2666's The Part About the Crimes and Literary Realism

I haven't posted much about it recently, but I just last week completed Roberto Bolano's 2666, participating in the group read hosted by bolanobolano.com. I've avoided writing much about the book since January mostly because, after reading the superb recaps and analyses on that site, I felt like I didn't have much to add. Additionally, to be honest, I found the group read scheduling a little disorienting. It's been a little while since my college days concluded and I really haven't read on someone else's schedule since then. I don't know if I could have successfully completed 2666 (and I'm not sure that I even would have embarked upon this journey) without the support and scheduling of the group, but the read felt choppy at times. If I finished a section on a Wednesday, I would usually wait until Monday to begin the next week's portion. This type of scheduling may be better suited for a repeat reading. Something to think about.

But, now that I've completed the book, I'd like to think for a moment on the effect it had on me, the reader. I'm thinking specifically of The Part About the Crimes, the most famous, longest section, clocking in at nearly 300 pages. This part is a weaving narrative of many minor and major characters, but one of the recurring themes is a spate of crimes committed in the Mexican town of Santa Teresa throughout the mid-'90s. The crimes in question are very specific: young women are being raped and murdered. Around 200 of them. And they're described in graphic detail. Here's a representative paragraph:

In the middle of November, Andrea Pasheco Martinez, thirteen, was kidnapped on her way out of Vocational School 16. Although the street was far from deserted, there were no witnesses, except for two if Andrea's classmates who saw her head toward a black car, probably a Peregrino or a Spirit, where a person in sunglasses was waiting for her. There may have been other people in the car, but Andrea's classmates didn't get a look at them, partly because the car windows were tinted. That afternoon Andrea didn't come home and her parents filed a police report a few hours later, after they had called some of her friends. The city police and the judicial police took charge of the case. When she was found, two days later, her body showed unmistakable signs of strangulation, with a fracture of the hyoid bone. She had been anally and vaginally raped. There was tumefaction of the wrists, as if they had been bound. Both ankles presented lacerations, by which it was deduced that her feet had also been tied.

First, notice the writing style here. It bears the unmistakable mark of a police report, with the straightforward summary of violence. But more important than the content of this one paragraph is the cumulative effect of reading dozens of such reports. Even though other sections of the novel describe more quantitative deaths, the quality of the descriptions isn't nearly as graphic. The horrific murders of The Part About Archimboldi doesn't register in the same way as the murders of the women in Santa Teresa.

This is a tough, tough section to read. And it's intentionally written this way. James Wood speaks often about the necessary balance of realism and readability in fiction. The Part About the Crimes strained the limits of what I could read. But to achieve the realism needed for this section, Bolano had to push some boundaries here. Because, after all, he's describing the brutal real-life murders of Ciudad Juarez. This is supposed to hurt. It's the only way the author can get across the numbing repetition of these violent crimes. And, you know what, this section wouldn't have had the same effect if this was written any other way.

Paragraph of the Week

From Roberto Bolano's 2666:

His relationship with their hostess never once departed from the strict pathways of courtesy and respect. When the filming was over, the ranch owner offered to drive the Epsteins and JT back to Buenos Aires in her Bentley, but JT said he would rather make the return trip with the team. Three days later the Epsteins dropped him off at the airport and JT didn't dare ask them directly about Estela. Nor did he ask anything about the film. In New York he tried in vain to forget her. The first few days were tinged with melancholy and regret and JT thought he would never recover. Anyway: recover why? And yet, with the passage of time, in his heart he understood that he'd gained much more than he'd lost. At least, he said to himself, I've met the woman of my dreams. Other people, most people, glimpse something in films, the shadow of great actresses, the gaze of true love. But I saw her in the flesh, heard her voice, saw her silhouetted against the endless pampa. I talked to her and she talked back.

Paragraph of the Week

From Roberto Bolano's 2666:

Soon the end of the sacred came to the movies. The big theaters were torn down and up went the hideous boxes called multi-plexes, practical, functional. The cathedrals were filled by the wrecking balls of demolition teams. Then the VCR came along. A TV set isn't the same as a movie screen. Your living room isn't the same as the old endless rows of seats. But look carefully and you'll see it's the closest thing to it. In the first place, because with videos you can watch a movie all by yourself. You close the windows and you turn on the TV. You pop in the video and you sit in a chair. First off: do it alone. No matter how big or how small your house is, it feels bigger with no one else there. Second: be prepared. In other words, rent the movie, buy the drinks you want, the snacks you want, decide what time you're going to sit down in front of the TV. Third: don't answer the phone, ignore the doorbell, be ready to spend an hour and a half or an hour and forty-five minutes in complete and utter solitude. Fourth: have the remote control within reach in case you want to see a scene more than once. And that's it. After that it all depends on the movie and on you. If things work out, and sometimes they don't, you're back in the presence of the sacred. You burrow your head into your own chest and open your eyes and watch, pronounced Charly Cruz.

Initial 2666 Thoughts

As I mentioned last week, there's a very cool group read of Roberto Bolano's novel 2666 starting on Monday. I wasn't necessarily planning on doing much writing on the subject because there are people much smarter than I who'll be discussing 2666 as part of this group read. But if the great Matt Bucher is going to go out of his way to mention The Daily Snowman in his roundup of bloggers and others participating in the group read, I might as well volunteer my thoughts.

So here are two things I loved about the first 51 pages of 2666.

Thing the first: The most conspicuous formal feature of the novel's first section is the run-on sentence stretching from pages 18 to 22. The nice part about Bolano's use of this extremely long sentence is that it works perfectly in the context of the plot. Briefly, four scholars of the reclusive writer Benno von Archimboli have just met a man, referred to as the Swabian, who had shared a dinner table with Archimboli. These four academics--who've devoted countless years of study to the mysterious writer--must have been held in rapt attention, hearing from someone who had encountered the object of their study. They would have waited breathlessly for any scrap of information regarding Archimboli. In short, the reader experiences the Swabian's story in very much the same way that the four critics experienced it. This is formal experimentation for the benefit of the plot, not just for the sake of experimentation. That's cool.

Thing the second: At one point (pg. 40) Bolano recounts a conversation held between two of the critics, Pelletier and Espinoza. Here's the first few lines of Bolano's description:

The first twenty minutes were tragic in tone, with the word fate used ten times and the word friendship twenty-four times. Liz Norton's name was spoken fifty times, nine of them in vain. The word Paris was said seven times, Madrid, eight. The word love was spoken twice, once by each man. The word horror was spoken six times and the word happiness once (by Espinoza). The word solution was said twelve times. The word solipsism seven times.

The novel proceeds in this direction for several more lines, enumerating how many times certain words were used by the two conversationalists.

Italo Calvino, in his novel If on a winter's night a traveler..., satirizes people who read books by counting up the number of specific words used. So if a book uses a preponderance of military words, you can be certain that the book focuses on war. In the context of Calvino's book, it's a biting critique of those who don't truly read. But in Bolano's able hands, it works.

And remember, it's not too late to join the group read.

2666 Group Read

Just a quick public service announcement: Matt Bucher (editor of bolanobolano.com, presenter at last year's Footnotes conference, and administrator of wallace-l, the DFW online group) is organizing a group read of Roberto Bolano's book, 2666. The format of the group is modeled on Infinite Summer, the recent online group read of Infinite Jest. Discussion of the first 50 pages will commence on January 25, so there's still time to procure a copy of the book and to get reading. For more on 2666, The New Canon has some nice background information. I'm going along for this ride. Anyone want to join?