{"id":275506,"date":"2009-12-14T14:42:03","date_gmt":"2009-12-14T14:42:03","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.wdev.rochester.edu\/College\/translation\/threepercent-dev\/2009\/12\/14\/catching-up-on-what-bolano-read\/"},"modified":"2018-04-16T17:15:13","modified_gmt":"2018-04-16T17:15:13","slug":"catching-up-on-what-bolano-read","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rochester.edu\/College\/translation\/threepercent\/2009\/12\/14\/catching-up-on-what-bolano-read\/","title":{"rendered":"Catching Up on "What Bolano Read""},"content":{"rendered":"

Fallen way behind on tracking the brilliant Melville House series<\/a> on “What Bolano Read.” These ten posts are culled from Roberto Bolano: The Last Interview and Other Conversations<\/em>, which Melville House recently published. And which you can purchase for 20% off during Melville’s Holiday Sale (more on the sale below).<\/p>\n

Last week, I wrote up Parts 1,<\/a> 2, & 3<\/a> in this series—here’s info on the rest:<\/p>\n

Part 4: The Fake Encylopedia:<\/a><\/p>\n

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In 1996, Roberto Bola\u00f1o published Nazi Literature in the Americas<\/em>, a fictional encyclopedia of right-wing authors. In a review of the English translation by Chris Andrews, Francisco Goldman summarized the novel as depicting \u201cliterary Nazis,\u201d portrayed as \u201cself-deluded mediocrities, snobs, opportunists, narcissists, and criminals, none with the talent of a C\u00e9line.\u201d Though the writers included in the book are imaginary (like the \u201cairman, assassin and aesthete\u201d Ramirez Hoffman) the world they inhabit is much like ours, and stocked with real-life writers like Allen Ginsberg, Octavio Paz, and Jos\u00e9 Lezama Lima. [. . .]<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

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But where did Bola\u00f1o come up with the idea for a fake encyclopedia? In an interview with Eliseo \u00c1lvarez published in 2005 in the Spanish literary journal Turia, Bola\u00f1o explains the book\u2019s lineage and its debts owed:<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

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\u201cNazi Literature in the Americas<\/i>, I\u2019ll give it to you in descending order, owes a lot to The Temple of Iconoclasts<\/em> by Rodolfo Wilcock, who is an Argentine writer but who wrote the book in Italian . . . At the same time, his book The Temple of Iconoclasts<\/em> itself owes a debt to A Universal History of Infamy<\/em> by Borges, which is not surprising at all because Wilcock was a friend and admirer of Borges. Borges\u2019 A Universal History of Infamy<\/em>, too, owes a debt to one of his teachers, Alfonso Reyes, the Mexican writer whom has a book called Real and Imagined Portraits<\/em>. It\u2019s just a jewel. Alfonso Reyes\u2019 book also owes a debt to Marcel Schwob\u2019s Imaginary Lives<\/em>, which is where this all comes from.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Part 5: Lichtenberg\u2019s Aphorisms:<\/a><\/p>\n

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Roberto Bola\u00f1o was an avid reader of philosophy. And he was especially drawn to the aphorism \u2014 clipped, profound, and, at times, terse thoughts, and a literary form engaged by many of the world\u2019s greatest writers, including Blake, Kafka, Schlegel, Tolstoy, and Wittgenstein, among many, many others. [. . .]<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

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In an essay in Entre par\u00e9ntesis, Bola\u00f1o explains his admiration of Lichtenberg by saying his aphorisms \u201cbehave with humor and curiosity, the two most important elements of intelligence.\u201d Bola\u00f1o goes on to say that Lichtenberg\u2019s work \u201cprefigured Kafka and the better part of twentieth century literature.\u201d Among them:<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

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\u201cThere can hardly be stranger wares in the world than books: printed by people who do not understand them; sold by people who do not understand them; bound, reviewed and read by people who do not understand them; and now even written by people who do not understand them.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

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Lichtenberg was primarily a scientist and perhaps most famous among his peers for work with electricity and certain types of fractals now dubbed \u201cLichtenberg figures.\u201d His empirical nature was also a source for much of his satire.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

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There is, in general, a lot of humor in his aphorisms, and Bola\u00f1o even referred to his work as a \u201cmasterpiece of black comedy.\u201d A few examples:<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

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\u201cA person reveals his character by nothing so clearly as the joke he resents.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

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\u201cIf all mankind were suddenly to practice honesty, many thousands of people would be sure to starve.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

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\u201cA book is a mirror: if an ass peers into it, you can`t expect an apostle to look out.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

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A collection of Lichtenberg\u2019s aphorisms is available in an English translation by R.J. Hollingdale as The Waste Books.<\/em> (And available from New York Review Books.)<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Part 6: French Lit:<\/a><\/p>\n

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Bola\u00f1o was also an avid reader of French Surrealists like Andr\u00e9 Breton and Jacques Vach\u00e9. Breton\u2019s Nadja<\/em>, one of Bola\u00f1o\u2019s favorites, is absolutely stunning. Some even make the claim that the infrarealist manifesto, penned by Bola\u00f1o, was directly inspired by Breton\u2019s own \u201cSurrealist Manifesto\u201d. The effect of Nadja<\/em> on Bola\u00f1o\u2019s writing is evident in the subtlety of the non-linear and dreamlike realities inhabited by many of Bola\u00f1o\u2019s characters. Nadja\u2019s surrealism is surely of the same cloth as _2666_\u2019s \u201csurrealism.\u201d It is the not surrealism of fantasy but rather that of hyper-reality, where the reader loses the ability to distinguish dream from waking reality.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

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Bola\u00f1o also gives massive credit to Louis-Ferdinand C\u00e9line. In a 1999 interview with the Chilean magazine Capital, Bola\u00f1o claims C\u00e9line is the only author he can think of who was both a \u201cgreat writer and a son of a bitch. Just an abject human being. It\u2019s incredible that the coldest moments of his abjection are covered under an aura of nobility, which is only attributable to the power of words.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Part 7: Augusto Monterroso:<\/a><\/p>\n

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In an essay in Entre par\u00e9ntesis that appeared in English translation in World Literature Today in 2006, titled Advice on the Art of Writing Short Stories<\/a>, Roberto Bola\u00f1o outlines a twelve point plan on how to be a \u201csuccessful short story writer.\u201d Written in true Bola\u00f1o style, the list includes advice on everything from how to avoid melancholy to which authors one should dress like. Bola\u00f1o even includes points designed to give the reader time to consider the previous point, like number ten: \u201cGive thought to point number nine. Think and reflect on it. You still have time. Think about number nine. To the extent possible, do so on bended knees.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

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In point four Bola\u00f1o makes reference to the Guatemalan short story writer Augusto Monterroso (1921-2003) saying succinctly: \u201cOne must read Juan Rulfo and Augusto Monterroso.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

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Monterroso is perhaps most famous for his short story \u201cThe Dinosaur,\u201d which is said to be literature\u2019s shortest story. It reads in full:<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

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“When he woke up, the dinosaur was still there.”<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

\n

In an 1996 interview with Ilan Stavans for the Massachusetts Review, Monterroso recalled some early reviews of \u201cThe Dinosaur\u201d: \u201cI still have the very first reviews of the book: critics hated it. Since that point on I began hearing complaints to the effect that it isn\u2019t a short-story. My answer is: true, it isn\u2019t a short story, it\u2019s actually a novel.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

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Brevity was, to say the least, an important concept for Monterroso. His essay \u201cFecundity\u201d is included in The Oxford Book of Latin American Essays. It reads in full:<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

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“Today I feel well, like a Balzac; I am finishing this line.”<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Part 8: The Americans:<\/a><\/p>\n

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In a 2002 interview with Carmen Boullosa published in Bomb magazine Roberto Bola\u00f1o made the hefty claim \u201cI\u2019m interested in Western literature and I\u2019m fairly familiar with all of it.\u201d He went on to say: \u201cI\u2019m also interested in American literature of the 1880s, especially Twain and Melville, and the poetry of Emily Dickinson and Whitman. As a teenager, I went through a phase when I only read Poe.\u201d [. . .]<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

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Bola\u00f1o also read the hard-boiled detective fiction of Raymond Chandler and Dashiell Hammett. In Bola\u00f1o\u2019s final interview he says he would have rather been Philip Marlowe or Sam Spade: \u201cI would like to have been a homicide detective, much more than being a writer. I am absolutely sure of that. A string of homicides. I\u2019d have been someone who could come back to the scene of the crime alone, by night and not be afraid of ghosts.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

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Bola\u00f1o also loved Philip K. Dick. He wrote a poem about him, published in The Romantic Dogs<\/em>. And in 2002 he participated in a published discussion with the writer Rodrigo Fres\u00e1n, where both writers discuss the science fiction author. Bola\u00f1o calls Dick \u201ca prophet.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Now about that Special Sale . . . For the next week, all orders through the Melville House website<\/a> are 20% off. And to compete with Amazon.com, all Melville House best-sellers—Every Man Dies Alone, The Confessions of Noa Weber, Shoplifting at American Apparel<\/i>—are only $7.99 for the next week . . . Just put the books in your shopping cart and the correct price will show up . . . <\/p>\n

\n<\/a>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Fallen way behind on tracking the brilliant Melville House series on “What Bolano Read.” These ten posts are culled from Roberto Bolano: The Last Interview and Other Conversations, which Melville House recently published. And which you can purchase for 20% off during Melville’s Holiday Sale (more on the sale below). Last week, I wrote up […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":292,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[67486],"tags":[29256,1646,756,29266],"class_list":["post-275506","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-articles","tag-melville-house-books","tag-review","tag-roberto-bolano","tag-special-sale"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rochester.edu\/College\/translation\/threepercent\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/275506","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rochester.edu\/College\/translation\/threepercent\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rochester.edu\/College\/translation\/threepercent\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rochester.edu\/College\/translation\/threepercent\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/292"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rochester.edu\/College\/translation\/threepercent\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=275506"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.rochester.edu\/College\/translation\/threepercent\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/275506\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":322836,"href":"https:\/\/www.rochester.edu\/College\/translation\/threepercent\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/275506\/revisions\/322836"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rochester.edu\/College\/translation\/threepercent\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=275506"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rochester.edu\/College\/translation\/threepercent\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=275506"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rochester.edu\/College\/translation\/threepercent\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=275506"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}