/lit/ - Literature

Strictly for the YA or beginner crowd. If you are beyond 25 you shouldn't be reading him.

>>16721130
>.
Can you elaborate ?

>>16721130
Dumb faggot. Is Hemingway ya too? Just because authors write clearly doesn’t mean it’s ya you pseud numale.

God damn can nap moot just make a philosophy board so all these pseuds can fuck off there??

>>16721137
Yes. He's one of those gateway drug kind of authors who are perfect for beginners in literature. The kind of writer who basically gives you a list of recommendations if you follow carefully. Pretty much all the writers he namedrops are far more interesting. His novels are decent although a bit too obscurantist for my taste now, his stories are hit or miss (mostly miss), and his poetry is simply dogshit. I had my Bolaño phase when I was 17-20 but now I have grown out of it. He's that kind of guy.

>>16721137
He's just being contrarian. Savage Detectives is a masterpiece.

>>16721130
>look /lit/ I am a consistent retard in spamming YA every time Bolano's name is mentioned.
KYS. Just give yourself a trip already, you massive faggot.

>>16721159
>Savage Detectives is a masterpiece.

this

Also to continue the discussion, I've only recently read Savage Detectives and thoroughly loved it. I have 2666 and The Third Reich, and By Night in Chile is coming in the mail. What else should I read of his? I'm interested in reading Antwerp and Distant Star, also interested in his poetry collections.

>>16721126
I have only read "Nazi Literature in the Americas" and it was ok

>>16721199
Distant Star is pretty comfy and in my opinion is one of the best books about South American dictatorships ever written. It's so fucking good, bro. Read 2666, it's a really good novel, but I still prefer Savage Detectives over it.

>>16721199
Even if he's YA fiction, Distant Star is good. Avoid his poetry, though. Unless you enjoy reading Rupi Kaur or Bukowski's poetry.

>>16721220
>>16721221

Nice, I'll be sure to get Distant Star with my next big purchase.

>>16721254
Good call. In my opinion that's his best book after Detectives and 2666.

>>16721213
>commie writer calls every right-wing person a 'Nazi'
Why was Bolano such a SJW?

>>16721268
No bait, please.

>>16721272
>reality is bait
huh?

>>16721158
>all the writers he namedrops are far more interesting

I think he actually said something like this about himself in an interview. He seemed pretty humble.

>>16721158
I'm currently reading "2666", and it gives me the impression that it is more dense that how it seems at first. Am I missing something about the novel or I'm overthinking and the novel is actually as simple as it seems at first glance?

>>16721268
weak bait desu

>>16721352
He was a pretty chill guy. Fuck, can you imagine meeting him in his mid twenties and just bumming around South America writing poetry and fucking chicks?

>>16721373
That's the gimmick he always does in every novel. "Oh man there's something very big and evil in this world of ours, bro. Some dark mystery festering in the depths of our terrible modern world." And at the end it all dissolves into unsatisfying nothingness. Every time. It fails as both literary and genre fiction, in my opinion. The man himself said his fiction work was entertaining and nothing more. He just had to eat so he wrote entertaining fiction in order to put bread on the table.

>>16721394
He was humble as a mature man but as a young man he was quite arrogant judging from people who knew him back then. Age jaded him and made him humble.

>>16721130
>>16721158
Based 21-year-old midwit

>>16721404
>And at the end it all dissolves into unsatisfying nothingness.
You sound like you're speaking out of your ass. None of that is in Night by Chile. I'd venture Distant Star has closure.
At any rate, if you want satisfying endings, maybe read mystery fiction or detective novels, you huge faggot. Probably avoid Kafka.

>>16721410
>he was quite arrogant judging from people who knew him back then
any anecdote to share?

>>16721126
I thoroughly enjoyed 2666 when I read it a few years back and wish to return to the rest of his work when I have the time and can understand the many references he makes. Two of my favorite parts in the book was when the academics would discuss German literature and when that one poet who was celebrated in his youth as a genius ended up in a madhouse.

>>16721455
It's not about closure necessarily but about the overall thing. There's a palpable false sense depth to, I'd say, all his novels, upon revisiting. A superficial tour to all these similar crime fantasies. He has to rely on a genre-like plot in order to keep the reader interested. A bit like he's telling you that he will be taking you to hell itself but ultimately you end up in the same spot you were standing on when you began the book. Unchanged. A mere tease rather than thick substance. He leads you on to nowhere. As the cliché goes, "the emperor has no clothes."

>>16721158
I agree. He helped me to go to other parts of literature and avoid reading shitty best-sellers. I am not going to say everything he recommeds is gold but most of it is good literature.

Also this feature make some people hate him as well.

im 50 pages in to the savage detectives and theres already been 2 blowjobs

>>16721221
>Even if he's YA fiction
He’s not, so you can stop pandering to that faggot who spams that in every thread

>>16721545
>Also this feature make some people hate him as well.
why? what do you mean, bro?

>>16721517
>A bit like he's telling you that he will be taking you to hell itself but ultimately you end up in the same spot you were standing on when you began the book.
Imagine being able to see this and still missing the point this badly. Why do you think 2666 has a chapter with hundreds of rapes and murders? Why do you think so many of his books are about misencounters, waiting, regrets, etc.?

I liked 2666, but as I kept reading, I kept wondering "how the fuck is he going to tie all these strands back together" -- this thought just grew and grew -- until at the very end I ultimately see that he's going to make no attempt to do so. But it was still good.

>>16721772
>that he's going to make no attempt to do so.
Based af. I might have to read this guy after all.

>>16721653
I mean, if I wanted a real account of our hell-reality, that was journalistic and truthful, I'd read 'Huesos en el desierto' again (you know the book on which Bolaño based the crimes chapter), not a soap opera/crime fiction/serial killer extravaganza that forces literary motifs into a brutal world that's completely alien to those things. It's almost like some capricious fantasy on his part, making all those guys critics and writers and literature professors. In a superficial way it sounded based, but after a certain age, I'm starting to think it's quite implausible and even disrespectful to the victims. It's like "You murdered and raped girls and women went through a real fucking hell on earth? Well I'm making an artificial, plastic hollywoodian fantasy with serial killers and psychics to represent it! It will be pure entertainment and win awards." It's okay if you like it, though.

>>16721772
>until at the very end I ultimately see that he's going to make no attempt to do so.
Because they were meant to be separate novels with some relation or reference. Not a solid novel. What you read was a sandwich.

>>16721199
I just finished Amulet today. It was pretty good, it features a bunch of characters from the Savage Detectives, so it's a nice little visit back to that world. It's really short though, like only 30,000 words.

>>16721807
Yea, that one is like an expanded version of a chapter in Detectives, just like how Distant Star is an expanded version of a chapter in Nazi Literature.

>>16721601
so you've busted two times is what you are saying

>>16721601
what's with the native american who measures his dick with a knife?

>>16721838
>native american
From what I remember he was just Mexican.

>>16721850

>>16721850
Mexican of Native descent, I believe. At least that's how I remember him being described.

>>16721621
>> why?
With him, if not read carefully, may cause the I am fourteenandthisisdeep reaction.

>>what do you mean, bro?
Some people may regard him as a best-seller author in disguise. He seems to be YA fictions. However I think he opens the doors to good literature to young readers.

>>16721213
This is a very academic book, in my view.

>>16721480
Not the same anon, but he was the kind of young writer that likes to believe he's the shit and the future of literature and start talking crap about everyone but himself and his group of friends.
He actually recalls this and make fun of himself and this part of his youth in The Savage Detectives.
One of the most hilarious stories out there is when they arrived drunk to a Octavio Paz's poetry lecture and started throwing shit and making the whole event a big scandal lmao

>>16722712
And then when Monsiváis asked them why they didn't like Paz they couldn't answer nor explain. In a late 90s interview Bolaño admitted he thought Paz was a great poet.

>>16722719
Yeah, he has some good interviews where he talks about Paz and based on what he said I believe he didn't actually hated Paz as a writer but his role as the 'owner' of the entire mexican literary culture at that time. The author that everyone talks about, and the author who is everywhere. I think he said something about how Paz controlled some of the most important literary magazines and cultural centers, and how it was kind of impossible make yourself of a writer without needing to appear in any of this spaces.
He also was a huge fan of various contemporary mexican poets and didn't like the fact that no one talks about them because of the presence of Paz.
He also said something similar about Neruda despite the fact he liked a lot some of his poetry.

>>16722749
I think he appreciated many poets. He was, at his youth, against literary stablishment, this is what "infrarealista" movement was about. He hated Paz because he was the human figure of the literary stablishment, however he admired him as a poet. In fact his wife, posthumously, showed Bolanos library and there are Paz poetry books.

>>16721957
Yeah, probably not the best book to start with. I'll read Distant Star soon.

Looks like a self-hating leftist. QRD on this guy?

>>16723709
He a riter.

>>16723709
He said if he were a politician he would be a leftist.

>>16721199
Nazi Literature in the Americas

I've only read the savage detectives but i didn't really get the point
am i too midwit for his writing?
i have a copy of 2666 but if i am too midwit i might not read it

>>16725760
There is no point. It's more of a send up of Bolanos time with his poet friends, and the wandering nature of literature and peoples. Youll make of it what you will i.e. "what's outside the window?"

2666 is entirely different altogether but the conclusion of a "point" is even more vague. Try it and see if you find something in it, I know I did.

>>16725760
2666 is much more enjoyable.

>>16725912
Agreed. I did enjoy Savage Detectives quite a bit though. Gotta read more of his stuff.