A Masterpiece

Roberto Bolan͂o's  2666, the 3-volume boxed set of paperbacks, had been sitting on my bookcase for well over a year, like a giant whose footprint lay hidden in the woods waiting to be discovered.  I would look at it and then forget about it, moving on to other less intimidating books, but last week took it off my shelf and parted the leaves.  Like the four critics in Part One of the book, I felt the exhilaration of discovering an author whose words will excite controversy and multiple interpretations until 2666 and beyond. 

I don't know what the title means, but it doesn't matter.  The book itself is full of mystery, a slow and quiet suspense that draws the reader in.  There's the mystery of the elusive Archimboldi, the obvious mystery of the murders in Mexico, the mystery of each life that passes through the pages, the mystery of life itself.  Characters, even minor ones, begin talking and go off on a monologue or tale that seems to have nothing to do with the main story, but advances our understanding of the world in the way that both fables and reportage do, in their different ways. 

Part Four, "The Part About the Crimes", differs from the other parts of the book in that it matter-of-factly describes murder after murder.  Yes, mingled with these descriptions are investigations involving reporters and police, and other characters enter and occasionally deliver short monologues, but reading the factual descriptions of victim after victim becomes numbing.  I kept on, not skipping over any, realizing this was done to convey the horror of these still-unsolved crimes, and to force us to remember these women - they each had a name, they each had individual characteristics, they're each gone. 

Jonathan Lethem's excellent review in the New York Times on November 9, 2008, describes his excitement about 2666, and gives some background on Bolan͂o, as well as discussing the author's wish to publish the five parts of the book separately (he died before the book was printed), but as parts of one large work.  If Bolan͂o had written nothing else, this novel is enough to immortalize him (the meaning of literary fame is one of the pervasive themes of this book).

Bolan͂o's earlier novel The Savage Detectives, which has been on my "Books Wanted" list for sometime, has now moved to the top of that list.  To those of you who have 2666 waiting on your bookshelf, yet to be open and discovered:  prepare yourselves for a turbulent and rewarding meeting with a giant.