Antwerp - Roberto Bolano

 I remember reading The Savage Detectives when it first came out in English translation, sometime around the Millennium.   I loved it.   I remember eagerly awaiting the appearance of 2666.   By then Bolano had died.   I got hold of 2666 but couldn't come to terms with it.   The other day I spotted this in the British Library bookshop.   A novella - perhaps even a series of vignettes - by Bolano?   No brainer.

And I have really enjoyed it.   Antwerp might even have been his first attempt at sustained fiction, back in 1980, tinkered with over the years (as Bolano himself tells us in a sort of preface) and finally published in Spain in 2002, the year before he died.   It wasn't even called Antwerp back then.   I prefer Antwerp and Antwerp is probably my favourite anecdote in the book.

It's experimental, naturally, with few if any clear links between the fragments - a hunchback, probably Mexican, the struggling writer who can't write anything other than bursts of words, detectives on a mystery trajectory, thin young women.   It's a world of ideas whipped into a swirling mass with us, the reader, standing in the middle with Bolano, trying to snatch the odd one as it whirls by.

It's only seventy large-print pages but it took me three sittings to read.   It is so densely packed, so stuffed full of ideas and wit and suggestions of things to come.   Maybe it's time for another go at 2666.

NOTE:

Well, what do you know?   I'd completely forgotten I'd read Bolano's The Third Reich back in 2017.   I only found it when 'Roberto Bolano' turned out to be already saved in my labels.   Try it yourself - it's also in the labels for this post.   Or use the search box.   Spoiler - I moaned about 2666 but absolutely adored The Third Reich.

The Third Reich - Roberto Bolano

Like virtually everyone else, I first heard of Bolano when he died ridiculously young in 2003. Like lots of my fellow literati I bought his final novel 2666 when it came out. And like a large proportion of my peers I struggled to love it.

However it turns out 2666 was not the last of Bolano. He left archives, drafts and outlines. He left The Third Reich, which seems to have been written towards the start of his career and, for whatever reason, discarded. It finally appeared in 2010 (2011 in English). This I absolutely loved.


Bolano was Chilean but he lived most of his adult life, such as it was, in Spain. In fact the lived in a minor resort on the Costa Brava, just like the one where The Third Reich is set.


The title naturally suggests the Nazis, and our anti-hero Udo Berger is indeed German, as is his girlfriend Ingeborg, her holiday friends Charly and Hanna, and the owner of the hotel, Frau Else. But The Third Reich is actually a war game. This is the 1980s when war games came in boxes rather than downloads and Udo is the German champion, lined up for a big match in Paris, who is developing a new strategy for publication.


The Germany Bolano actually plays with is that of Kafka. When Charly goes missing Udo's exceptionally ordered life starts to crumble. Even though he doesn't like the louche and feckless Charly he becomes overwhelmed by the need to stay on, long after Charly's body has been found and repatriated, long after the season has ended and the hotel around him is steadily heading for hibernation.


Udo fills his days by playing The Third Reich in his room with El Quemado, a disfigured beach bum of unknown origin who lives inside a pile of his own pedalos. El Quemado knows nothing about gaming but is "a quick study" - very quick. Soon Udo finds himself in retreat...


Like Kafka, nothing is really resolved. Mysterious linkages appear and fade. All that really matters is the carefully documented narrative of Udo's disintegration. Found among the papers is not usually a great indicator of quality, but in this instance it really is.


I am usually snitty about blurbs. Fair's fair, though. The cover blurb here - from the now defunct Independent on Sunday - couldn't be more right:

Overflowing with Bolano's exuberance, dark humour, and sarcasm, The Third Reich is a good introduction to this great and disquieting novelist.