Distant Star

Roberto Bolaño's Distant Star is a novel I'd been looking for for some time. It's an expansion of a short chapter at the end of Bolaño's earlier Nazi Literature in the Americas, although the name of the pilot changes between the two stories (for the worse in my opinion).

Like quite a bit of Bolaño's work, Distant Star focuses on poets and poetry. Our narrator is someone like Bolaño, a Chilean exile who has bounced around over the years. (As mentioned by Bolaño in an author's note, this is most likely Bolaño's alter ego, Arturo Belano). Narrator first encounters the poet/pilot in a poetry workshop, which he (Carlos Wieder, the pilot) had been attending under an assumed name.

I've seen Distant Star called a companion piece to Bolaño's By Night in Chile, in other reviews, as they both deal with the post-coup literary scene. Of course, while this is true, they're quite different works. The paranoia and irrationality of O'Ryan (whose obsession with Wieder drives much of the novel) pales before that of our priest in the latter novel. (Not to mention that the pacing is significantly different. A deathbed rant as opposed to a fugue.)

Recommended, as with all of Bolaño's work that I've come across. (Although I'd prefer the chapter in Nazi Literature in the Americas, to this.)