Ben Steele reviewed By night in Chile by Roberto Bolaño
Tedious, but sticks the landing
4 stars
To be honest, I did restart this book at one point because I got lost in it, so perhaps my tedious thought it mostly a function of that.
I think someone chose this book as this round's book club read because there was a little bit of gay in it. I had also proposed Martyr! as another option, and I have to say, much better gay in that one than this.
Nonetheless, I think that the difficulty I have here is fully appreciating where the connection is between the Farewell literati discussion and the rest of the book. Yes, he wants to be a literati member. Yes, the literati has some fascist connections that cannot be denied (okay maybe I'm journaling and starting to understand the reason we have the Chilean embassy in France during WWII discussion). Perhaps the difficulty here is the connection with conservatism and the …
To be honest, I did restart this book at one point because I got lost in it, so perhaps my tedious thought it mostly a function of that.
I think someone chose this book as this round's book club read because there was a little bit of gay in it. I had also proposed Martyr! as another option, and I have to say, much better gay in that one than this.
Nonetheless, I think that the difficulty I have here is fully appreciating where the connection is between the Farewell literati discussion and the rest of the book. Yes, he wants to be a literati member. Yes, the literati has some fascist connections that cannot be denied (okay maybe I'm journaling and starting to understand the reason we have the Chilean embassy in France during WWII discussion). Perhaps the difficulty here is the connection with conservatism and the literati that exists substantially less in the US than Latin America.
When we fall into the dictatorship and we move into peace, I think that's really fantastically done. I admittedly am missing whether Allende's tenure was all that chaotic, but the way that everyone that discusses Pinochet in my circles talks about night flights and such, vs. the way that the priest is able to simply say that he felt calm for the first time is absolutely wild.
Playing with that in comparison to the way I'm experiencing this current moment of uprising in the US is pretty wild. The idea that the opening of concentration camps would be others' idea of peace, and playing with the way that parties are going on directly above torture chambers really does fit with this moment.
The merging of horror with banality of social gatherings is excellent. I do think there's more to think through about the storms of shit and why the falcons are so important to use as pigeon killers in the cathedrals. I don't necessarily have an idea there other than the idea that the natural occupants of churches (poor, meek, presumably) are worth killing because they... shit? might be compelling.
Book club isn't for at least a month, so I might have more complex thoughts on the falconry by then. It's a good undercurrent of terror at minimum.
