The Insufferable Gaucho

by Roberto Bolaño, Chris Andrews (Translator)

As Pankaj Mishra remarked in The Nation, one of the remarkable qualities of Bolano's short stories is that they can do the "work of a novel." The Insufferable Gaucho contains tales bent on returning to haunt you. Unpredictable, daring, and highly controlled, yet somehow haywire, a Bolano story might concern an elusive plagiarist, or an elderly lawyer giving up city life for an improbable return to the family estate, now gone to wrack and ruin. Bolano's stories have been applauded as "bleakly luminous and perfectly calibrated" (Publishers Weekly) and"complex and provocative" (International Herald Tribune), and as Francine Prose said in The New York Times Book Review, "something extraordinarily beautiful and (at least to me) entirely new." Two fascinating essays are also included.

Genres: Short Stories, Fiction, Essays, Latin American, Latin American Literature, Spanish Literature, Literature

164 pages, Hardcover

First published October 1, 2003

About the author

For most of his early adulthood, Bolaño was a vagabond, living at one time or another in Chile, Mexico, El Salvador, France and Spain. Bolaño moved to Europe in 1977, and finally made his way to Spain, where he married and settled on the Mediterranean coast near Barcelona, working as a dishwasher, a campground custodian, bellhop and garbage collector — working during the day and writing at night.

He continued with his poetry, before shifting to fiction in his early forties. In an interview Bolaño stated that he made this decision because he felt responsible for the future financial well-being of his family, which he knew he could never secure from the earnings of a poet. This was confirmed by Jorge Herralde, who explained that Bolaño "abandoned his parsimonious beatnik existence" because the birth of his son in 1990 made him "decide that he was responsible for his family's future and that it would be easier to earn a living by writing fiction." However, he continued to think of himself primarily as a poet, and a collection of his verse, spanning 20 years, was published in 2000 under the title The Romantic Dogs.

Regarding his native country Chile, which he visited just once after going into voluntary exile, Bolaño had conflicted feelings. He was notorious in Chile for his fierce attacks on Isabel Allende and other members of the literary establishment.

In 2003, after a long period of declining health, Bolaño passed away. Bolaño was survived by his Spanish wife and their two children, whom he once called "my only motherland."

Although deep down he always felt like a poet, his reputation ultimately rests on his novels, novellas and short story collections. Although Bolaño espoused the lifestyle of a bohemian poet and literary enfant terrible for all his adult life, he only began to produce substantial works of fiction in the 1990s. He almost immediately became a highly regarded figure in Spanish and Latin American letters.

In rapid succession, he published a series of critically acclaimed works, the most important of which are the novel Los detectives salvajes (The Savage Detectives), the novella Nocturno de Chile (By Night In Chile), and, posthumously, the novel 2666. His two collections of short stories Llamadas telefónicas and Putas asesinas were awarded literary prizes.

In 2009 a number of unpublished novels were discovered among the author's papers.

Reviews

[Guille · Rating 4 out of 5]

“¿En qué consiste la poesía, Jim?, le preguntaban los niños mendigos de México. Jim los escuchaba mirando las nubes y luego se ponía a vomitar. Léxico, elocuencia, búsqueda de la verdad. Epifanía. Como cuando se te aparece la virgen… Ahora soy poeta y busco lo extraordinario para decirlo con palabras comunes y corrientes.”

Terminé el libro con cierto disgusto, algo decepcionado. Pasados los días, mi actitud hacia él ha ido cambiando un poco. Los textos de Bolaño suelen ser bombas de efecto retardado, quizás por eso que dice al final de la cita con la que encabezo mi comentario, porque aunque su lectura literal carece de obstáculos, su lectura profunda no es siempre fácil, como si fuera varios pasos por delante sin que nunca logremos alcanzarla aunque la sintamos cerca.

“Kafka comprendía que los viajes, el sexo y los libros son caminos que no llevan a ninguna parte, y que sin embargo son caminos por los que hay que internarse y perderse para volverse a encontrar o para encontrar algo, lo que sea, un libro, un gesto, un objeto perdido, para encontrar cualquier cosa, tal vez un método, con suerte: lo nuevo, lo que siempre ha estado allí.”

El libro consta de siete textos, cinco relatos y dos conferencias. Un relato me pareció muy por debajo de lo que se espera del autor, Dos cuentos católicos. Otro me pareció un sin más, El policía de las ratas, homenaje a Kafka. La segunda conferencia, con la que se cierra el libro, me hizo gracia por su ironía y mala leche al hablar del estado actual de la literatura en castellano, con grandes nombres incluidos. La primera de las conferencias, Literatura + Enfermedad = Enfermedad, se lee con una mirada especial sabiendo que la muerte rondaba ya al autor.

“Follar es lo único que desean los que van a morir. Follar es lo único que desean los que están en las cárceles y en los hospitales. Los impotentes lo único que desean es follar. Los castrados lo único que desean es follar. Los heridos graves, los suicidas, los seguidores irredentos de Heidegger. Incluso Wittgenstein, que es el más grande filósofo del siglo XX, lo único que deseaba era follar. Hasta los muertos, leí en alguna parte, lo único que desean es follar. Es triste tener que admitirlo, pero es así.”

Quedan tres cuentos, Jim, El Viaje de Álvaro Rousselot y El gaucho insufrible. Terminé la lectura precisamente pensando eso, sólo tres cuentos. Como suele pasar, con el tiempo vamos olvidando y relativizando lo menos bueno para ir quedándonos con lo que disfrutamos… y eso me está pasando a mí: cuatro estrellitas, uno por cada cuento más una porque sobre el sólo.

“Realmente, es más sano no viajar, es más sano no moverse, no salir nunca de casa, estar bien abrigado en invierno y sólo quitarse la bufanda en verano, es más sano no abrir la boca ni pestañear, es más sano no respirar. Pero lo cierto es que uno respira y viaja.”

[©hrissie ❁ · Rating 5 out of 5]

If Bolaño promises to give you a short story, then you will get a short story. He will also give you what you could not have known your life and mind needed. What you needed to see-know-feel.

And people around you will not know what stuff your silent experience -- of which you have been the privileged recipient -- is made of. They will not know you are imperceptibly different than you were an hour before -- now weak yet full, all ablazing with tenderness.

Whores, priests, fictional writers, vagabonds, pain artists, peripheral-and-peculiar personalities. Welcome, says Bolaño (, as I imagine): I will make literature out of you. A literature of referencing and readability alike. You will find your place amidst Cthulhu, Dionysus, and the saintliest of saints. While heading towards life and your ordinary existence -- a life in writing that defies marginality and any notion of separation and segregation.


***


➡️ 'Jim' ⭐⭐⭐⭐

Jim is one of those personalities you would expect a Bolaño character to take interest in. A van(qu)ished figure, with war inside him, 'searching for the extraordinary, trying to express it in ordinary, everyday words'. Very Bolaño-like, therefore.


➡️ 'The Insufferable Gaucho' ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐🔥

A lawyer-cum-artist/gaucho at heart, Manuel Pereda becomes insufferable after the loss of his wife. Perhaps insufferability had inhabited him all along, biding its time. He flees to the 'limitless cemetery' of the Pampas -- the landscape which best replicates the rugged blankness that is his mind -- where he bemoans the general falling-apartness of his life and Buenos Aires. There he leads an elemental life, 'let[ting] himself lapse into brutishness'. To the equally brutish gauchos he takes on to help him with fixing up his abode, he would say: 'We have fallen, we're down'. And they would go on to do some 'guitar-strumming', but 'the country way'. Of course, there is so much more to the Pampas landscape: the theme of the deception and illusionary quality of distances, eternally reworked in Bolaño's writing (think Antwerp, for instance). Its timelessness, and the grip of an eternity of death it represents. 'None of them [...] Pereda included, wanted to think about time.' Loss and lostness, there combined. When they give way, violence rules.

'May the rain fall soft in you', chants the refrain in this short story. And may you be as soundlessly mesmerised by its silences as I was. But, as soon as you read its final fateful line: please, put it down, and follow it up with Borges's 'The South'. Have yourself a literary moment, with the very best companions.


➡️ 'Police Rat' ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐🔥 -- uniquely inventive

Join Pepe the Cop as he discovers that the mediocrity and constraints of his role will not hold the mounting passions that agitate his being. Join him in his nightly wanderings as he patrols the dead sewers and becomes increasingly gripped -- to the point of obsession -- by the mystery behind the deaths of his kind: torn throats. Visit with him the 'old queen rat' which holds some of the answers he seeks. And remember with him his aunt Josephine the singer, and Kafka's last short story, 'Josephine the Singer, or the Mouse Folk'.

❤️ 'All dead sewers are the same, in the end.'

❤️ 'It's already too late, I thought, for everything. I also thought: When did it become too late? Was it in the time of my aunt Josephine? Or a hundred years before that? Or a thousand, three thousand years before? Weren't we damned right from the origin of our species?'


➡️ 'Alvaro Rousselot's Journey' ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐🔥

'In the end we all fall victim to the object of our adoration'

Fictional Argentinian author, Alvaro Rousselot, adores words and literature. His 'commerce' is 'with the muses'. Yet his is a mysterious tale, Bolaño tells us. For his novels appear to be plagiarised by a film director, Morini, against whom Rousselot strangely takes no action. Lost or reworked in translation, his novels carry echoes of Night and Pampas, amongst others. As any such Bolaño writer-character will tend to be -- enamoured as he himself is with the word and all things literary -- Rousselot is said to be 'unsure about the possibility of an Argentine literature'. He also admits that he considers Morini to be 'his best reader, the reader for whom he had really been writing'. And thus, he will seek him. In the land overtaken by a Camus mode of existence: Paris. Where Rousselot blissfully consorts with a prostitute -- who later comes to his rescue -- and where a fellow writer, Riquelme, is said to be 'writing the great Argentine novel of the twentieth century', 800 pages long. (2666, hint hint.)

Whether or not Paris throws at him more than he bargained for, 'Rousselot felt a deep sadness overwhelming him, as if he knew that, come the end of the day, he would have to look into the abyss'. ❤️

Because 'death is the only sure thing there is'.


➡️ 'Two Catholic Tales' ⭐⭐⭐⭐💫

Cleverly constructed and deadpan in its study into an adolescent's aspirations to become a priest. There is much shuddering and trembling and shivering in this story -- to be taken seriously or discounted, as you will. But one thing's for sure: vocation is a matter of chance, and that solid yet chimeric figure, Vicente, robed in priestly habits, might be leading you astray, to your own illusory vocation, to your own 'unspeakable acts'. Therefore, 'Let's not get carried away. Let's not get carried away.' Because 'Man is an animal.' And drowning, alone, is the fate bestowed upon humankind. 'And me! And me!'

For the adolescent would swiftly realise: 'that I was drowning, as if the armchairs were at the bottom of a very deep lake. [...] If I open my mouth, water will come in. If I breathe, water will come in. If I stay alive, water will come in and flood my lungs forever and ever.'

...'just as I have words, I have silence'...

❤️


➡️ 'Literature + Illness = Illness' ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐🔥🔥

We are suspended in illness; ourselves masses of illness, writing ill poetry in a language likewise ill to the core.

Bernhard would have fervently approved: illness is all, because all is illness. Of the Dionysian kind, most likely. 'Where has that faggot Apollo got to? Apollo is ill, seriously ill.' Alas, sex and reading...But did Mallarmé truly intend to suggest that the 'flesh is sad' and that boredom had infiltrated his reading? You see, illness is a 'totalitarian state', whose close relative -- ennui -- breeds (an aversion to) 'repetition'.

In this essay, Bolaño links Mallarmé's poem to Baudelaire's 'The Voyage': 'what we are:/oases of fear in the wasteland of ennui!' For Mallarmé, it is about the travelling. But what does the travelling itself lead to? 'The voyage comes to an end', reiterates Bolaño for the umpteenth time -- though in different formats -- in this collection. And yet travelling and the 'abyss' it opens up are the only 'antidote' to the 'illness of modern humanity'. (Bolaño also suggests that Baudelaire's ill poem is indeed 'possessed of a delirium that results from extreme lucidity'.)

'All the indications are that every oasis in existence has either attained or is drifting toward the condition of horror.'

Hurrah to illness, then -- because inexorable and boundless in its manifestations: 'Books are finite, sexual encounters are finite, but the desire to read and to fuck is infinite'. There is no escaping any of it, but the human's desire to 'come through it alive' lives on. Sex, reading, travelling:

'yet they must be followed and the self must be lost, in order to find it again, or to find something, whatever it may be [...] in order to find anything at all'

❤️

P.S.: ⚠️ This is also a difficult story for Bolaño aficionados. Slipping into autobiography, through the lens of illness, Bolaño makes reference to his liver failure and sets the scene for the transplant he was never to receive.🥀🥀🥀


➡️ 'The Myths of Cthulhu' ⭐⭐⭐

'Here's a rhetorical question that I'd like someone to answer.' What question, you ask? In this short essay, Bolaño is to be found ruminating in disorderly fashion -- as he will have done every single day of his life -- on the state of literature and its material existence. He ironises -- in a tone that is tempered yet sardonic -- on the staggering importance attributed to clarity and enjoyment by readers, several times alluding to the bestseller. His comment, though laconic and ambivalent, is very suggestive: 'In principle, I have nothing against clear, enjoyable writing. In practice, it depends.'

There is something 'mythical' -- and therefore eternally returning (Nietzsche makes a presence or two here) -- in the questions he poses here, as also in the stream-like evocation of the Latin American literary scene/authors, international philosophers, performers, and so on.

My own rhetorical question -- which does indeed beg to be asked -- is: how many days and hours did Bolaño spend poring over books: the literature of his lands and literary tradition; hoarding knowledge and word's possibility?


***


Though Bolaño is no longer, his writing resists the attribution of pastness. It is alive, in and of itself, and continues to reiterate its aliveness. Breathing on, as it were -- the sheer manifestation of the Pampas landscape Bolaño persistently evokes, both explicitly and implicitly.

Speaking of Pampas, does not Bolaño's work itself constitute the literary-geographical imaginary of Pampas? This is not merely a matter of persistence -- it will certainly live on. But it is that his work comes across as being one gigantic and endless corpus in which words sentences ideas characters themes inter-travel with wild abandon, and intertextuality reigns; whose horizon, therefore, is (literature) itself and its perpetuation in others. For some, it is a home -- there to stay. 🏡

Lightweight and magnificent and (marvellously in love with the) mundane. 'That's how it is.' You also know, Bolaño reader or living being, that '[e]verything goes haywire at some point'.


Well, go on then, have yourself an overall FIVER 🌹

...And now, we regrettably exit Affection Overload. Until next time...

[Ana Cristina Lee · Rating 4 out of 5]

Bolaño es uno de mis eternos pendientes, así que, mientras me atrevo o no con una de sus obras mayores, he leído esta colección de 5 cuentos y dos conferencias, que se lee con facilidad, aunque tiene la densidad que le caracteriza.

Lo que más me ha gustado han sido los cuentos El policía de la ratas (del que no hablaré para no hacer spoiler) y El gaucho insufrible (que tampoco resumo porque es difícil decir de qué va).

Las conferencias son muy interesantes y están llenas de reflexiones sobre la literatura en general y también sobre autores contemporáneos de Bolaño. Es emocionante cuando habla de sus sentimientos al enfrentarse a la enfermedad que acabó tempranamente con su carrera.

[Argos · Rating 5 out of 5]

Baştaki ilk iki sayfalık öyküyü saymazsak dört esaslı öykü ve iki muhte��em deneme. Ölümünden sonra basılan tek kitabı Bolano’nun. Metaforlar dansediyor, cin fikirler ve insanın ruhunu titreten kelime ve deyimler havada uçuşuyor. Müthiş bir anlatım, simsiyah takım elbise ve siyah kravat içinde ciddiyetini koruyarak mizahı doruklara çıkaran bir kalem Roberto Bolano.

“İtirazım var dünyaya, sövüyorum gelmişine geçmişine ayıpsa ayıp” diyen Latin Amerika Edebiyatı’nın “uç beyi”nden okunası bir kitap daha “diyor” Argos. İki denemesinden biri (Edebiyat+Hastalık=Edebiyat) mesleki duygularımı titretti. Diğer deneme ise Bolano’nun referans noktaları Baudelaire ile Mallarme arasında seksek yapan bir deneme ve bu iki şair benim favorim Enis Batur’un da referans noktaları.

Roberto Bolano sadece romanda değil tümü formatlarıyla özel bir edebiyat insanı. Onun okuyucuları da özel bence.

[صان · Rating 4 out of 5]

آخرین چیزی که از بولانیو خوندم «موسیو پنموسیو پن» بود که اصلا دوستش نداشتم.
اما این مجموعه داستان رو خیلی دوست داشتم. داستان اول اسمش جیم بود بود و یه داستان مینیمال و اصطلاحا یه داستان کوتاهِ کوتاه بود درباره یه مردی که به اسپانیایی چینگادو و اثیچادو شده. یعنی به گا رفته، افسون شده. یه فضاسازی جذاب آمریکای لاتینی از کسی که توی دنیا گم شده و به آتیش‌بازی یه شعبده‌باز خیره شده.

داستان دوم همون کابوی تحمل ناپذیر بود که داستان خیلی خوبی بود. داستان وکیل میانسالی که تصمیم می‌گیره بره توی روستای آبا و اجدادیش زندگی کنه. کم کم عمارت اونجا رو ردیف می کنه و اسمی برای خودش دست و پا می‌کنه و به فکر زندگی شهری قدیمیش می‌افته و نمی‌دونه که کدوم بهتره؛ طبعا. این داستان جذاب بود برام. چون من هم همیشه این دغدغه رفتن از شهر به روستا رو داشتم و حس همذات‌پنداریمو اتیش کرد.

داستان بعدی داستان شاهکاری بود که اولش فکر می‌کنی یه داستان پلیسیه ولی وقتی چهار ورق جلوتر می‌ری می‌بینی که نه، یه داستان پلیسی بوده ولی از زبون یه موش! موش‌ها جامعه‌ای زیر زمین دارن درست مثل جامعه ما و شغل‌های مختلف و حالا یه سری قتل اونجا رخ داده و شخصیت اصلی متوجه می‌شه که قاتل یه موشه. برای اولین بار قاتل یه کسیه که همنوع خودشو کشته و این برای موش‌ها خیلی عجیبه و قیاس جالبیه برای آدم‌کشی ما انسان‌ها و یه گریزهای زبان‌شناسانه‌ای هم می‌زنه که می‌شه گفت در حال بررسی رابطه‌ی بین زبان و آزادی و امکانات انسانه.

داستان بعدی و آخر درباره یه بابای نویسنده‌ایه که می‌بینه یه فیلمساز فرانسوی داره رمان‌هاشو فیلم می‌کنه و تصمیم می‌گیره بره یارو رو پیدا کنه و ماجرای سفر این نویسنده رو می‌خونیم. داستان جالبی که پیرنگ جذابی داره و ولگردی توش بیداد می‌کنه.

بعد می‌رسیم به دو داستان کاتولیکی که حال و هوای متفاوتی با بقیه کتاب داره و یه حال جنایی‌-گناه‌آلودِ مسیحی‌ای بر داستان سایه‌ انداخته و به اندازه باقی داستان‌ها برای من جالب نبود. یک قصه بود که از دو زاویه روایت می‌شد و در نهایت به همدیگه می‌پیوست.

---
می‌رسیم به خطابه‌ها. اولی درباره سفر کردن و رفتنه، درباره لذت‌های زندگی، هم‌آغوشی و کتاب خواندن و این که آیا این‌ها موجب ملال مي‌شن در نهایت و آیا فراری بر این ملال هست یا نیست؟ تاکید زیادی هم روی سفر داره و برای باز کردن این موضوع از اشعار بودلر و مالارمه استفاده می‌کنه.
خطابه دوم هم درباره ادبیات اسپانیایی هست و بیشتر می‌شه گفت نقدی به نویسنده‌های زمانه‌ی خودشه که خیلی عامه‌پسند و تجاری شدن و به اسم‌های بزرگی مثل مارکز و یا یوسا هم این نقد رو وارد می‌کنه. من خیلی نظری ندارم چون در این لحظه فقط «صدسال تنهایی» رو خوندم و لذت هم بردم و رمان عالی‌ای می‌دونمش‌. (البته ۴،۵ سال پیش خوندمش). به هر حال اینجا بولانیو خیلی نقد داره به این ادبیات و کله‌ش عصبانیه و می‌کوبه خیلی‌ها رو.

---
در مجموع قصه‌گویی بولانیو رو دوست داشتم و به نظرم ایده‌های جذابی داشتن داستان‌ها، مخصوصا اون موش‌ها و اون نویسنده‌ای که داستان‌هاش رو یه فیلم‌سازی فیلم می‌کرد و می‌شه گفت مفهوم رفتن و جابجا شدن و سفر توی این داستان‌ها مشترک بود.

خدانگهدار.

[Steven Godin · Rating 3 out of 5]

Picked up for next to nothing at a used book store. And to be honest, paying full price for this would have been madness. Not his best work. But, as a fan, still read with much interest. He might pay homage to Borges and Kafka, but his melancholic short stories featured in 'Last Evenings on Earth' were far and away superior.

Featured in this collection -

SHORT STORIES
Jim - 3/5
The Insufferable Gaucho - 4/5
Police Rat - 2/5
Alvaro Rousselot's Journey - 4/5
Two Catholic Tales - 2/5

SHORT ESSAYS
Literature + Illness = Illness - 3/5
The Myths ofCthulhu - 3/5

[Radioread · Rating 5 out of 5]

El Gaucho Insufrible: Borges'in Güney başlıklı öyküsündeki savruluşun bir benzerini ve gaucho bıçaklarının ışıltısını ödünç almış Katlanılmaz Sığırtmaç öyküsünü okudunuz mu yoksa tavşan uyksusunda bir rüya olarak mı gördünüz, karıştırabilirsiniz. İki Katolik Öykü'den biri diğerinin üzerini kar gibi yumuşacık örterken orada mıydınız, değil miydiniz, emin olamayabilirsiniz. Bolano'nun kitapta Kafka'yı ikinci kez selamladığı Farelerin Polisi ve Edebiyat + Hastalık = Hastalık ile 2666'nın yüreğine kısa birer yolculuk yapıp dönebilirsiniz. Belki de dönemezsiniz, bilmiyorum.

[Hakan · Rating 5 out of 5]

benim değerlendirmemin gerekçesi bu küçük kitabın bolano'nun özellikle 2666 ve vahşi hafiyeler'den bildiğim dünyasını hatırlatması, tuhaf gücünü, zenginliğini, derinliğini, ürkütücülüğünü ve başka bir çok şeyi, uçsuz bucaksızlığını hatırlatması, yeniden hissettirmesi ve bir kez daha bolano'nun okuduğum en özel, en kıyas kabul etmez yazarlardan biri, belki birincisi olduğunu düşündürmesi. belki burada, kitabın türkçede yayınlanmasından sonra gelen yorumsuz beş yıldızların da buna benzer gerekçeleri var.

bolano'yla bu kitapla tanışsaydım, hatta sadece kitaba adını veren öyküyü okusaydım bolano'nun çok iyi bir yazar olduğunu anlardım yine. ama bu kitaptan bin sayfalık 2666'ya yönelir miydim mesela, bilmiyorum. tuhaf güç dediğim şeyle alakalı bu. bolano'nun gücü de etkisi de tuhaf. bahsettiğim öyküye bakıldığında mesela iyi bir öykünün bilinen tekniklerinin ustaca kullanıldığı çok bariz görülüyor. bolano'nun iyi bir öykücü, iyi bir yazar olduğunu gösteren şey bu. ama asıl gücü bunun ötesinde. saflıkta. ama başka bir saflık, bazen hayatın tüm karmaşası ve şiddeti içinde bir çocuğun erişemediğimiz saflığı, bazen ulaşmadığımız, ulaşamayacağımız bir berraklık, bir kavrayış, özümsenmiş bir hayat bilgisinin saflığı ve çoğu zaman bu ikisinin karışımından oluşan ve ikisinden başka bir noktaya ulaşan saflık. okur hafızasında örneği olmayan bu saflığın peşine düşmek sadece bu kitapla zor.

bolano'yla bu kitapla tanışsaydım, hemen 2666'yı okuma isteği duymazdım muhtemelen ve büyüklüğünü bile anlayamayacağım bir kayıp olurdu bu. haliyle bolano'yla bu kitapla tanışanlara tuhaf güce doğrudan ve tüm şiddetiyle maruz kalmayı, 2666'yı öneriyorum.

[Lee Klein · Rating 4 out of 5]

I prefer watching the great masters do real combat, deploying torrential imperfect trailblazers against the eternity cemetery always opening under our feet -- and it's been a while since I've watched this great master spar (ie, since I've read one of his shorter titles) but these four stories plus one quickie plus two essays seemed at least like a worthwhile prize fight. The book itself is a perfectly weighted and formatted hardback of a ringside seat, replete with burgundy boards. Inside its rectangular circle there's a quick slice of life re: a wasted spellbound gringo communing with a Mexico City firebreather followed by three fully enjoyable, top-notch stories -- the first about a Buenos Aires lawyer who transforms into a gaucho, who longs for a knife fight, who's pissed the cattle now are rabbits (turns out the complete story is available on the New Yorker's site; the second a subterranean crime drama take on Kafka's "The Burrow," told by none other than Josephine the Mouse Singer's rat cop cousin (told somewhat in a circuitous tunneling style like those two stories, too); and the wholly engaging tale of an Argentine writer in Paris living a typically debauched Parisian life while on the trail of a director who adapted two of his books without credit -- plus there's another more experimental or denser story I need to read again that ended well and had a great bit about getting buggered by an American bed but that otherwise resisted my readerly engagement, all capped by two excellent, off-hand, apparently improvisational, LOL-spiked, attractively elusive essays that could've been in Between Parentheses. A recommended entryway if your reading's been wandering a desert of boredom and you're considering trekking toward that shimmering, ever-growing oasis of Bolano books up ahead but you aren't quite ready to dip your toes in the massive quicksand sinkhole of 2666.

[julieta · Rating 4 out of 5]

Bolaño me cae tan bien, que lo sigo a donde sea. Aunque hay un par de cuentos (como en todos sus libros de cuentos) que podría haber vivido sin ellos, siempre tiene momentos geniales. Los mitos de Cthulhu es mi favorito, porque creo que es donde se mueve mejor, dándole un poco a los autores, básicamente soltandose la trenza y hablando de literatura. Siempre es buena compañía, y con cada libro me conquista más!

[sigurd · Rating 4 out of 5]

si vede che è un libro un po' messo su, con dei racconti stiracchiati, alcuni anche belli... l'ultimo dello scrittore cileno. però Roberto Bolano va sempre letto tutto, non sai mai che ti riserva. le due "conferenze" finali dove si respira un'atmosfera così bolanesca, dove lo spirito selvaggio dello scrittore è più inquieto che mai. uno spirito alla ricerca di non si sa cosa, una soluzione, qualcosa che edifichi, che confermi una proposta, che rilanci l'entusiasmo, il nuovo, come scrive lui. mi viene in mente una poesia di Milosz che dice "e allora penso alle persone non necessarie, a coloro i quali non sono capaci di iniziare ogni giorno da capo", forse non è cosi la poesia ma io la ricordo così; non so se effettivamente queste sono persone non necessarie al mondo, so solo che di questa categoria non faceva parte Bolano. azzerava sempre il contachilometri. non sapeva mai quanta strada aveva fatto né se era andato molto lontano. leggere questo anche per seguire le sue tracce.
Profetica la citazione del poeta maledetto: La carne è triste, ahimè, e ho letto tutti i libri, dice Mallarmé e per Bolano vuol dire che ha scopato abbastanza, che ha letto abbastanza, che è arrivato il tempo di viaggiare. Un viaggio da cui lui, poeta inesauribile dell'america latina, nostro malgrado, non sarebbe più tornato.

[Eliz Manandhar · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is stuff-of-genius as Bolano starts off with a handsomely moody, almost elegiac, and very melancholic ode in 'Jim' before moving onto the raving brilliance of a floundering intellectual in 'The Insufferable Gaucho'. 'Police Rat' comes across as a hip horror-noir cum social commentary and is a wicked-little-treat to the readers and is hands-down the most entertaining piece in the compilation. Artistic pretensions and revelations pave way to an almost autobiographical-styled stuff of fancy in 'Alvaro Rousselot's Journey'. Sheer desperation and manic horror are witnessed in the diaries of 'Two Catholic Tales' before Bolano leaves the readers breathless in a purely personal (and ravingly manic!) series of essays on life and literature which slap us hard in the face and make us laugh-out-loud at the same time! The compilation ends with 'The Myths of Cthulhu'- an insightful essay on commercialism and the world of art (and a lot of poetic ranting!). This is a brilliant mix that highlights the genius of Bolano. Bolano's prose bleeds and aches like its maker.

[Jonfaith · Rating 5 out of 5]

Likely closer to four stars but at times I was doubtlessly ecstatic. His treatment of Baudelaire and rumination on Kafka were both for the ages. There is no mistake, Bolano lived within literature. Not by it or even on it, but within such, it was his orientation, his very corporeal reference.

The titular story waxes familiar on the 2002 currency crisis in Argentina and poses a question as what would occur if the telluric Pampas tropes that Borges riffed upon were taken as the means to meaning? Personally I’ve felt the draping of a perforated dasein all day but there’s no reason, much less room to complain. We are liberated. Able to parse and ponder the cosmology of a rat colony and whether in reflecting upon a dichotomy of health and illness we shouldn’t ponder Mallerme and avoid confessing that we never found the industry to finish Proust?

There’s something sedulous in this endeavor but one tinged in a regret at the limitations thereof.

[Myriam V · Rating 4 out of 5]

Son cinco cuentos, y me gustaron todos, y dos conferencias, y no me gustó ninguna, un poco sí, pero no demasiado.
Mis cuentos preferidos son:
“El gaucho insufrible”, ambientado en Argentina en la crisis de 2001. Me interesó leer sobre un tema que encontré poco en la literatura argentina.
“El viaje de Álvaro Rousselot”, donde el protagonista es un escritor argentino que sufre al ser plagiado por un cineasta europeo y, curiosamente, los argumentos de la obra del escritor me suenan muy parecidos a los de autores contemporáneos suyos, pero yo suelo ver fantasmas por todos lados.
En cuanto a los conferencias, una sobre enfermedad y literatura me deprimió, y otra sobre Cthulhu no se trataba de Cthulhu, por suerte, porque a mí no me interesa, pero alguien podría desilusionarse.

[pierlapo quimby · Rating 4 out of 5]

Si imparano sempre cose nuove dai libri, da quelli buoni o eccellenti, come da quelli pessimi.
Ad esempio dalla lettura del gaucho insostenibile, che appartiene alla prima categoria e non certo alla seconda, ho imparato un detto benaugurante, un saluto di buona fortuna che mi ha subito conquistato: che ti piova sottile.
Bello, no?
La pioggia sottile può essere rinfrescante se la calura si fa insopportabile, non dà fastidio come un acquazzone - tuttavia bisognerebbe non essere miopi o astigmatici, mi rendo conto che la pioggerella sugli occhiali non è cosa - ammanta di vaghezza l'orizzonte come nebbia, e ci protegge e ci stupisce col sussurro di fondo e l'odore di umido.

[Marlen Leiva]

Me ha parecido un libro fácil de leer. Las historias no son muy impresionables. Me parecieron excelentes historias el policía de las ratas y el viaje de Álvaro Rousselot.
Lo que me gusta de Bolaño, es que sus historias se leen como si estuvieras conversando con alguien, cómo cuando alguien te cuenta una historia en el almuerzo o en las juntas de los amigos, siempre es muy cercano al lector y con un lenguaje muy cotidiano. Lo de los finales abiertos en cada una de sus historias, creo que es su estilo, a algunos no les gusta, a mí me parece bien, me deja reflexionando.
Debo criticar, la conferencia que se presenta al final, creo que no venía al libro, me pareció un poco copiar y pegar para rellenar.

[Korcan Derinsu · Rating 4 out of 5]

Katlanılmaz Sığırtmaç, Roberto Bolaño’nun ölümünden sonra yayımlanan, O’nun keskin zekasını, karanlık mizahını ve edebiyat tutkusunu gözler önüne seren beş kısa öykü ve iki denemeden oluşan bir kitap. Benim için birinci sınıf yazarlardan biri olan Bolaño’nun toplumsal eleştiriyi insan doğasına dair gözlemleriyle harmanlamasını ve bunu her seferinde şaşırtıcı bir incelikle işlemesine hayran olmamak elde değil. Özellikle “Jim” ve “Farelerin Polisi” öykülerine bayıldım. Diğerleriyse ise biraz daha zor bağ kurdum -ki bu Bolano’da ara ara yaşayıp hiç dert etmediğim bir durum-. Denemeler ise buram buram edebiyat kokan, okumayı da en az yazmak kadar seven bir zihnin elinden çıktığı çok belli olan metinler. Yazarı seven her okurun severek okuyacağını düşünüyorum.

[about my mind · Rating 5 out of 5]

این اولین کتابی هست که تمام نشده پنج ستاره اش را می‌دهم ؛ چرا که تا اینجای کار حجت را بر من تمام کرده است . پنج داستان درجه یک و فوق العاده از بولانیو ی فقید که در قصه گویی بی‌نظیر هست ...
ادبیات آمریکای لاتین غنی ترین ادبیاتی هست که یافته ام و حالا حالا ها گم اش نخواهم کرد .

[Gokce Atac · Rating 5 out of 5]

Bolano’nun hem edebi dünyaya hem de Latin Amerika toplumuna yönelttiği keskin bakışı… Çarpıcı ve çok katmanlı bir derleme…

Bazen gerçeküstü, bazen son derece gerçekçi öykülerle şiddet, yalnızlık, göç, entelektüel kaygılar ve yazarlık halleri üzerine düşünmeye davet eden Bolano’nun dili ironik, zaman zaman acımasız; ama derin bir edebiyat sevgisiyle dolu…

“Edebiyat + Hastalık = Hastalık”, yazar olmanın romantik ideallerden çok uzakta olduğunu gösteren, dürüst ve insani bir itiraf… Bolano kahraman bir yazar pozu çizmeden aksine hasta bir insan olarak yazmak zorunda kalışını, umutsuzlukla mizahı birleştirerek nasıl yazdığını ve edebiyatın her zaman kurtarıcı olmadığını dürüstçe anlattığı bu denemeye bayıldım.
Edebiyat, onun için bir mucize değil, hayatta kalma çabasında zaman zaman acı veren bir araç…

Erken ölmeseydi kim bilir daha neler okuyabilirdik ondan. Bolano’nun ölmediğine inanmak istiyorum bazen. Belki Meksika’da bir otel odasında hala yazıyordur. Belki… “çünkü gerçek yazı asla bitmez.”

[Barry Pierce · Rating 2 out of 5]

This is very much a so-so collection from Bolaño. The fiction stories didn’t do anything for me, which is strange because I’ve always enjoyed Bolaño's strange view of the world. However, the end of this collection contains two non-fiction essays which are absolute sensations. Literature + Illness = Illness is a non-fiction collection of vignettes in which Bolaño discusses his life with the cancer that will eventually kill him. A stark piece which gives a pared back view into his mind and his inspirations.

The Myths of Cthulhu can be read as Bolaño's love letter to Latin American fiction. He urges us to ignore the term “bestseller” and to read the names that everyone’s forgotten. Don’t read what everyone else reads, where’s the fun in that!? This was my favourite piece from the collection and I think I want it tattooed onto my face, an act which I’m sure Bolaño would’ve loved.

[N · Rating 4 out of 5]

Vintage Bolano. A grotesque and hilariously heartbreaking read at times, especially the short-story "Police Rat" a macabre story of an inspector rat searching for the perpetrator of various sewer rat crimes.

The title story too is very sad, a story of defeat in search of hope in spite of dire circumstances and a changing society that's unappreciative of honesty and hard work. Second Bolano I read in a row next to "The Skating Rink".

Before the summer is over, I expect to be finished with "The Savage Detectives".

[Tom Mooney · Rating 4 out of 5]

I was reading Bolano with all the cool kids back when it was cool to do so. Nobody reads him any more though, or not as many people at least. I hadn't in a while until I picked this up. It's great, the stories are enigmatic, suspenseful, existential, and always surprising. Police Rat was my favourite, closely followed by The Insufferable Gaucho and Alvaro Rousselot's Journey. I guess Bolano's real genius here is his ability to make stories as satisfying as novels.

[plainzt · Rating 4 out of 5]

Roberto Bolaño’nun ölmeden haftalar önce yayıncısına teslim ettiği ve ölümünden sonra yayımlanan ilk kitabı Katlanılmaz Sığırtmaç. İçindeki metinleri hayatında önemli yer tutan insanlara ithaf etmesinden, hastalığından bahsettiği (doktoruna ithaf edilen) denemeden yazarın kitabı biraz da veda etmek amacıyla kaleme aldığı belli.

Vahşi Hafiyeler romanında yarıya kadar gelip devamını getiremeyince Katlanılmaz Sığırtmaç'ı aldım elime. Yazarın biyografisinde edebiyatçı arkadaşlarının belirttiği üzere anlatım biçimi öyküye daha çok yakışıyor. Kitapta beş öykü ve iki yazı var. Sonda yer alan iki yazıdan birinde Roberto Bolaño hastalığından, diğerinde Latin Amerika edebiyatının durumundan bahsetmiş. Yazının içeriği hakkında fikir vermesi için alıntı bırakayım;

"Latin Amerika Avrupa’nın akıl hastanesi, Birleşik Devletler ise fabrikasıydı. Fabrika şimdi ustabaşıların elinde ve işgüçleri akıl hastanesinden kaçan deliler. Akıl hastanesi, en aşağı altmış yıldır, kendi yağıyla kavruluyor, kendi yağlarını yakıyor."

Öyküler mükemmel. İyi bir öyküden beklenilen "kısa metinde yaratılan tek ve yoğun etki" hepsinde mevcut. Roberto Bolaño atmosfer yaratmada usta gerçekten. Okuru pis bir lağımda, Paris'in şık sokaklarında ya da Güney Amerika'da kurak bir köyde hissettirmeyi başarıyor.

Katlanılmaz Sığırtmaç isimli öykü Borges'in Güney isimli öyküsüne açıkça selam çakıyor. Güney'i Ficciones: Hayaller ve Hikayeler kitabından okuyabilirsiniz. Farelerin Polisi isimli öykü ise Kafka'nın Şarkıcı Josefine ya da Fare Ulusu öyküsünden esinlenmiş.Ceza Kolonisinde ve Diğer Öyküler kitabının içinde mevcut.

Kitabın dilimize kazandırılmasında emeği geçen çevirmen Seda Ersavcı'nın, dizi editörü Emrah Serdan'ın, editör Emrah İmre'nin ellerine sağlık.

[M. Sarki · Rating 5 out of 5]

Another book I thoroughly enjoyed almost top to bottom. Except I read it for the most part backwards as I prefer essays to short stories, but who can tell the difference sometimes? As much as I enjoyed Roberto Bolaño's latest book of essays Between Parentheses this book flat knocked me out. Except for Police Rat, and Two Catholic Tales, all the rest of the stories and essays were nothing short of fantastic. It is a sad day when you find somebody as gifted as Roberto Bolaño was and he seems to up and die on you. Trouble is I just found him, and little did I know he died a good seven or eight years ago from a long-suffering and obviously fatal liver disease. If still alive today he would be exactly my age.

Roberto Bolaño is dark, and I found him thanks to an article I read in the New Yorker magazine about Laszlo Krasznahorkai and his remarkable new novel WAR AND WAR which I also just finished reading today and also plan on reviewing real soon. In the article, Roberto Bolaño was listed as a writer similar in taste to Krasznahorkai as well as David Foster Wallace, Kafka, Camus, Beckett maybe, and others. Of course, Roberto Bolaño complains of Wallace's verbosity in Between Parentheses when giving his opinion of him, and Roberto Bolaño himself does not suffer from that disease of the pen to the extent our dead friend David did. However, Roberto Bolaño is just as bleak as any Beckett or Camus.

My favorite pieces from THE INSUFFERABLE GAUCHO in order of rank are:
1. Literature + Illness = Illness
2. The Insufferable Gaucho
3. The Myths of Cthulhu
4. Alvaro Rousselot's Journey
5. Jim

I could not bear at all the short pieces titled the Police Rat or the one titled Two Catholic Tales . I did not want to ruin a very good thing I had going with the other work chosen for this book, which the piece Jim , I believe, was included in the last Bolano New Direction book titled Between Parentheses.

Roberto Bolaño writes as if he is dying because he is, and that is a good way to approach the page in my opinion. He holds no punches for later. Why should he? He does not sugar coat. His composition is perhaps perfect. He is as honest a writer as I have ever read. He is important, and thus important for all of us to read what it is he has to say, and granted, it isn't always what we want to hear. Take it like you do your medicine, daily, and in the spirit of having a good time.

[Pedro · Rating 4 out of 5]

El libro es una recopilación póstuma de material inédito de Bolaño. Incluye cinco cuentos y dos artículos.

El cuento del título, es una referencia a Jorge Luis Borges, uno de los autores más admirados (aunque no emulados), por Bolaño. Es protagonizado por el abogado Pereda (seudónimo de Borges en Adán Buenosayres), que decide abandonar su profesión para vivir en la pampa argentina, dónde se transforma en un gaucho de un carácter imprevisible, y agresivo, muy alejado del carácter de Borges, pero muy similar a muchos de los protagonistas de sus cuentos, y tal vez quien le hubiera gustado ser.

Los artículos son escritos con desapego, como alguien que conversa en un bar con amigos. En el mito de Ctulhu (referencia a Lovecraft Howard Philips), hace una disección impiadosa de la literatura argentina después de la era del "universo Borges" que incluye desde Arlt, pasando por Marechal, hasta Bioy Casares y Cortázar.

Un buen libro para quien ya ha generado una amistad literaria con Bolaño, y sea capaz de perdonarle algunas desprolijidades y arbitrariedades con una sonrisa.

[Carlos Bennett · Rating 4 out of 5]

En "El gaucho Insufrible" vemos cosas distintas a las que aparecen en los dos libros de cuentos anteriores de Bolaño ("Llamadas telefónicas" y "Putas asesinas"). Hay un cuento tipico sobre escritores ("El viaje de Alvaro Rousselot") que recuerda mucho a esos cuentos anteriores, pero destacan por sobre todo otros dos cuentos:

1) "El Gaucho Insufrible": un homenaje a "El Sur", de Borges. Un cuento ambientado entre Buenos Aires y la Pampa, nostálgico, más lírico si se quiere de lo que es habitual en Bolaño. Muy bonito. Fue mi cuento favorito del libro. Alguien podría decir que más que un homenaje es simplemente escribir "El Sur" de nuevo, y que eso ya está hecho. No me da la cabeza para juzgar si el fondo del cuento es el mismo o si Bolaño introdujo una nueva vuelta de tuerca, sólo puedo decir que me gustó mucho.

2) "El policía de las ratas": Esta vez un homenaje a Kafka, un cuento de suspenso policial con toques existencialistas, pero ambientado en un mundo de ratas. Muy buen cuento también, tiene un aire como de film noir pero con ratas (o sea, mejor). El primer cuento fantástico que leo de Bolaño.


La colección la completan algunos textos cortos, algunos difícilmente calificables como cuentos, y un texto en primera persona titulado "Literatura + Enfermedad = Enfermedad" en que medita sobre la naturaleza de escribir estando enfermo, algo habla de su propia enfermedad y recuerda a otros escritores que han estado enfermos. Sin una pizca de autocompasión, con algo de humor pero más que nada pareciera que con sinceridad.

No sé cuál será el valor literario real de "Literatura + Enfermedad...", pero debo reconocer que me conmovió. Toda el alza mediática alrededor de Bolaño amenaza con convertirlo en una caricatura romanticizada (¿existe esa palabra?), y creo que eso aleja a alguna gente (nos han tratado de vender por todos lados la imagen de un Bolaño consumidor de heroína, que pasó gran parte de su vida en la pobreza malviviendo gracias al dinero que ganaba en concursos literarios, trotzkista revolucionario y preso político y que solo vivía para escribir). Desde ese punto de vista es bueno escuchar algunas cosas de su propia mano, de su propia voz. Este monólogo sale de Bolaño poco después que su doctor le da malas noticias:

"Recordé en el acto a Susan Sarandon disfrazada de monja preguntándole a Sean Penn como podía pensar en follar si le quedaban pocos días de vida (...) era una buena película, dirigida, creo, por Tim Robbins, que es un buen actor y tal vez un buen director pero que no ha estado jamás en el corredor de la muerte. Follar es lo único que desean los que van a morir. Follar es lo unico que deseanlos que están en las cárceles y los hospitales. Los impotentes lo único que desean es follar. Los castrados lo único que desean es follar. Los heridos graves, los suicidas, los seguidores irredentos de Heiddeger. Incluso Wittgenstein, que es el más grande filósofodel siglo XX, lo unico que deseaba es follar. Hasta los muertos, leí en alguna parte, lo único que desean es follar. Es triste tener que admitirlo, pero es así".

Recomiendo tambien esta entrevista de su mujer, en que desmitifica muchas de esas cosas:
Entrevista

Al final, lo que queda es un hombre al que realmente le apasionaba la literatura, y que murió en el peak de su creatividad y de su fuerza narrativa. Es muy triste. Y lo que quedan son sus libros.
Un último detalle que también me conmovió: "Literatura+Enfermedad=Enfermedad" está dedicado a su hepatólogo...

Como dijo Parra mejor que nadie:

[Jigar Brahmbhatt · Rating 4 out of 5]

I was never a Bolano aficionado. Yes, Last Evenings on Earth was mesmerizing and like nothing I had read before, and though eager in purchasing his mammoth works at discounted prices, I have never felt like indulging. There is a block in my head about Bolano, about his ever-ready referential slips, about the rebellious poets who populate his stories, about pages over pages of criticism of other writers (Chilean or otherwise). I have never been able to relate. Like in one of the stories in this collection, the narrator is visiting another city to meet a filmmaker who may have plagiarized his works, and roaming around the streets he tells himself: "I will dream of Proust tonight." It is heady, yes, but what is one to make of it? Where I come from, people make fun of you for being over-smart. I am not talking about realism alone, and do not really care for it. I understand that a writer, a person who drugs on literature and is always ready with references, can talk or think like that, more so a Bolano character. But there is an unreality to this sentence that seems jarring. A need for modesty aside, instances like this don't really work for me but it doesn't hurt and so I move on, approaching the world he creates as a reaction against... "something", something I don't understand.

These stories, especially Gaucho and Rat Police, may have turned me a little bit. Bolano is meandering still, but there is a movement here that is difficult to give up midway. Everything I think I know about storytelling is present in these stories, and it is done with gusto, with a carelessness that seems acquired over the years and is not possible without love. His wit shines in the two essays accompanying the stories.

After finishing this book, I picked up my copy of 2666, read the first page, and told myself: maybe, I can sustain it.

[Daniel Montague · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was my introduction to Roberto Bolano and it is clear that he is a man of great passion and perception. It is also clear that this is probably not his best work. While, there are few highlights, namely the short stories, “Police Rat” and “Alvaro Rousselot’s Journey”, overall the purpose of the particular stories being grouped together was perplexing. Apparently, this was a posthumous decision so I do not fault the author for the choice.
“Jim” was the name of the first story and did not leave an impression. I thought maybe it would act as an introduction or prelude to the remaining work but I could not decipher how.
The second story, “The Insufferable Gaucho”, of which this collection was named after was quite interesting. The title character descends into not exactly madness but a form of nostalgia mixed with regret after the loss of his wife. His life of constancy has lost all of its appeal and so he decides to travel to the Pampas, an open and largely desolate landscape. Thinking he would find salvation or at least purpose here, all he finds is poor gauchos and various ways to prepare rabbit. He befriends a few of them and acts as a benefactor for their sad exploits. His suffering in the wilderness is contrasted with the suffering of Argentines who are undergoing rapid inflation and economic peril in the face of a depression. By the end of the story, he is like much of his surroundings: dirty, beaten down but still hopeful of better things.
The next story, “Police Rat” was my favorite. We are introduced to Pepe the Rat, whose profession is a police detective. This hardscrabble work has the trappings of a Noir work or a good police procedure, think prime Law & Order. With pluck and persistence, Pepe is attempting to solve a rash of suspicious deaths. Despite of or perhaps due to the anthropomorphic nature of this story, we feel a kinship with the rat community. Pepe exhibits the grit and determination that is needed when given such few resources at his disposal. He goes in some dark places (metaphorically and literally), as his jurisdiction is the sewer in pursuit of the culprit/s. Bolano is able to weave a tale of rats into a meditation on the nature of man without feeling ham-fisted.
“Alvaro Rousselot’s Journey”, is the next sequentially and tackles one of Bolano’s favorite subjects: plagiarism. This was my first offering of his work but apparently, plagiarism plays a role in numerous of his tales. Though slightly drawn out as the title character keeps having his work, adapted by a film director, Morini into feature films I enjoyed the journey. While, pissed at first that his work was being stolen he reached a sort of equanimity by the end. At one point he journeys to Paris to confront the director but the city engulfs him in its clutches. He has relations with a prostitute whom he befriends. He also meets up with a famous writer, Riquelme which I enjoyed as the former Argentine soccer player with that name was my favorite player with his devastating free kicks and pinpoint passing. This story also comprised my favorite quotation, “In the end we all fall victim to the object of our adoration, perhaps because passion runs its course more swiftly than other human emotions, perhaps as a result of excessive familiarity with the object of desire.”
“Two Catholic Tales”, was fairly unremarkable as it shows two extreme paths, one of piety and one of hedonism. Showing how a different perception about how things are in actuality is not breaking any new ground but you can feel Bolano’s glee in some of his observations. The veneration of Vicente, who in death has become something that he was not in life, is an interesting take on “honoring” the dead. People are often exulted in remembrance especially if they can be used as a martyr or a teaching tool. The reality is often neither sinner nor saint.
The next stories were in fact essays that did not interest me. Some parts were humorous, especially those lampooning modern tastes and culture, specifically in literature but they seemed rather rambling and disjointed.
Overall, this was a mixed bag. I have a deep respect for how Bolano is able to give shape to characters and to focus on their humanity, both positively and negatively. His characters seem like how I imagined Bolano to have been: lived in, vivacious and full of contradictions. On the other hand, for me this anthology lost steam. My enjoyment started to wan and by the essays I was ready to be done with it. The stories were like life itself, ending abruptly and leaving more questions than answers.

[Nad Gandia]

“Si pudiéramos, nos ahorraríamos a nosotros mismos para épocas mejores.”

“Para viajar de verdad, los viajeros no deben tener nada que perder.”

“Las ratas somos capaces de matar a las ratas. Esa frase resonó en mi bóveda craneal hasta que desperté. Sabía que nada volvería a ser como antes. Sabía que solo era cuestión de tiempo.”

“Busco lo extraordinario para decirlo con palabras comunes y corrientes”

Me está encantando este viaje que estoy haciendo por los cuentos de Bolaño, como venía diciendo en una anterior reseña. Para mí, se está convirtiendo en uno de mis narradores preferidos, de hecho no dudaré en leerme el resto de su obra en los próximos meses.
El fracaso y la crueldad del destino conforman muchos de los cuentos de Bolaño, junto con historia viva de algunos de los países latinoamericanos en los que vivió. Los rostros tristes de quienes pagaron las consecuencias d edictaduras, traiciones o exilios. Un escritor en el exilio, eso es lo que fue también Bolaño, por eso, en muchos de sus relatos adquiere un alter ego para contarlo desde la perspectiva de la madurez, de la literaria también, no solo la personal.
Un escritor completo, y uno de los mejores escritores en lengua española de finales del siglo pasado, autodidacta, pero que sabe manejar el cuento como ningún otro, con buen ritmo, precisión y florituras buscadas a conciencia para hacer malabarismos. Me quedo con Bolaño, pero de forma definitiva, para no dejar nunca atrás todo lo que escribió, todo lo que me puede aportar, sin lugar a dudas, me enriquecerá en todos los sentidos de mi vida.

[Sanam · Rating 4 out of 5]

کابوی تحمل ناپذیر داستان وکیلیست که به اصل خویش باز میگردد و مرا بی شک به یاد مولانا و شکایت نیش می اندازد هر کسی کو دور ماند... . از پنج داستان کتاب به هیچکدام نمیتوانم کمتر از چهار ستاره بدهم و به دو خطابه پنج ستاره میدهم. وقتی خطابه آخر را میخواندم یاد ساعدی افتادم یاد همه نوشته هایی که فروش نمیروند و بدتر از آن ممنوع میشوند.

دیدگاه بولانیو در مورد ادبیات پر دبدبه آمریکای لاتین بسیار جالب و خواندنیست دعوت غریبانه او به دوری جستن از پرفروش ها... نظر گاه او از جانب الیت جامعه ادبیست یعنی یک کسی که دغدغه فروش چاپ شده ها را ندارد و بسیار به محتوا به فرم به آنچه که واقعن ادبیات است صرف نظر از جذابیت و مورد پسند عامه بودن میپردازد.

بسیار نویسنده ها را نام میبرد که ما نمیشناسیم چند اسم معدود آشنا هستند و همان آشناها یا پرفروشها را خوب به میدان میکشد و میتکاند.

داستانها بسیار نزدیک به ذهن و قابل درک هستند و البته بسیار دلنشین.

گرچه داستانها در فرم داستان کوتاه نوشته شده اند ولی شخصیت پردازی به خوبی اتفاق افتاده است و فضای غریب آرژانتین به خوبی تصویر شده است. ترجمه کتاب روان است و قطع آن خوب و کاربردیست. (حمل و نقلش آسان است) و توضیحات خوب و مفصلی نیز به کتاب ضمیمه شده که به اعتبار نشر بیدگل و مترجم و ویراستاران کتاب می افزاید