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Roberto Bolaño Books

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“Coincidence or a trick of fate (Amalfitano remembered a time when he believed that nothing happened by chance, everything happened for some reason, but when was that time? he couldn't remember, all he could remember was that at some point this was what he believed), something that must hold some meaning, some larger truth, a sign of the terrible state of grace in which Padilla found himself, an emergency exit overlooked until now, or a message intended specifically for Amalfitano, a message perhaps signaling that he should have faith, that things that seemed to have come to a halt were still in motion, things that seemed like ruined statues were mending themselves and recovering.”

FaithFateBecomingFlux2666Roberto BolanoBolano Quotes
Book:Woes of the True Policeman
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“Lo vi haciendo planes, lo vi bebiendo apoyado en la ventana, lo vi recibiendo a Cesárea Tinajero que venía con una carta de recomendación de Manuel, lo vi leyendo un librito de Tablada, tal vez aquel en donde José Juan dice: "bajo el celeste pavor/ delira por la unica estrella/ el cántico del ruiseñor". Que es como decir, muchachos, les dije, que veía los esfuerzos y los sueños, todos confundidos en un mismo fracaso y ese fracaso se llamaba alegría. - R. Bolaño”

Inspirational Attitude
Book:The Savage Detectives
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“He had a little single-story house, three bedrooms, a full bathroom and a half bathroom, a combined kitchen-living room-dining room with windows that faced west, a small brick porch where there was a wooden bench worn by the wind that came down from the mountains and the sea, the wind from the north, the wind through the gaps, the wind that smelled like smoke and came from the south. He had books he'd kept for more than twenty-five years. Not many. All of them old. He had books he'd bought in the last ten years, books he didn't mind lending, books that could've been lost or stolen for all he cared. He had books that he sometimes received neatly packaged and with unfamiliar return addresses, books he didn't even open anymore. He had a yard perfect for growing grass and planting flowers, but he didn't know what flowers would do best there--flowers, as opposed to cacti or succulents. There would be time (so he thought) for gardening. He had a wooden gate that needed a coat of paint. He had a monthly salary.”

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Book:2666
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“I try to find the books that I lost or forgot more than 30 years ago on another continent, with the hope and dedication and bitterness of those who search for their first lost books, books that if found I wouldn't read anyway, because I've already read them over and over, but that I would look at and touch just as the miser strokes the coins under which he's buried...Books are like ghosts”

Books
Book:Between Parentheses: Essays, Articles, and Speeches, 1998-2003
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“[Los alumnos de Almafitano aprendieron...] Que la principal enseñanza de la literatura era la valentía, una valentía rara, como un pozo de piedra en medio de un paisaje lacustre, una valentía semejante a un torbellino y a un espejo. Que no era más cómodo leer que escribir. Que leyendo se aprendía a dudar y a recordar. Que la memoria era el amor.”

ReadingUnderstandingLiteratura Chilena
Book:Los sinsabores del verdadero policía
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“I paid the taxi driver, got out with my suitcase, surveyed my surroundings, and just as I was turning to ask the driver something or get back into the taxi and return forthwith to Chillán and then to Santiago, it sped off without warning, as if the somewhat ominous solitude of the place had unleashed atavistic fears in the driver's mind. For a moment I too was afraid. I must have been a sorry sight standing there helplessly with my suitcase from the seminary, holding a copy of Farewell's Anthology in one hand. Some birds flew out from behind a clump of trees. They seemed to be screaming the name of that forsaken village, Querquén, but they also seemed to be enquiring who: quién, quién, quién. I said a hasty prayer and headed for a wooden bench, there to recover a composure more in keeping with what I was, or what at the time I considered myself to be. Our Lady, do not abandon your servant, I murmured, while the black birds, about twenty-five centimetres in length, cried quién, quién, quién. Our Lady of Lourdes, do not abandon your poor priest, I murmured, while other birds, about ten centimetres long, brown in colour, or brownish, rather, with white breasts, called out, but not as loudly, quién, quién, quién, Our Lady of Suffering, Our Lady of Insight, Our Lady of Poetry, do not leave your devoted subject at the mercy of the elements, I murmured, while several tiny birds, magenta, black, fuchsia, yellow and blue in colour, wailed quién, quién, quién, at which point a cold wind sprang up suddenly, chilling me to the bone.”

PoetrySoundPrayerWordsAloneProseImageryHauntingBirdsCreepyEerie
Book:By Night in Chile
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“Morini might have called Norton, but before his friends set off on their search for Archimboldi, he, in his own way, like Schwob in Samoa, had already begun a voyage, a voyage that would end not at the grave of a brave man but in a kind of resignation, what might be called a new experience, since this wasn't resignation in any ordinary sense of the word, or even patience or conformity, but rather a state of meekness, a refined and incomprehensible humility that made him cry for no reason and in which his own image, what Morini saw as Morini, gradually and helplessly dissolved, like a river that stops being a river or a tree that burns on the horizon, not knowing that it's burning”

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Book:2666
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“While he was waiting, leaning on the counter at a coffee place, he remembered the dream he'd had the night before about Antonio Jones, who had been dead for several years now. As before, he asked himself what Jones could have died of, and the one answer that occurred to him was old age. One day, walking down some street in Brooklyn, Antonio Jones had felt tired, sat down on the sidewalk, and a second later stopped existing.”

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Book:2666
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“For a while, Criticism travels side by side with the Work, then Criticism vanishes and it's the Readers who keep pace. The journey may be long or short. Then the Readers die one by one and the Work continues on alone, although a new Criticism and new Readers gradually fall into step with it along its path. Then Criticism dies again and the Readers die again and the Work passes over a trail of bones on its journey toward solitude. To come near the work, to sail in her wake, is a sign of certain death, but new Criticism and new Readers approach her tirelessly and relentlessly and are devoured by time and speed. Finally the Work journeys irremediably alone in the Great Vastness. And one day the Work dies, as all things must die and come to an end: the Sun and the Earth and the Solar System and the Galaxy and the farthest reaches of man's memory. Everything that begins as comedy ends in tragedy.”

Literary CriticismBook ReviewsBolanoThe Written WordInaki EchevarneSavage Detectives
Book:The Savage Detectives
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“So Lorenzo grew up in Chile without arms, an unfortunate situation for any child, but he also grew up in Pinochet’s Chile, which turned unfortunate situations into desperate ones, on top of which he soon discovered that he was homosexual, which made his already desperate situation inconceivable and indescribable. Given these circumstances, it is not surprising that Lorenzo became an artist. (What else could he do?)”

PoliticsLatin AmericanBolanoChilean
Author:Roberto Bolaño
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“Dostum Borges aynalardan neden nefret ediyorsa ben de aynı nedenle ses kayıt cihazından nefret ediyorum, dedim. Siz Borges'in arkadaşı mıydınız, diye sordu Arturo Belano, bana biraz saldırgan gelen bir ses tonuyla, şaşırmış gibiydi. Artık uzaklarda kalan gençlik günlerimizde oldukça yakın arkadaştık, hem de çok yakın denebilir, diye cevap verdim. Kuzey Amerikalı kız Borges'in neden ses kayıt cihazından nefret ettiğini sordu. Herhalde kör olduğu için, dedim İngilizce olarak. Körlükle bu cihazın ne ilgisi var, diye sordu. Duymanın içerdiği tehlikeleri hatırlatıyor olmalı, kendi sesini, kendi ayak sesini, düşmanlarının ayak seslerini duymak, diye yanıtladım. Kuzey Amerikalı kız yüzüme bakarak onayladı. Borges'i pek iyi tanıdığını sanmıyorum. Benim eserlerimi bildiğiniyse hiç sanmıyorum, gerçi John Dos Passos İngilizceye çevirmişti. John Dos Passos'u da pek bildiğini sanmıyorum.”

BorgesBolanoVahşi Hafiyeler
Author:Roberto Bolaño
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“Inaki Echavarne, Giardinetto barı, Granada del Penedes sokağı, Barselona, Haziran 1994. Eleştiri, bir süre Yapıt'a eşlik eder, sonra yok olur ve bu kez yapıta Okurlar eşlik eder. Yolculuk uzun da olabilir kısa da. Sonra da Okurlar birer birer ölür ve Yapıt yoluna yalnız devam eder, derken başka Eleştiriler ve başka Okurlar çıkar yoluna. Sonra Eleştiri bir kez daha ölür, Okurlar bir kez daha ölür, Yapıt bu kemik yığını üzerinden geçerek yalnızlıklara yolculuğunu sürdürür. Yapıt'a yaklaşmak, gemiyi onun aydınlığında yüzdürmek kesin ölümün yanılmaz işaretidir, oysa başka Eleştiriler ve başka Okurlar durmaksızın yanaşırlar Yapıt'a, zaman hızla yutar onları da. Sonunda, Yapıt Sonsuzlukta yalnız sürdürür yolculuğunu. Ve bir gün, her şey gibi Yapıt da ölür, tıpkı Güneş'in söneceği, Yerkürenin, Güneş Sisteminin ve Yıldızların, insanoğlunun yok olacağı gibi. Komedi gibi başlayan her şey trajedi olarak son buluyor.”

BolanoVahşi Haifyeler
Book:The Savage Detectives
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“The root of all my ills, thought Amalfitano sometimes, is my admiration for Jews, homosexuals, and revolutionaries (true revo-lutionaries, the romantics and the dangerous madmen, not the apparatchiks of the Communist Party of Chile or its despicable thugs, those hideous gray beings. The root of all my ills, he thought, is my admiration for a certain kind of junkie (not the poet junkie or the artist junkie but the straight-up junkie, the kind you rarely come across, the kind who almost literally gnaws at himself, the kind like a black hole or a black eye, with no hands or legs, a black eye that never opens or closes, the Lost Witness of the Tribe, the kind who seems to cling to drugs in the same way that drugs cling to him. The root of all my ills is my admiration for delinquents, whores, the mentally disturbed, said Amalfitano to himself with bitterness. When I was an adolescent I wanted to be a Jew, a Bol-shevik, black, homosexual, a junkie, half-crazy, and the crowning touch- a one-armed amputee, but all I became was a literature professor. At least, thought Amalfitano, I've read thousands of books. At least I've become acquainted with the Poets and read the Novels. (The Poets, in Amalfitano's view, were those beings who flashed like lightning bolts, and the Novels were the stories that sprang from Don Quixote). At least I've read. At least I can still read, he said to himself, at once dubious and hopeful.”

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Book:Woes of the True Policeman
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“He said that some nights he heard the tom-tom beat of his passion, but he didn't know for sure whether it was really the beat of his passion or of his youth slipping through his fingers, maybe, he added, it's just the beat of poetry, the beat that comes to us all without exception at some mysterious hour, easily missed but absolutely free.”

PoetrySonoraBeat GenerationBorder2666AmalfitanoBolano QuotesJuarezRoberto Bolano Quotes
Book:Woes of the True Policeman
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“Fizeram amor no quarto de Ansky e quem os houvesse visto teria dito que fodiam como se dali a umas horas fossem mmorrer. Na realidade, Nádia yurenieva fodia como fazia grande parte das moscovitas durante aquele ano de 1936, e Boris Ansky fodia como se de repente, e já perdia toda a esperança, houvesse encontrado seu único e verdadeiro amor. Nenhum dos dois pensava (ou queria pensar) na morte, mas ambos se mexiam, ou se trançavam, ou dialogavam, como se estivessem à beira do abismo”

AmorSexo
Book:2666
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“Did Jesus Christ, he asked, suspect that someday his church would spread to the farthest corners of Earth? Did Jesus Christ, he asked, ever have what we, today, call an idea of the world? Did Jesus Christ, who apparently knew everything, know that the world was round and to the east lived the Chinese (this sentence he spat out, as if it cost him great effort to utter it) and to the west the primitive peoples of America? And he answered himself, no, although of course in a way having an idea of the world is easy, everybody has one, generally an idea restricted to one's village, bound to the land, to the tangible and mediocre things before one's eyes, and this idea of the world, petty, limited, crusted with the grime of the familiar, tends to persist and acquire authority and eloquence with the passage of time.”

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Book:2666
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“Esse ferro bem polido a mim faz-me lembrar, desculpem a divagação, dizia Florita Almada, os óculos escuros de alguns chefes políticos ou de alguns dirigentes sindicais, ou de alguns polícias. Para que tapam eles os olhos?, interrogo-me. Terão passado mal a noite a estudas formas para que o país progrida, para que os operários tenham maior segurança no trabalho ou um aumento salarial, para que a delinquência bata em retirada? Talvez. Não digo que não. Talvez as olheiras deles se devam a isso. Mas o que aconteceria se eu me aproximasse de um deles e lhe os óculos e visse que não têm olheiras? Tenho medo só de imaginar.”

PolíticaMentira
Author:Roberto Bolaño
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