{moszoomthumb imgid=933 itemid=74 style_m=2}‘2666’
by Roberto Bolaño
898 pages,
Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2008

In 2003, when Chilean author Roberto Bolaño died of liver disease at the age of 50, he had just barely finished the first draft of his epic novel, “2666.” Published in Spanish to great acclaim in 2004, the 1,100-page tome has been beautifully translated into English (and a more manageable 898 pages) by Natasha Wimmer, who also posthumously translated Bolaño’s earlier award-winning novel, “The Savage Detectives.” A note from Bolaño’s heirs at the beginning of the novel explains why they went against his wishes to have it published as five books and instead released it as one novel (the book is available as one formidable hardcover or a collection of three paperbacks).

As Bolaño had intended, each part tells its own story but also includes trace evidence of events and characters from other sections. The book, as a whole, is a testimony to the mundane and ugly horrors of everyday life, the largest section focusing on the horrific murders of hundreds of women in Santa Teresa, a fictional border town in Mexico. The murders are a common thread weaving the pages together. Bolaño has made death beautiful and shows how people have become desensitized to it in modern times, not in a preachy way, but as a sad, inescapable fact.

In the first section, “The Part about the Critics,” Bolaño tells of four European academics in their fervent quest to locate their idol, the elusive German author Archimboldi. They follow hints and rumors all over the globe in the hopes of a sighting or to learn of the fate of the man whose works they have spent their lives studying. Their chase leads them to Santa Teresa, the site of the murders. In the interim, they develop complex relationships, amongst themselves and others they meet on their journey.

In “The Part about Amalfitano,” Bolaño chronicles the tale of Amalfitano, a widowed philosopher who is slowly starting to lose his mind. Mentioned very briefly in the first section, Amalfitano struggles with sadness as he attempts to teach and watch over his teenage daughter in the violent town of Santa Teresa.

“The Part about Fate” tells of a journalist given the assignment of covering a boxing match in Santa Teresa. Before leaving for Mexico, he visits an ex-Black Panther in Detroit, who has him questioning his purpose in life. Upon arriving in Mexico, the journalist finds the Santa Teresa murders far more interesting than the boxing match and tries to pursue the story, despite protests from his editor. This tale also offers a glimpse of Amalfitano’s daughter, who has involved herself with some unsavory characters the journalist encounters.

The novel’s most stunning section is “The Part about the Murders.” Bolaño catalogs the death of each woman in Santa Teresa in factual, yet almost tender, detail, between paragraphs involving drug dealers, policemen and politics. Bolaño gives each character that arrives on a page a little background story, whether it’s what they had for breakfast that morning or something that happened to them when they were young. It’s these sad, small descriptions that humanize the graphic horrors he describes.

Of medical examiner Emilio Garibay, one of the several hundred characters very briefly mentioned in ‘2666,’ Bolaño writes:

“He was an atheist and it had been years since he read a book, despite the fact that he had amassed a more than decent library of works in his specialty, as well as volumes of philosophy and Mexican history and a novel or two. Sometimes he thought it was precisely because he was an atheist that he didn’t read anymore. Not reading, it might be said, was the highest expression of atheism or at least of atheism as he conceived of it. If you don’t believe in God, how do you believe in a fucking book? he asked himself.”

In the final section, “The Part about Archimboldi,” the reader is finally allowed a peek at the German author the critics were so doggedly hunting in the first part. There is a sense upon finishing that Bolaño may have intended more for the book had he not died, but he still managed to bring the novel around full circle. Bolaño might have wished for “2666” to be five books, but having all the parts together as one makes his weird and lovely masterpiece a complete, spellbinding journey.