he knew what is happening to him) by Bolano before his death in 2003, is probably the first of the classics of 21st century ( definitely in the first decade). This one will go a long way in discussions and will be heralded as one of the path breaking novels of the 21st century. The book is written in 5 parts, and he wanted to publish each as separate books, however better sense prevailed and the heirs decided to publish this as one consolidated mega book.

Tracing back and forth between Europe and Mexico, this follows the life of a literary genius on one side and as a crime detective story on the other converging the threads brilliantly towards the end.

The most important part, the fourth and the longest ( nearly 300 pages), named as 'The part about the Crimes' is the most discussed part by the critics and readers in general. Tracing the disappearance of young women in a fictional town of Santa Teresa in the norther borders of Mexico adjoining US. Mostly written in reportage and often repetitive in nature, he traces the crime over a period of 10 years, end of the 20th century and the initial years of 21st century. May be this part makes people declare this as a novel about crime, of death , of apocalypse foretold ( especially with the name 2666 of the book). Critics says, Santa Teresa is modelled on the city of Ciudad Juarez in the US borders, where the large US enterprises sets up their manufacturing units , attracted by the cheap labour force and the proximity to the key market. Interestingly, it was noted that these large corporates employee women workers in their factories, for obvious reasons. The disappearance of working women, later found dead abandoned in the desert , brutally murdered after rape and torture. The investigations as expected often abandoned with no results and the cases were closed citing lack of evidence. Bolano, gets the readers focus on this issue of murder and the investigations linking it to the other theme with some brilliant interplay.

The main thread follows an obscure Gernam Writer Benno Von Archimboldi. Chapter One focusses on four literary critics, who were attracted by Archimboldi and his writing, Presenting papers in various international forums and literary festival the obsessed quartet follow the writer in order to find the details through the publishers and the tracks of fellow critics, eventually ending up in the town of Santa Teresa following certain indication. It is in the last part, is the life story of Benno von Archimboldi, from Hans Reiter, a WWII veteran, turning into a writer maintaining his anonymity until the last days of his life( even from his family). This chapter is one gets the various chapters together giving the book a wholesome feeling, completing with the story of Archimboldi's sister and her son. Santa Teresa is the merging point of all the threads, it is where most of the actions are. It is also the place of eventual apocalypse.

The whole novel on a different angle can be viewed as a satire. A satire on the literary academics of Europe. The efforts of few individuals making an obscure writer , the sensation and someone who is Nobel worthy. This is also a political satire on the true story of murders of women in Ciudad Juarez. Thus it is often funny, and at times ridiculous.

It is evident that he wanted his last book to be a classic , an epic : and that is what he made it to be. In every sense the book goes through the narration that befit one magnum opus. The size of the book does not come in way of the overall enjoyment. Its a fast read and is an easy one. He purposefully vary lengths of his chapters, manipulates pace of narrative, and deliberate over matters of importance. He also include intricate subtexts and stories within stories ( especially towards the end) leaving you suspended and often bewildered. Interestingly every part is a different style of writing. A reportage for the crime, a biographical style for the last, a satirical style for the first part.

900 pages of shear magic. May be kept the best for last. This will not be the last ime I'm reading this and not the last time I talk about this..

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2666 ( 2004 )

Roberto Bolano ( Translated from Spanish by Natasha Wimmer in 2008)

Pacador

898 Pages
Rs 750
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Other Reads : Complete Review , Wiki , Latin American Review of Books

Amulet - Roberto Bolaño

"This is going to be a horror story. A story of murder, detection and horror. But it won't appear to be, for the simple reason that I am the teller. Told by me, it won't seem like that. Although, in fact, it's the story of a terrible crime." starts the book. The book indeed is that of horror and murder. Based on the real incident of massacre of students and the curb of the demonstration by the Mexican authorities. Bolano, does not refer to the murder directly, but the theme hover around this, coming back to the fate again and again, through the experience of Auxilio Lacouture, a Uruguan expat in Mexico city, self proclaimed " mother of all Mexican poets".

During the eventful days of students uprising, locked herself , in the "cubicle of the ladies "lavatory on the fourth floor of the Faculty of Philosophy and Literature at the Universidad Nacional Autónoma in Mexico City (UNAM), where she has been trapped by an army occupation of the campus", thus demonstrating a solitary protest ( according to her),she become part of the resistance by her own way. It is this eventful 12-15 days( which she does not remember exactly), that takes her through the life, half in delirium due to the solitary confinement and the tiredness due to lack of food, get us through the fable of her time during those years and that of the socio-political life in Mexico City.

Auxilio, came to Mexico city, from Montevideo, few years before 1968. It could be 1967 or 65 or as early as 63, she does not remember. All she know was the poets Leon Felipe and Pedro Garfias were alive ( both of them died in 1968) and she was working at their home doing odd jobs and other errands for them. It is this acquaintance with the great poets made her stake the claim of mother of all Mexican Poets. She did not have a proper job. Apart from spending her time in the taverns and coffee bars with young and wanna be poets, she works at the university, at her own will on mostly free or for occassional wages given on temporary work at various functions at the University.

It is also important to know the events that happened in 1968 at Tlateloco in Mexico City. There were general unrest and agitation for larger freedom and democracy against the ruling PRI ( single party rule at that time in Mexico). On the Octover 2, 1968 students from the above mentioned university along with the rest of the liberal politicians and intellects gathered at Plaza de Tlateloco, Mexico City for a meeting. The Army surrounded the place and opened indiscriminatory fire against the agitators. More that 300 killed and many more seriously injured. There were many arrested, imprisoned and tortured , leaving behind one of the darkest days in 20th century Mexico's history. You can read more of that here.

Auxilio, on her note confirms that she was at the University and did not witness the murder.

I was at the university on the eighteenth of September when the army occupied the campus and went around arresting and killing indiscriminately. No. Not that many people were killed at the university. That was in Tlateloco. May that name live forever in our memory ! But I was at the university when the army and the riot police came in and rounded everyone up.

But on her part she still feels the pain of the sorrow, and her repeated recollections of her days at the lavatory , even after many years as late as 1974 in some of her stories. She continue to be tormented and continue to suffer from night dreams and hallucinatory visions. The last few pages, where the 'ghost-children' of Tlateloco, march in unison singing and falling off the abyss to the depth of history. She says, "And although the song that I heard was about war, about the heroic deeds of a whole generation of young Latin Americans led to sacrifice, I knew that above and beyond all, it was about courage and mirrors, desire and pleasure."

This is not an isolated Mexico story. Its the story of the Latin America in general, almost all of the countries going through troubled times in the 60s and early 70s. His alter ego, Aurtirito Belano, a young poet from Chile came to Mexico to live, During the times of Allende, he goes back to his native country, returning back to Mexico after he was de-throwned in a coup. Like many of his countrymen he too did not do anything apart from being a silent witness. Auxillio says "everyone was somehow expecting him to open his mouth and give us the latest news from the Horror Zone, but he said nothing, as if what other people expected had become incomprehensible to him or he simply didn't give a shit."

Bolano, also indicates that the only thing that survive beyond generations are the literary works. He predicts, the resurrection of various writers from the past having readers in the 21st and 22nd centuries while he himself was not sure of the outcome in the near future. Auxilio in her days of confinement says,

The vanity of writing, the vanity of destruction. I thought, Because I wrote, I endured. I thought, Because I destroyed what I had written, they will find me, they will hit me, they will rape me, they will kill me. I thought, The two things are connected, writing and destroying, hiding and being found.

There are many intellectuals and political figures appear in her narrative. Apart from many known Mexican Poets, she seems to have acquainted and the Italian and French artists and painters, Ernesto de Che Guevara also appears in Mexico.

Extremely powerful and haunting book. It is not an easy read and for majority of the pages it goes through the hallucinatory world of scattered events, people, time often jumbled and troubled as the narrator herself experience. Its very demanding read and Bolano does not explain the real motive or drive behind the fiction, making it more and more obscure. However, a strong narration and the absorbing language in line with the overall direction makes this a compelling and powerful book. Outstanding.

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Amulet ( 1999)

Roberto Bolaño ( translated by Chris Andrew 2006)

Picador

184 Pages
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More read : Guardian , Complete Review , Wiki



By Night in Chile - Roberto Bolaño

Roberto Bolano has been getting considerable admiration in the English speaking world, after his translations are made available, in the past few years. There are comparisons of him to Marquez and Borges in stature. 2666, the book released last year in English, posthumously, was a huge success, with rave reviews around the globe. I too, did buy the copy of 2666, along with the rest of the world, but haven't summed up enough courage to start reading the mammoth book ( 800 pages only). Instead , decided to start of with a shorter one as an appetizer to the literary world of Bolano.

I haven't seen or read any other novel which is written in one paragraph. 130 pages of this monologue, is in one non-stop paragraph. Sebastian Urrutia Lacroix, a Chilean priest, member of Opes Dei ( right-wing orthodox Christian group), a failed poet and a literary critic, on his death bed ( or so he believes) recounts his life, during the course of the night.

"I am dying now. But I still have many things to say" , begins, Urrutia, taking the readers through multiple disjointed often dreamy sequences of the important events of literary and political importance, witnessed by him. After the initial pages where he talks about his life and the introductions to the church ,

"At the age of fourteen, I entered the seminary, and when I came out again, much later on, my mother kissed my hand and called me Father..... I protested , saying Don't call me Father, mother, I am your son.."

His acquaintance with the literary world was through the literary critic, called Farewell (with homosexual tendencies) , at whose villa, he was introduced the greats like Pablo Neruda and other established and upcoming poets and writers of Chile. The discussions with Farewell ranged from the poets and novelists of Chile and Argentina to the Artists and Paintings of the modern Europe.

"What use are books, they are shadows, nothing but shadows. And I : like the shadows you have been watching ? Farewell: Quite. And I: There is a very interesting book by Plato on precisely that subject. Farewell : Dont be an idiot. And I: What are those shadows telling you, Farewell, what is it ? Farewell: They are telling me about multiplicity of reading. And I : Multiple, perhaps, but thoroughly mediocre and miserable".

A starving Guatemalan painter in the Paris suburb, the German writer and the representative of the nation in Paris, Ernst Jünger comes in the thoughts among many real and imaginary characters of Chile. He was also selected by the Opes Dei, to take a tour of Europe and study about the preservation of Churches and report back, during which he meets various priest across multiple countries, practising falconry to get rid of the pigeon, whose dropping can cause considerable damage to the architecture.

After the death Allende and the fall of socialist Goverment, General Pinochet took over the control of the country. Urrutia, was entrusted with the mission of taking secret classes to the Military junta, about the nuances of communism. His association with a wannabe writer Maria Canvales, who , with her American husband hosts extravagant parties at their residence participated by 'who is who' of the Chilean literary world. However, these parties did not last long after the fall of the regime and the revelation of the basement torture and interrogation camp conducted by the American for the Junta.

Fitting to the presentation of the novel ( a single paragraph), these thoughts and rants are continuous and jumping from one incident to other with no chronological sequence or structure. Even during these delirious rants, he is aware of the importance of silences..

''Yes, one's silences, because silences rise to heaven too, and God hears them, and only God understands and judges them, so one must be very careful with one's silences.'' His own silences, he adds, ''are immaculate.''

I thought, Sebastián Urrutia Lacroix is an anti-ego of what Bolano is (I've seen reports that Urrutia Lacroix is modeled on a real figure, the priest and right-wing literary critic José Miguel Ibañez Langlois) . A right wing orthodox, collaborating with the Pinochet Regime, ranting over the various political and literary icons of Chile and Europe.

This novel is beyond the delirious rant of a dying man. It is more complex than that and Bolano, is not spending time discussing his personal side of the story. His target is elsewhere, could be the pretentious academia of literary world, or the establishment with their secret interrogation cells, where you unknowingly being part of. With the narrator going through his memoirs over the history of Chile , the quest for wizened youth linger.. "I can picture the wizened youth's face. I cannot actually see him, but he is there in my mind's eye." and "Where is the wizened youth? Why has he gone away? And little by little the truth begins to rise like a dead body."

This book demand a second read , may be after getting familiarised with Bolano. This may not be the best of Bolano, but an important book and a fantastic introduction to an outstanding writer.

I haven't read a novel in one paragraph ! And of course, the end was great : " And then the storm of shit begins."

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By Night in Chile
Roberto Bolaño ( translated from Spanish by Chris Andrews )
The Harvill Press
130 Pages
Rs 600 ( phew !!)

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Further read : NY Times, Guardian