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.

A Supposedly Fun Thing I'll Never Do Again

David Foster Wallace's book of "essays and arguments" is, if nothing else, a fantastic way to enrich one's vocabulary. Luckily, reading Wallace is much more than a lexical exercise -- he's engaging, wryly funny, insightful, prone to digression, and given to self-examination and introspection. In other hands, the consistent footnotes and self-glossing could be distracting, but all of these essays flow quite well.

The collection is without a unifying theme, although there are two essays on tennis -- one on Wallace's experiences as a regional junior player from roughly twelve to eighteen (from twelve through fifteen, he was "near great"), and the other on Michael Joyce, at the time ranked in the 80s in the world. The latter is dated several years later, and Joyce so impresses Wallace that Wallace resolves not to mention his experiences on the junior tennis circuit, where he (Wallace) had been highly ranked in his small corner of Illinois.

The capstone and eponymous essay uses copious footnotes, and is an extremely in-depth followup to the previous essay on the Illinois State Fair (a magazine had sent Wallace to the Fair the previous year, and had liked the results so much that he was sent on a luxury cruise to attempt to duplicate his hyperliterate-fish-out-of-water act). Unfortunately, it's also the only essay in the collection where Wallace moves from wry observer to neurotic complainer, as his interactions with the crew (and his reflections upon these interactions) display paranoia. He is able to laugh at himself, but it's a little unsettling.

Overall, this is an extremely engaging and diverse collection of essays. While two (television and literary criticism) can be a bit dense, they're all worth reading. It's also interesting to see the differences in style -- the early essays lack footnotes, the television essay uses them for their ordinary intended purpose (cites), the Lynch essay uses them extensively (and is delivered in vignetted form), and the title work uses them on nearly every page, with occasional sub-notes (!). Extremely engaging and thought-provoking.