Our thirty-first match of the first ever World Cup of Literature features two amazing books written in Spanish: one by a revered, now dead author, the other by a young upstart; one by a man, one by a woman; one from Chile, the other from Mexico; one focused on a singular narrative voice, the other featuring a few storylines that mingle and merge; both published by high-minded, well-respected independent presses (New Directions and Coffee House).

Roberto Bolaño’s By Night in Chile made it to the finals by beating the Netherlands, Brazil, Italy, and Germany.

Valeria Luiselli’s Faces in the Crowd made it here by beating Croatia, Australia, Uruguay, and the USA.

Rather than go on about these books, or the competition itself, I’ll just say that we’re probably going to replicate this for the Women’s World Cup next summer, but featuring only women writers. So stay tuned!

But for now, let’s get it on: Bolaño vs. Luiselli!

George Carroll: Mexico

Yedlin, Green, James, Neymar, Besler. I’m going with youth. The future of the sport. The future of literature. Put me in the Luiselli column.

Chad W. Post: Mexico

Because Bolaño would’ve won in 2002, 2006, 2010, will likely win this match, and has already received enough accolades. Because Luiselli is living. Because more people need to read Faces in the Crowd and Sidewalks. And because I have a neurotic love for looking forward and supporting the things that I’m in love with now. Bolaño was one of the greatest authors ever, but I read all these books a while back and am currently in love with Luiselli’s writing.

Nick Long: Mexico

And here we’ve come to a neo-classical World Cup final between the old guard and the fresh-faced promise of the future. A masterpiece by an author dead for over a decade to which the announcers lovingly refer to as “the corpse of Roberto Bolaño” trots out onto to the field to delirious frenzy by the fans—By Night in Chile deserves all the acclaim it’s received. But nothing in the World Cup is ever guaranteed except controversy. And Faces in the Crowd is a more than worthy opponent for this final. Despite restless politicking (isn’t FIFA all about politics and corruption anyway?) and thinly veined satire about the corruption, BNiC kept missing chance after chance. FitC knocked in its sole chance in the match to win in a shocking upset, closing out an era.

Hal Hlavinka: Chile

Mauro Javier Cardenas: Chile

Tom Roberge: Chile

Scott Esposito: Chile

Stephen Sparks: Chile

By Night in Chile was my introduction to Bolano: I read it on a long flight and, after finishing in mid-air, I reread it immediately. Luiselli is very good: Faces in the Crowd might be the best novel I’ve read this year, but I wouldn’t class it in the same category as BNiC.

Rhea Lyons: Chile

Jeff Waxman: Chile

Jeffrey Zuckerman: Mexico

I don’t understand why anybody’s even bothering to ask me for an unbiased opinion. I interviewed Valeria Luiselli and then wrote about how her life and her work have merged into each other, and how wonderful both are. I have voted against Bolaño every single round, and this last one is no exception. Valeria Luiselli’s just so much better. This one goes to “a dense, porous novel. Like a baby’s heart.”

James Crossley: Chile

I really liked Faces in the Crowd and urge more people to read it. Remember when Ben Lerner got all that attention for Leaving the Atocha Station? Luiselli’s book is in some ways similar, but loads better. It’s one of the best books to come out this year, in fact. But By Night in Chile is one of the best books of this millennium. Bolaño should win the 2014 Cup, but I have a feeling I’ll be rooting for Luiselli four years from now.

P.T. Smith: Chile

By Night in Chile and Faces in the Crowd are a similar length, both books that I eye and think “If I time it right, I can finish this in a sitting.” By Night in Chile, with compelling, prose that pushes on and on, I read in one. Faces in the Crowd, fragmented, yet creative, and bringing those fractures together, took three. I cherish those one-sitting readings, and so want novels that aren’t structured to give me reasons to leave. Faces in the Crowd was my discovery of the tournament, and I’ll read Luiselli again, but By Night was a sitting I remember years later, and Faces seems less likely to do the same.

Chris Schaefer: Chile

Laura Radosh: Mexico

Stephen’s right, Faces isn’t in the same class as BNiC, but Luiselli shouldn’t go down like Brazil. Another vote for the future of literature.

Hannah Chute: Mexico

Bolaño is “one of the greats.” But hell, we all knew that before we started this competition. I’m pretty sure the whole point of this project was to highlight interesting, contemporary world literature, and Bolaño winning this isn’t going to help anyone. Faces in the Crowd is a fantastic book; everyone should go out right now to buy it, read it, and cherish the fuck out of it.

Ryan Ries: Chile

There’s an inescapable ad on a local radio station in which the hysterical business owner insists that using his service is “the biggest no-brainer in the history of mankind”. This isn’t quite at that level, but, c’mon.

Trevor Berrett: Chile

Elianna Kan: Chile

Bolaño, nearly no contest, for his unflinching vitality and for passages like this one:

. . . and life went on and on and on, like a necklace of rice grains, on each grain of which a landscape had been painted, tiny grains and microscopic landscapes, and I knew that everyone was putting that necklace on and wearing it, but no one had the patience or the strength or the courage to take it off and look at it closely and decipher each landscape grain by grain, partly because to do so required the vision of a lynx or an eagle, and partly because the landscapes usually turned out to contain unpleasant surprises like coffins, makeshift cemeteries, ghost towns, the void and the horror, the smallness of being and its ridiculous will, people watching television, people going to football matches, boredom navigating the Chilean imagination like an enormous aircraft carrier. And that’s the truth. We were bored. We intellectuals. Because you can’t read all day and all night. You can’t write all day and all night. Splendid isolation has never been our style . . .

Will Evans: Mexico

My vote for the final goes to Faces in the Crowd. This is the voice of a master in training. The voice of an author finding herself, creating herself as she goes along. The themes are universal, the text as intertext, the narrative voice is distinct, the exploration of motherhood is profound, and when it comes down to it I just liked reading it more than By Night in Chile, which I also loved, but for different ways. Maybe it was the strength of translator Christina MacSweeney lifting Luiselli to heights in English hard to fathom. And maybe because I want to crush the patriarchy. Even when the odds are stacked against little old Mexico’s team, the shock team in the final, Luiselli’s novel is strong enough to carry the Mexican people the way El Tri couldn’t quite manage this year, though they gave it everything they had and inspired me and millions more in the process. They say Mexico’s national team is the most popular national team in the USA, and Luiselli is soon to be everybody’s favorite author in the USA too. She is amazing, Faces in the Crowd is brilliant. Props to Coffee House for publishing Luiselli!!!!!!

Kaija Straumanis: Mexico

Copy paste anything I’ve said in the past being pro-Mexico and insert it here. I also agree with what Will says above, and not only because of his mustache. ¡VIVA MEXICO! (Or not. Bolaño-loving jerks.)

Lance Edmonds: Chile

Shaun Randol: Chile

Having refereed Chile’s killer first match and silently cheered them on since, I gotta go with fan loyalty on this one.

Chi Chi Chi! Le Le Le! Viva Chile!

Katrine Jensen: Chile

I’ve helped carry Luiselli’s excellent Faces in The Crowd to a well-deserved spot in the finals; but a wise man I know once wrote on Facebook, “Bolaño always wins,” and to this I must say yes. Yes he does.

Lori Feathers: Mexico

Faces in the Crowd and By Night in Chile are both smart and provocative. But simply put, Faces in the Crowd is a more interesting read.

Florian Duijsens: Chile

What a great surprise, this final battle. I’d imagined it would be a clash of legends, dead authors whose cult has only grown as their posthumous vaults have been methodically cleared these past few years. Ironic, then, that Luiselli’s is a book about ghosts, about seeing literary ghosts and becoming them. Faces in the Crowd is a stunning juggling act of truths and fictions, but ultimately the ghost stories collected in By Night in Chile (also not a very hefty book) weighed heavier on me.

And there you have it: Roberto Bolaño’s By Night in Chile wins the 2014 World Cup of Literature in a rout. Buy it, read it, and enjoy it!

——

After 28 matches we’ve finally made it to the World Cup of Literature semifinals, and are only a few days away from crowning the first ever WCL Champion. (If only we had a giant papier-mâché trophy for the winner . . .)

Before that though, we have two semifinal matches that are as intriguing as anything to date, starting with a face-off between two of the most beloved authors of recent times: Robert Bolaño and W.G. Sebald.

Roberto Bolaño’s By Night in Chile (Chile) made it to this point by beating the Netherlands and Koch’s The Dinner by a score of 3-0, taking out Brazil’s Buarque and Budapest by a score of 3-1, and then upending Italy’s great hope, Elena Ferrante and The Days of Abandonment 4-2.

W.G. Sebald’s Austerlitz (Germany) got here by wrecking Ghana and Kojo Laing’s Search Sweet Country 5-1, sliding past Algeria and Leïla Marouane’s The Sexual Life of an Islamist in Paris by a score of 1-0, and knocking out Bosnia and Saša Stanišic’s How the Soldier Repairs the Gramophone 4-3.

This is a match that no one really wanted to judge—both books are brilliant and deserve all the accolades they’ve ever received.

That said, this is a competition and only one can move on to the Championship . . .

Shaun Randol: Germany

Both By Night in Chile and Austerlitz have the protagonist confronting demons from a real political past. Amoral authoritarian rulers, institutions, and systems are indicted with barely contained bitterness and rage. And both authors—Bolano and Sebald—mix fact and fiction to get the point across. The teams go into overtime, not even the prose distinguishes one team over the other. In the end, the deployment of photography in the fictional musing gives Austerlitz the artistic edge.

George Carroll: Chile

James Crossley: Germany

Sebald’s roll through the tournament—he earned the highest percentage victories from the fans in the first and second rounds—finally slows down. He’s up against a fantastic book, and this matchup feels more like a final than I think the final will. But in the end, I don’t think Chile earns the win. Things might have played out differently with 2666 or The Savage Detectives in the mix, but By Night in Chile just isn’t Bolano’s best novel. Austerlitz is probably Sebald’s, though, and it gets the nod from me.

Hannah Chute: Chile

Trevor Berrett: Germany

If you forced me to name my two personal “most important” literary discoveries of the last decade, I’m pretty sure they’d be Bolaño and Sebald. I’m not alone in my esteem; both were awarded posthumous National Book Critics Circle Awards. Putting these two books together like this shows some fascinating overlapping themes, and everyone should read each. Now to decide which of their “life histories” should progress: Sebald’s. Bolaño’s architecture is destroyed by corruption and pigeon droppings; Sebald’s is erased by time, which I find more terrifying.

Stephen Sparks: Chile

How the fuck is someone supposed to choose either Bolano or Sebald? Since either one of these books could easily defeat the winner of the other bracket, I’m casting my vote in the same way I decide who to root for in the actual world cup: root for the poorer country.

Nick During: Chile

I’m often a terrible fan. Sometimes I’ll start a game rooting for one team, but then change my mind several times during the course of the 90 minutes. My soccer-watching friends get very frustrated and angry at me, but I feel this fickleness and indecision is part of human nature. Urrutia Laccroix would be like that too if he was a real person.

Jeffrey Zuckerman: Germany

As I reread Austerlitz and By Night in Chile, a phrase by Alexander Pope kept echoing through my thoughts: “Homer makes us hearers, and Virgil leaves us readers.” It was an apt way to describe the divide between Sebald and Bolaño: while the latter submerges me into words and worlds, the former opens up words to their strange resonances, and opens up the world in which we live to its full brilliance. As I closed By Night in Chile, it settled into my mind as a mere story, albeit better-told than most. But walking out of my apartment after Austerlitz was a shock; every building and tree and passerby burst at the seams with unexpectedly visible significance.

Rhea Lyons: Chile

I like trippy, dark and reflective more than bleak, atmospheric and reflective.

Florian Duijsens: Chile

Two stunning books, both about characters trying to make sense of their past, both obsessed with arcane factoids and architecture, both consumed by a survivor’s guilt, yet Bolaño’s story of self-deception is the more visceral of the two. While Austerlitz haunts Sebald’s book in beautiful spectral form, it’s Father Urrutia Lacroix who has haunted me in the years since I first read By Night in Chile, and it’s the dying priest’s voice that ultimately gives Chile’s representative the edge over Germany’s otherwise more than worthy opponent.

Chris Schaefer: Germany

This is one of those match-ups that really should have occurred in the final and not in the semi-final: Sebald vs. Bolaño, Germany vs. Chile, an architectural historian’s sifting of past trauma vs. a dying priest’s feverish thoughts about literature in a dictatorship. Both books have digressive styles, a blending of fact and fiction, and an overly casual disdain for paragraph breaks. It’s a fight to a draw, but Sebald’s Austerlitz wins on penalties.

Jeff Waxman: Chile

It never occurred to me that this late in the game, in the games, that I would have to cast a vote for a book I actually liked. And against a book I liked. But I’m calling this one for Bolaño for two reasons: the sheer aggressive drive of this particular narrative and because I drank four margaritas last night while explaining to a friend why Bolaño is good.

Chile, guys. Fucking Chile.

Hal Hlavinka: Chile

CHILE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! 

And with that, Bolaño moves on. Convincingly. We’ll find out tomorrow who he’ll be up against in the final.

——

The first quarterfinal matchup features two prominent, stellar authors: Roberto Bolaño represents Chile with his novel By Night in Chile, facing off against Italian author Elena Ferrante and her Days of Abandonment.

Bolaño made it to this point by annihilating the Netherlands and Koch’s The Dinner by a score of 3-0, then taking out Brazil’s Buarque and Budapest by a score of 3-1.

Ferrante got here by knocking off England’s Zadie Smith and NW 5-3 and then getting by Japan’s Haruki Murakami and 1Q84 by a score of 3-2.

So here we go . . .

Trevor Berrett: Chile

Two brutal teams come together today, Italy stern and frowning because for them this is a real fight, Chile smirking because they already know the fight doesn’t matter: it’s after the match that the storm of shit begins.

Rhea Lyons: Italy

I love By Night in Chile but I identify with Olga. She is close to my heart.

Jeffrey Zuckerman: Italy

With the first line, Italy scored with a direct, violent kick not even the world’s fastest goalie could have seen coming: “One April afternoon, right after lunch, my husband announced that he wanted to leave me.” And, with a last-minute headbutt, Chile finally scored in the final minute of the game. But it was too late: Italy’s Ferrante played with a fire and a speed that Chile’s Bolaño could never have hoped to match.

Shaun Randol: Chile

In By Night in Chile, a lucid man abandons his people. In Days of Abandonment, a woman abandoned loses her mind. Chile’s ball-handling is steady and consistent. The bench is deep and there’s a real sense of teamwork. Abandonment’s play is frantic, uneven, and the striker—Olga—is a ball hog.

George Carroll: Chile

There’s a restaurant in Berkeley, CA called Cafe Gratitude. The entrees are named “I Am Terrific” (Pad Thai), “I Am Magical” (Black Bean Burger), “I Am Great” (Granola), and so on. The last time I was there, the server approached me and, as a greeting, informed me what she was grateful for, then asked me that same. Maybe I had low blood sugar, maybe I thought it was silly, maybe I didn’t want to discuss my wife and dog. But I didn’t answer, didn’t participate in the ordering ritual. Today, I might have said that I’m grateful for book recommendations from my trusted friends.

Paul Yamazaki from City Lights Books suggested that I read The Savage Detectives. Which I did, then more, and more. I’m not one of those I-read-Bolano-back-when fans; I hate those assholes. I get to recommend him to others now, without the cloying pretension.

I’ve got nothing against Ferrante. Reading Story of a New Name for #BTBA2014 was a pleasant experience.

By Night in Chile is the clear winner. If it should lose, I suggest a double WCOL inquiry into this match and, of course, the Marias/Murnane match.

Jeff Waxman: Chile

Bolaño. Duh.

And there you have it, Roberto Bolaño’s By Night in Chile moves on to the semifinals to play either How the Soldier Repairs the Gramophone or Austerlitz.

——

This match was judged by Jeff Waxman. For more info on the World Cup of Literature, read this, and download the updated bracket.

It’s hard watching the first round, shoulder to shoulder with other sweating fans at wobbling tables that would sacrifice the first inch of your beer if you ever set it down. It’s hard watching your team bite it. I read The Dinner, and it might’ve even had a shot against any one of the other novels in the running. But not against By Night in Chile, one of the bookiest books in Bolaño’s sainted oeuvre. Even with officials like ours—as loathsome, venal, half-blind, and hateful as a Herman Koch antihero—Bolaño couldn’t fall. “The fix is in!” they’d shriek. And they’d be right. Didja hear about Marias? Damn.

So the better book won. And to read the play-by-play on Budapest/Dark Heart of the Night, Cameroon never really had a chance. What did Jeffrey Zuckerman say? It shocked and amazed him? I was pretty impressed, too. But as Brazil is about to learn, you can only get so far in a tournament like this one with cute jibes at the Hungarian language. And when you’re writing for this reader, you’re liable to get carded for any number of extremely subjective sins.

By Night in Chile has the air of a parable about it: an aged poet and critic (and priest) lies on his deathbed recounting a career that peaked during some of the darkest days of the Pinochet regime. You need to hear this plot again like you need a hole in the head—this is the second round after all. But I will emphasize that this isn’t, precisely, a political book or an apolitical book. It’s not a book about body count, even if there are a few bodies. It’s a book about the culture of books and the sometimes ambiguous place in which that culture exists. “And that’s the truth,” Bolaño writes.

We were bored. We read and we got bored. We intellectuals. Because you can’t read all day and night. You can’t write all day and all night. Splendid isolation has never been our style, and back then, as now, Chilean artists and writers needed to gather and talk, ideally in a pleasant setting where they could find intelligent company. Apart from the inescapable fact that many of the old crowd had left the country for reasons more personal than political, the main difficulty was the curfew. Where could the artists and intellectuals meet if everywhere was shut after ten at night, for, as everyone knows, night is the most propitious time for getting together and enjoying a little unbuttoned conversation with one’s peers. Artists and writers. Strange times.

1-0, Chile. Like you had to ask. You were there. You saw it.

As the narrative of a ghostwriter, a man who requires the special cadences of life itself to write and, sometimes, to translate, Budapest is awash with sex and metatextual jokes, with winks and nudges. Buarque is a writer’s writer and his sentences range across the pitch—the page!—passing forward and backward, almost offsides as often as they advance. Buarque writes:

The writing flowed spontaneously, at a pace that was not mine, and it was on Teresa’s calf that I write my first words in the local tongue. At first she kind of liked it and was flattered when I told her I was writing a book on her. Later she took it into her head to get jealous, to refuse me her body, saying I only wanted her to write on . . .

1-1. Buarque knows what he’s doing.

But like I said, Bolaño’s prose here is powerful and written from the backfield—in retrospect, I mean. And from that position, it surges forward, sentence running into sentence, pushing, driving, probing. Paragraphs hardly break. Dialogue is a series of colons (sometimes) without columns. Chile is getting somewhere and they’re getting there fast:

And Farewell: Have you been to Italy? And I: Yes. And Farewell: Everything falls apart, time devours everything, beginning with Chileans. And I: Yes. And Farewell: Do you know the stories of other popes? And I: All of them. And Farewell: What about Hadrian II? And I: Pope from 867 to 872, there’s an interesting story about him, when King Lothair II came to Italy, the pope asked him if he had gone back to sleeping with Waladra . . .

Chile scores again. And again.

There’s a parody of soccer you’ll all remember from The Simpsons:

Buarque writes like that, almost, a passing game with unexpected thrusts and he can shuffle his chapters in just such a way that the reader nods along, saying, “Ah, yes, I see what you did there. You’re skipping from location to location almost by chapter”:

And again, that’s the truth: when reading a good novel, the reader can marvel at the elegance of individual sentences, at the slow building of plot, at the construction of character. When reading a great novel, there are no sentences that aren’t a part of the whole, there’s no plot and there’s no character to admire—there’s a book. A great novel is not a house of cards, it’s a pleasure palace made of motherfucking gold. And while we mortals can aspire to the delicate work of writing something clever and wonderful and cunning, we cannot cause golden fucking palaces to spring into being. Not like Bolaño can. Shit, I’m supposed to be making sports metaphors. Who’s good? Buarque is a world-class writer, a Suárez chomping at the shoulders of great players. Bolaño is fucking Pelé-Beckham-Ronaldinho. He’s the Galloping Ghost, His Airness, the Big Kahuna, the Sultan of Swat, and the Great One all rolled up.

What I’m trying to say is Chile over Brazil, 3-1. Buarque’s Budapest is a book to love. I feel as though it has been written for me, but By Night in Chile was written for the ages.

To quote the last line in Bolaño’s book: “And then the storm of shit begins.”

——

Jeff Waxman recently left Chicago—and 57th Street Books—to work at Other Press. He’s a funny guy.

——

This match was judged by Shaun Randol. For more info on the World Cup of Literature, read this, and download the bracket.

The record for the fastest goal ever scored in a World Cup match belongs to Hakan Sukur of Turkey. Eleven seconds into the 2002 match against South Korea, Sukur capitalized on a mistake in the backfield and with a left-footed shove put the ball in the back of the net. The South Koreans were stunned and so was Sakur, who could think of no better celebration than to sit his ass down in the middle of the field.

That was the fastest World Cup goal, until now.

In this contemporary literary skirmish, Chile scored so quickly anyone observing or playing in the game didn’t have time to question what happened. As if by magic—before the whistle even blew—Chile was awarded a 1-0 lead. Nobody questioned this advantageous start, not the coaches (authors), not the referee (me), and not even the fans (readers). It just was, a fact however strange, accepted just as Clara del Valle Trueba’s family readily accepts her telekinetic and clairvoyant powers in Isabel Allende’s The House of the Spirits.

Not even the Dutch players (the narrative) questioned Chile’s pre-game’s goal. Here’s Herman Koch’s striker (the narrator) caught on tape during the warm-up (page 7, that is):

No matter what you do, you’re not free. You shave, but you’re not free. Shaving is a statement as well. Apparently you found this evening significant enough to go to the trouble of shaving, you see the others thinking—in fact, shaving already puts you behind 1-0.

But it was neither magical intervention nor Dutch defeatism that gave Bolaño the edge. Those in the stands with sharp eyes might have seen near the scoreboard a dark figure operating on behalf of the mafia group known as the Literati. Television cameras panned the crowd looking for baying fans and paused on the visages of Jonathan Lethem, Susan Sontag, Colm Tóibín, and James Wood, all of whose blurbs appear on the cover of By Night in Chile.¹

So there it is. Ninety minutes on the clock, By Night in Chile with its foot firmly on the ball ready to kick off, starts with a one-goal advantage.

So who is this superstar team? By Night in Chile, the first of Roberto Bolaño’s stories to be published in English, is the deathbed confession of poet, priest, and literary critic Father Urrutia. Propped up on one elbow, Urrutia recalls the life of a respected, but not central, figure of Chilean intellectual life, a priest and man of letters who did little to stand up to the despotism of Augusto Pinochet. The audience—the priest to this priest—is treated to an ambling narrative that includes a journey across European to visit priests engaged in falconry, a stint teaching Marxism to Pinochet and his lieutenants, and a warm friendship with a critic with the literary name of Farewell. (There is very little discussion of Urrutia’s priestly duties in the Opus Dei sect.) Neruda makes an appearance here and there; the first time he appears Urrutia finds the poet-god staring at the moon, “murmuring words I could not understand, but whose essential nature spoke to me deeply from the very first moment.” Several other literary figures are mentioned, but the theme remains firmly fixed on Urrutia’s atonement before he slips into the darkest of nights.

On the other side of the pitch is Koch’s sixth novel, The Dinner, which also takes place over a single evening, told from the perspective of one of the husbands, Paul Lohman. Two married couples meet at a one-percenter’s kind of restaurant in what appears to be a routine, privileged performance of dining, conversation, witticism, and maybe the exchange of an actual good idea, before wiping dessert from the corners of their mouths, paying an exorbitant check, and heading back to the safety of a home in a well-to-do neighborhood. Appearances are deceiving, though, for we soon discover something more sinister is afoot, that there is a very troubling matter to be discussed. A deadly matter, in fact. Turns out—spoiler alert—that the sons of the married couples are involved in a murder in which the whole country, having seen the grainy footage caught by a security camera, is lamenting the downfall of social democratic society and the wasted lives of the youth. Of interest to the diners is not the chef’s special, but rather how to handle the situation. One of the fathers, it turns out, is a soon-to-be elected prime minister.

FOUL! Why the hell would you discuss such grave matters in such a very public place? This ref issues the World Cup of Literature’s second yellow card. Koch’s striker is booked for negligence.

Action resumes . . .

By Night in Chile is lean, with no fat, like a well-hewed body of a professional soccer player. Chile plays consistently from page one to the closing line. As expectant spectators we become increasingly convinced victory is in reach, though often just out of reach. Next drive. Next shot! Bolaño’s prose methodically drives forward, building an offense from the back, searching for the opponent’s weak points, and willing to take the time do so. Chile entices with dazzling tales of forgotten popes of yesteryear, priests with falcons, and a dictator’s studious mien. These short plays accomplished with solid teamwork promise a big payoff. And is there any better literary sendoff than “And then the storm of shit begins”? This book wants it.

Contrast Chile’s steady pace with that of The Dinner’s, whose ball play looks more like pinball than futbol. The Dutch team passes the ball around, one side to the other, lots of crosses and middle-field possession and even the groan-inducing pass-backs to the goalie. This makes for lengthy possession but limited progress. Occasionally the midfielders and fullbacks boot the ball into the penalty area, but with little aim. It’s as if the strategy is to get a goal by force (at best) or by a lucky deflection (at least!). Back stories, flashbacks, and tangents seem to exist to kill time rather than further the plot. By page 50 I just wanted Koch to get on it with it already.

Moreover, despite the fact Koch is fielding at least four star players with another couple potential stand-outs on the pitch, there is very little character development. The narrator receives the most attention, but it is of the self-flattering kind. There’s no teamwork here and the play looks a little sloppy.

Hail to the translators! Both By Night in Chile and The Dinner are ably translated by Chris Andrews and Sam Garrett, respectively. Chile’s pacing is a steady march to a politically damning climax, and its Andrews who keeps us on track. Garrett, too, maintains a consistency of voice, ensuring that the matter-of-fact prose mirrors the matter-of-fact thought process of the troubled narrator.

#namethetranslator

In the second half of the game it’s as if neither team left the field for a break. The strategies remain consistent into the backend of each narrative, though the Dutch team plays with more aggression. The narrator—Lohman—reveals a darker, violent past, which always seem to somehow involve his son. A visit to suspected child molester in which “the curtains, I noted, were already drawn.” The threatening of a store clerk with a bicycle pump. The bloodying of one of his son’s teachers:

Then I punched him squarely in the nose. Right away there was blood, lots of blood: it sprayed from his nostrils and spattered across his shirt and the desktop, and then on the fingers with which he pawed at his nose.

Lohman’s violent tendencies are made apparent with these flashbacks, served in bite-sized portions over the course of The Dinner. This is the only character development the audience will see, and it’s thin gruel.

It is Chile who scores in the 79th minute and it is a beautiful goal. Upper ninety, one of those near-impossible shots. Though the Dutch goalie can see the shot from where it’s launched 25 yards out, he doesn’t even bother to jump. We’ve all seen this shot coming; it was just a matter of time before it was revealed.

Here Urrutia is visited by men who very easily convince the intellectual to teach Marxism to Pinochet, so he can better know his enemies.

What do you understand? asked Mr. Raef, with a frank and friendly smile. That you require me to be absolutely discreet, I said. More than that, said Mr. Raef, much more, we require ultra-absolute discretion, extraordinarily absolute discretion and secrecy. I was itching to correct him but restrained myself, because I wanted to know what they were proposing. Do you know anything about Marxism? asked Mr. Etah, after wiping his lips with a napkin.

. . . Who are my pupils? I asked. General Pinochet, said Mr. Etah. My breath caught in my throat. And the others? General Leigh, Admiral Merino and General Mendoza, of course, who else? said Mr. Raef, lowering his voice. I’ll have to prepare myself, I said, this is not something to be taken lightly.

No, not lightly at all, but still taken. Bolaño’s coaching strategy shines.

In the end, the play by The Dinner is inconsistent and lacks finesse. Not even — that is, an attempt at a clever closing — can give Netherlands a consolation goal. Koch’s closing is too quick, too clean, too simple. The most important loose end is handled so far off the field it’s in the locker room, and this leaves a bad taste in the mouths of the spectators. Sure the ball pops over the Chilean goalie’s head in the final minute of play, but it’s a half-hearted trick shot that glances off the post and bounces out of bounds.

From the 79th minute on, Chile is relentless against its opponent. The strategy toward which they have been playing all along is coming to a head, for By Night in Chile is a fierce, blistering argument against Chile’s intellectuals who were meek in the face of the atrocities committed by Pinochet’s regime. Coach Bolaño sends a very clear message not just to the other team, but to all of his compatriots who refuse to play with such courage: shame on you.

In Chile, Maria Canales, married to an American (Jimmy), hosts soirees for Chile’s intellectual and cultural elite. In her home is hidden a dark secret, to which every guest has stumbled on at least once and said nothing. They return, instead, to the party again and again, feigning ignorance, remaining mute.

. . . he opened doors and even started whistling, and finally he came to the very last room at the end of the basement’s narrowest corridor, lit by a single, feeble light bulb, and he opened the door and saw the main tied to the metal bed, blindfolded, and he knew the man was alive because he could hear him breathing, although he wasn’t in good shape, for in spite of the dim light he saw the wounds, the raw patches, like eczema, but it wasn’t eczema, the battered parts of his anatomy, the swollen parts, as if more than one bone had been broken, but he was breathing, he certainly didn’t look like he was about to die, and then the theorist of avant-garde theater shut the door delicately, without making a noise, and started to make his way back to the sitting room, carefully switching off as he went each of the lights he had previously switched on. And months later, or maybe years later, another regular guest at those gatherings told me the same story. And then I heard it from another and another and another. And then democracy returned, the moment came for national reconciliation . . .

Here is the final and damning goal.

¹ The Dinner’s best blurb comes from The Wall Street Journal: “A European Gone Girl . . . A sly psychological thriller.” If that’s true, then I have no desire to read Gone Girl.

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Shaun Randol is the co-editor of editor in chief of and an active member of PEN American Center and the National Book Critics Circle.

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