2666

Roberto Bolaño's 2666 is a sprawling epic of a novel. Or rather five novels, linked by common characters, themes, and images. Each section is linked to the previous ones, dealing with events or characters who were previously introduced, whether briefly or in depth. 2666 has twin suns -- Santa Teresa, Mexico (a stand-in for Ciudad Juarez) and Benno von Archimboldi, a reclusive German author, the study of whose work is the focus of the first book of the novel.

2666 opens with an introduction to four critics, and their introduction to Archimboldi's oeuvre. It then explores their work, their travels, their relationships with each other, and Archimboldi's growing recognition; as the critics are introduce to Archimboldi (in the late 70s and early 80s), he's

". . .an utter failure, an author whose books languished on the dustiest shelves in the stores or were remaindered or forgotten in publisher's warehouses before being pulped."

At the end of the section, by the mid-late 90s, he's rumored to be on the short list for the Nobel, as our critics search for him in Santa Teresa, Mexico.

From here, we're introduced to a literature professor assigned to tour the critics around, his daughter, who he fears will be abducted and murdered, like so many other women, an American journalist in town for a boxing match who is fascinated by the murders, various policemen, and in the penultimate section, a hideous, lengthy catalog of the deaths of women, ranging from prepubescent to matronly.

That the fictional city of Santa Teresa is one of the axes 2666 revolves around is true, but Santa Teresa really only has one axes -- the murders. The descriptions of the victims is clinical, repetitive, and horrific in its vast scope. The women are mostly young, in their late teens or early twenties, but we get some girls before the onset of puberty, and those in their thirties, forties, and later. Some of the murders are solved (as to how solved that really is, we don't know), but most are closed when no more information can be found, such as the alleged killer disappears. Perhaps the hardest part of this section is that this isn't a detective novel, where everything will be neatly wrapped up at the end -- people are arrested, and a prominent character is convicted and jailed for some of the murders, but they continue. Other suspects are mentioned, then never dealt with again.

The final section of the novel is an intimate look at the enigmatic Archimboldi, the other axis of 2666. In a somewhat jarring departure from the rest of the novel, where all we learn of him is that his name is probably a pseudonym, and that he's a very tall, very old German writer, the final section follows him from his childhood through his old age, although parts of it are told in a way that echoes Bolaño's other works -- we hear about him not through third person omniscient or limited, but from conversations other characters have about him, while he is elsewhere.

2666 doesn't offer many answers, only questions. I'd bought it a few years ago and held off on reading until I'd read more of Bolaño's work, and I'm glad I did. It's absolutely fascinating.

Murder City

Murder City isn't quite what I expected. Rather than a sober overview of Mexico's troubles, this is a depressing narrative that skips between scenes and characters, like a bad dream. Murders without motive, seemingly without reason, without explanations, and certainly without consequences for the killers.

Throughout Murder City, Bowden uses jump cuts -- he describes a murder, a threat, an incident, in a paragraph and then flashes to another, and another, before returning (or moving) to a something else. The referenced instances may recur, or may not. One thread that runs through nearly all of them, though, is that witnesses or neighbors saw or noticed nothing, or saw men "dressed as commandos."

Bowden has several people and settings he returns to again and again, but the three most prevalent are the story of a former beauty queen who came to the city to party, was gang-raped for days and lost her mind (Miss Sinaloa), a killer for one of the cartels (Murder Artist), and the intimidation and silencing of the Mexican press by both the cartels and the government (Dead Reporter Driving). These are the only chapters that are titled, others are merely denoted by the page breaks.

Overall, this book doesn't give a sense of perspective on the violence in Ciudad Juarez, but underscores the senselessness of it all. And that is precisely the point.