Bolano's 2666 most pertinent novel of the century

Roberto Bolano's "2666" is arguably the greatest novel of 2008.

Unfortunately, Bolano passed in 2003 due to liver failure.

He was born in Santiago, Chile in 1953, and spanning his half of a century of existence, his loved ones can definitely call him a poet, revolutionary, intellectual, journalist, critic, and novelist.

He is best known for his novel "The Savage Detectives," which won him the Herralde and Romulo Gallegos prizes, but he is rapidly gaining a mystique and well deserved, but tardy acclaim for his posthumously published tome of indescribable, unforgiving, and all-consuming fear and anxiety.

"2666" chronicles the more than 300 deaths of young women in the border town of Ciudad Juarez, Mexico (he uses the pseudonym, Santa Teresa).

Bolano meant for "2666" to be published as five different parts to be more profitable for his family, but his publishers chose to publish it in its entirety (for philosophical reasons?).

This review will appear in two parts, and the work will be treated as five different novels with a common thread. The first three parts of the novel are reviewed here, and the fourth and fifth parts will be reviewed in the Feb. 16 issue.

1. The Part About The Critics

Bolano begins part one by introducing four academics with a common obsession: a German novelist named Benno von Archimboldi.

The quartet consists of three men and one woman.

The three men are Jean-Claude Pelletier, the French authority on Archimboldi; Piero Morini, an Italian teacher of German literature who is confined to a wheelchair; and Manuel Espinoza, a Spanish Jungerian turned Archimboldian. The woman is Liz Norton, a British academic who is slowly taken by the enigmatic author's books.

They all eventually meet at a German literature conference and progress to intricate friendships. The Part About The Critics begins quaint and very ordinary, like when you step on an old ladder and everything feels normal, but as you descend upward things get shakier and sketchier, but you must continue to see what's over the wall.

The characters are the nationalities they are for a reason, and the sex they are for a reason. This is hard to catch on to if you haven't visited their native lands personally and are unfamiliar with the nuances of their cultural quirks.

Bolano hints inside of hints, or hints into a brick wall, and a shallow grave in a desolate desert. Bolano's prodding of his audience is not malicious, but puzzling and fun. It is almost as if he gets lost in his own underlying themes.

The academics build unmanageable relationships with one another that lead all but the handicapped Morini to pursue Archimboldi to where he reportedly was last heard of in Santa Teresa located in the northern Sonoran Desert.

Bolano now introduces the main character of the five novels: the city of Santa Teresa. Bolano abruptly sneaks in the omnipresent character of a city. Santa Teresa is horribly large and unyielding, violently beautiful, and confusing, but simple in its ugliness.

Bolano braves abysmal waters, not unlike what David Simon, George Pelecanos, and Richard Price did with the television show "The Wire," by casting Baltimore as the main character and exposing its viscera.

While in London, Pelletier, Espinoza, and Norton experience a purgation. Themes of painful but necessary liberation, utter sadness, and distance begin to permeate the pages. Bolano's bittersweet execution of the quartet's thoughts, experiences, and desperate relationships is very real, and makes the drama that much more palatable, yet upsetting.

It is humorous to try to predict where Bolano is going. He may not have known either during the writing process, but you can feel the beaten road, the despair, and gangly arms of unsaid truths tapping you on the shoulder, staring at you in the eye from a distance, forcing the audience to possibly examine a lie that they have told to themselves over and over, making the lie an intrinsic part of their outer shell.

With this novella of an introduction, Bolano sets the stage for "2666" with the first saturated 159 page. Part one is wonderfully constructed and coaxes more, even after the shocking, but expected conclusion.

2. The Part About Amalfitano

Professor Amalfitano is a Philosophy professor at the University of Santa Teresa. He is introduced in the first part of "2666" as "an expert on Benno Von Archimboldi," to the three academics in search of the elusive German novelist.

Amalfitano has a teenage daughter named Rosa, who is his muse, but this word does not accurately describe the emotions and unconditional love Amalfitano has for his daughter.

This part of the novel reads as a one sided conversation, that needs no rebuttals or comment. Amalfitano is confessing for the sake of confessing, and the reader gets the sense that he is going mad.

Bolano digresses into Amalfitano's lonely history, and echoes of an autobiographical sketch linger behind the visage of the Chilean Philosophy professor, who has only a daughter, and has no idea what he is doing in Santa Teresa.

Amalfitano has had a bohemian existence not unlike Bolano.

Amalfitano is obsessed with a geometry book, and hangs it on his clothesline in his backyard to see how long it will last in the elements. This allusion to a true Marcel Duchamp story is yet another prodding anecdote that amuses and draws the reader in, as opposed to coming off as pompous and exclusive.

Amalfitano seems a nod to everything Bolano saw himself as, but larger and more complex, as fiction should be (who wants to read absolute truth in fiction or at least know it's absolute truth until later reflection).