2666

At the beginning of this blog, I said that I wanted to make this not just about my experience in Albania but also a wider range of topics. Unfortunately I’ve gotten away from that. It’s probably because I spend a small fraction of my time on the internet or on television and my access to information has changed my routine thought patterns accordingly.

Last night, I had a dream that I was talking about an author, Roberto Bolano. His final book, published posthumously, has devoured my thoughts for the last two months. Apparently it’s so embedded in my subconscious that I’m giving lectures in my sleep.

I was introduced to Bolano in a Latin American fiction class I took my pre-junior year of university. In my obsession to achieve the “perfect schedule,” (classes all day on Tuesdays and Thursdays and the rest of the week free) I took a random elective that fit into the schedule. Like many classes, it fit my schedule and was something I knew nothing about. And like the best professors, you find yourself thinking about them and their classes years later. It’s only with the passage of time that you can truly appreciate the gift that they have given.

Since then, I’ve read a few other pieces of Bolano’s work and learned more about this life and the world he created in his writings. “Ambitious” is certainly one adjective that comes to mind. 2666 was certainly a high note to go out on; one that would have been difficult to top. It’s a huge web of settings and characters, all touched by the spider Santa Teresa (a fictional Ciudad Juarez). Bolano creates a profound sense of desolation, as wide as the desert where the bodies of women continue to be found and as hopeless as the search for justice that organized crime, societal ambivalence, police corruption and overall governmental ineptitude prevent.

Some favorite quotes, amongst many:
“So everything lets us down, including curiosity and honesty and what we love best.” “Yes,” said the voice, “but cheer up, it’s fun in the end.”
“Only in chaos are we conceivable.”
“It has nothing to do with belief… it has to do with understanding, and then changing.”