Roberto Bolano is one of my favorite contemporary authors. I am endlessly impressed by his ability to move one step beyond the "magical realism" style of his mentors by toying with and expanding the form and very definition of the novel. Nazi Literature In America is no exception. The book, while clearly fiction, does not act as a traditional novel. It is an encyclopedia of fascist American writers who have existed only in Bolano's imagination. The chapters are intricately divided into various schools of thought and an expansive bibliography fills the epilogue. The level of detail is nearly exhausting.
Many of the chapters are simple - dry biographies and lists of works or historical accounts of the conflict between fascist writers and the growing leftist movements in South America throughout the past century. Yet in these segments, readers will catch glimpses of how dark and twisted Bolano's fantasy world is. One author is photographed being held by Hitler as a baby and spends her life cherishing the picture and idolizing the dictator. In another chapter, a white-supremacist from Texas embarks on a poetry career from prison. The image of the Aryan-Brotherhood publishing literary magazines is a humorous one, as are many of the other snapshots offered up in the book. However, the overall message is one of the evil that quietly exists in society.
This idea comes forth most clearly in the story of "The Infamous Ramirez Hoffman" that closes the novel. In this chapter Bolano himself appears as narrator and a character in the story. Ramirez Hoffman is an artist, poet and serial killer that Bolano purports to meet in his youth. Many decades later, an ex-police officer recruits Bolano to help him track and kill Hoffman. When the aging Hoffman is found, Bolano begs the officer not to kill him: "He can't hurt anyone now, I said. But I didn't really believe it. Of course he could. We all could." In these lines Bolano suddenly brings the reader into the action of the novel with the painful realization that we are all capable of harm.
Bolano's novels often point a magnifying glass at the literary world, whether is be the "visceral realists" of The Savage Detectives or the right-wing movement throughout the Americas. By dissecting these marginalized fictional groups, Bolano is able to make a commentary on the larger concept of human nature. Nazi Literature In America exposes what is indisputably an evil society, but it is an evil that exists only in the pages of the book and which which the reader will never be exposed to. Yet, by inserting himself into the tale and drawing the reader in alongside, Bolano is able to show us that the ideas on these pages are not entirely fantasy. It is this final realization that makes the book so frightening.
Thursday, May 8, 2008
Monday, May 5, 2008
Story
Couldn't I be your Holly Golightly?
You've finished my story, so where is
my Hollywood ending?
I'll end up with the original version.
A watered-down Manhattan on the bedside table.
I now sleep next to dog-eared
books of poetry instead of you.
A Sikh cabdriver once recited poetry
and gave me a silver bracelet,
a dollar store version of the one
permanent on his own wrist.
He told me kindness always come back around
and, I actually believed him then as I told you
the story (breathless and shivering)
over the phone.
You've finished my story, so where is
my Hollywood ending?
I'll end up with the original version.
A watered-down Manhattan on the bedside table.
I now sleep next to dog-eared
books of poetry instead of you.
A Sikh cabdriver once recited poetry
and gave me a silver bracelet,
a dollar store version of the one
permanent on his own wrist.
He told me kindness always come back around
and, I actually believed him then as I told you
the story (breathless and shivering)
over the phone.
A few lost words
My grandmother started therapy today. The goal, as I've been told, is to repair the damage from the stroke and re-teach some of the language that has been lost. She spends three hours a day on it and it is apparently exhausting.
It is very odd to think of an 82 year old woman having to relearn how to talk. It's almost like something has come full circle and people return to childhood as time passes. Language seems like something so elemental. It feels like something that is automatically part of me, something that I cannot remember ever being without. It is nearly impossible to get my head around the fact that it can actually be lost in a matter of moments.
And yet, things surely have been lost. No matter how successful the therapy is, there are things that will not return to my grandmother and things that have been slipping away for a number of years now. Perhaps, at the next party she will not be able to recall the verses of "On the Way to Cape May" or "The Wild Rover". We may never again hear the story of how she used to dirty her childhood clothes watching a baker make cinnamon rolls through a basement window or listen to her try to hold back her laughter as she recounts that infamous van ride to South Bend.
In spite of all this, I don't think these things are entirely gone. Out of this a family legend can be built. The stories may be hazy, and we will likely get the details wrong. Joe and Terry will lie, of course, but that's what makes it legend. In the end, these stories will continue to be told over potluck brunches and tables covered in empty Miller Light bottles, even if it is not our matriarch doing the talking. Plus, I can guarantee that after all those beers are finished we will all still know every single word to "Sweet Caroline".
It is very odd to think of an 82 year old woman having to relearn how to talk. It's almost like something has come full circle and people return to childhood as time passes. Language seems like something so elemental. It feels like something that is automatically part of me, something that I cannot remember ever being without. It is nearly impossible to get my head around the fact that it can actually be lost in a matter of moments.
And yet, things surely have been lost. No matter how successful the therapy is, there are things that will not return to my grandmother and things that have been slipping away for a number of years now. Perhaps, at the next party she will not be able to recall the verses of "On the Way to Cape May" or "The Wild Rover". We may never again hear the story of how she used to dirty her childhood clothes watching a baker make cinnamon rolls through a basement window or listen to her try to hold back her laughter as she recounts that infamous van ride to South Bend.
In spite of all this, I don't think these things are entirely gone. Out of this a family legend can be built. The stories may be hazy, and we will likely get the details wrong. Joe and Terry will lie, of course, but that's what makes it legend. In the end, these stories will continue to be told over potluck brunches and tables covered in empty Miller Light bottles, even if it is not our matriarch doing the talking. Plus, I can guarantee that after all those beers are finished we will all still know every single word to "Sweet Caroline".
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