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2666-cover — *Spanish edition paperback cover (2009)*

I finally finished Roberto Bolaño’s novel 2666 last month (912 pages in English; 1,136 in Spanish). It represents a year of reading for me (with some other stuff thrown in, but nothing I stayed with or finished). The beauty of books, as opposed to TV and movies, is that you can take your time and just tackle two or three pages a night for fifteen to twenty minutes at a shot. TV and movies make us think we have to eat whole stories quickly. If you can disavow that habit, and feel comfortable with the slow pace of reading, you will probably extend your life by at least eight years, maybe ten. Besides, 2666 is considered one of the most important novels of the early 21st century. It probably can’t be read quickly no matter who you think you are.

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“Nothing happened today. And if anything did, I’d rather not talk about it, because I didn’t understand it.”

– Roberto Bolaño, “The Savage Detectives”

Patti Smith with a Roberto Bolaño portrait

I have discovered the work of Chilean poet/novelist/essayist, Roberto Bolaño, in the past year. For years I stayed away from this dude because it seemed like he was probably one of those difficult writers who made a reader’s journey very time consuming and dicey. Boy, was I wrong!

I want to admit here first that I’m mesmerized by what Bolaño produced in his all too short career. I can’t say I’m an addict, but I do love reading pretty much anything he’s ever written. The experience is uncanny. He tends not to overload sentences. Tends not to get too lyrical or philosophical. Most certainly he does not take himself or whatever work he’s doing too seriously (not too seriously does not mean he writes frivolously).