SOUNDTRACK: PHISH-Joy (2009).

This is basically Phish’s reunion disc (after a 5 year hiatus).  It opens with one of their poppiest songs, “Backwards Down the Number Line” a song that picks up where their least disc left off: with a feeling of driving down a country lane with nowhere to go, windows opens, just happy to be alive.  The second track, “Stealing Time from the Faulty Plan” is a delightful rocker with a supremely catchy chorus “got a blank space where my mind should be….”

The third track, “Joy” starts as a simple piano ballad, but quickly morphs into one of the prettiest songs I’ve heard in ages, an outrageously happy upbeat tender song: “We want you to be happy, cause this is your song, too.”

“Sugar Shack” is a delightfully funky song, recognizable at once as one of Mike’s songs.  It’s a simple, pleasant enough track, but somehow Mike’s voice sounds weaker than usual.

“Ocelot” is a silly track (and one of my favorites) while “Kill Devil Falls” is a bluesy number that will easily be a lengthy jam live.  It’s my least favorite track on the disc, but it is followed by a more upbeat future-jam called “Light” which features delightful multi part harmonies.

The highlights of the disc are the final two songs: the 13 minute “Time Turns Elastic” and the five-minute “Twenty Years Later.”  “Elastic” is a wonderful non-jam, a thoughtfully constructed epic with many parts (although not an elaborate prog rock track or anything).  It’s catchy and moving with sweeping grandeur and easy to sing parts.  And it melds wonderfully into the delicate multipart gorgeous final track.

This is a really strong, mature disc from Phish. There’s not a lot of silliness or nonsense, just some great uplifting gentle rock songs.  It’s quite wonderful.

[READ: Week of April 19, 2010]  2666 [pg 766-830]

This penultimate section of 2666 (the end is nigh!) settles down into an almost pasotral recollection of Archimboldi (the man formerly known as Reiter) as a writer (yes the pronunciation of his name is not lost on me, although I assume it doesn’t have the same connotation in German).  And while it is not all happiness, there is more joy in these 60 some pages than in most of the rest of the book combined.

But before we get there, we have one final moment with a war criminal.

Sammer, from last week’s reading tries to justify himself to Reiter: even though he regretted what he did (overseeing the execution of 400 Jews) , he still felt that he was not so bad, really.  And then one morning, Sammer’s body was found, strangled.  After a brief investigation, he was dumped in a common grave.

And then Reiter was released from the camp.  He travelled to Cologne, where he moved into a house with two veterans: one from the armored division (named Gustav, aged 35) and a reporter for a newspaper (named Otto, aged 60) who had written about the armored division (and which Gustav said was excellently done).

Although initially Reiter tried to get a train ticket home, he soon wound up getting a job as a doorman at a bar which catered to American and English soldiers.  He also received extra tips for doing the soldiers favors (women, rooms, the black market, etc).

One night a girl across the street from his bar shouted his name.  He didn’t recognize her, but she knew everything about him and said she was his girlfriend.  He let her stay in the bar until it got crowded and then she left, sitting on the stoop across the street, clearly waiting for him.  When his shift was over, he crossed the street to where she was sleeping.  Although he couldn’t remember her name, he realized she was Ingeborg Bauer (the young woman who was in Hugo’s house to whom he pledge he would never forget).

Ingeborg recounts everything that happened to her since they parted.  Her father died in a bombing raid and her family fled Berlin for the country.  But she distrusted the countryside where local boys raped girls to prove themselves (she was not raped, but her sister was).  And so one day she just left for Cologne, saying “I was sure I would find you here, or someone very like you” (771).

Ingeborg has something wrong with her lungs, so she and Reiter found lodging in a bombed out house (with broken stairs and all manner of other problems).  They didn’t sleep together, they just seemed very happy being with each other.  They laughed and enjoyed each other’s company, and Ingeborg seemed to be calming down and feeling better.

There’s a brief section about women in villages who believe that semen contains vitamins and so long as you were a healthy man who didn’t look sick, they would gladly suck you off thinking the semen would be good for them.  Reiter and Ingeborg speculate about who started that belief.  Ingeborg thinks it must have been some fanciful village girl but Reiter asks, “Couldn’t it have been some fast-talker, wanting to get sucked off for free?” (773).  [A great look at their totally different life experiences.]

Eventually, they made love (at this point Ingeborg was 20 and Reiter was 26).  And that sets them off on an extended period of happiness together.  Laughing (although not at the same things), making love, reading, talking and being happy.

Ingeborg asked him one day if he ever killed someone.  He says yes.  Ingeborg guesses that it may have been a woman “some women are attracted to men who kill women” (775).  “‘I’ve never killed a woman,’ said Reiter, ‘Such a thing never even occurred to me'” (776).  Nevertheless, Reiter reveals that he killed Sammer (!).  He reveals Sammer’s story and adds a great deal more information (including that he sneaked out of the camp).

While settling down he met a fortune teller who knew an awful lot about him: that he had killed , but not in the war.  And that he had almost been killed himself.  She suggested he change his name (for his safety).   The fortune teller also told him that his mother and sister were still alive.   And then she proceeded to give him a beautiful black leather coat (which fit as it had been made for him).  However, she gave him contradictory answers about the original owner of the coat (a gestapo agent, a communist who died in a concentration camp, or an English (Scottish) spy who parachuted into Cologne.

Suddenly Ingeborg’s health deteriorated and a doctor told Reiter that she had maybe three months to live.  Of course, the doctor was far more interested in the leather coat, which he was sure had come from the English shop of Mason & Cooper, Manchester coat makers, who in 1938 made a coat just like that.  Reiter persisted that he bought it in Berlin.  But the doctor is swept up in nostalgia for the coat makers.  Alas, he is finally able to help the tearful Reiter back into his coat.

For the next three months they spent nearly all their time together, with him nursing her back to health. And then her family showed up (although not apparently because they were concerned for her health).   Her mother was formal, her 18-year-old sister Hilde immediately ran off with some soldiers and didn’t come back till the morning.  And after a few days, her sixteen-year-old sister Grete began falling in love with Reiter (telling him that doctors found Ingeborg clinically insane).

Meanwhile, Ingeborg was feeling better and was really craving sex (which, given that her family was living in the same room as them, Reiter was reluctant to do).  She accused him of not wanting her, etc.   But one morning, he climbed into bed next to her and she grabbed him and he grabbed her and she “asked him, no ordered him to sodomize her” (782). And while that was going on, Reiter thought he saw eyes glowing around the house, (and what was so funny about it was not the absurdity of the eyes but that there were too many pairs for the number of people in the room–unless everyone else had brought a lover home too).

Hilde, meanwhile was flirting with all the soldiers, and when Reiter warned her about them she said, “‘The worst thing they can do to me  is what you’ve done to Ingeborg’ …. and Reiter spent time turning her answer over in his head” (783).

When her family returned to the village in Westerwald, Ingeborg began to feel much better and they could love each other in peace.  Ingeborg got a job as a seamstress and Reiter finished work on his first novel:  Lüdicke. He looked all around Cologne for someone to lend him a typewriter.  He eventually found an old man who rented him one at a steep price.  And when the man asked for his name, so he’d be sure to get it back, Reiter made the decision: his name is Benno von Archimboldi.  And not for the last time, he was told, “don’t play games me with, what’s your real name?” (784).  As is this book’s way, we then learn a great deal about the typewriter lender: his history (the typewriter was a gift from his father), and his work as a writer [and for one of the few times in this massive book, I grew impatient at the diversion.  It felt like we were finally getting somewhere (Archimboldi’s about to type his first book!) and I didn’t want to hear about another character who we’d never see again].

But regardless, the typewriter man has a theory that every minor writer is a secret author and ever secret author is, by definition, a writer of masterpieces.  For while the hack actually writes the book (anyone can attest to that) he is just a semblance of the real masterpiece writer.  “Jesus is the masterpiece.  The thieves are minor works.  Why are they there?  Not to frame the crucifixion as some innocent souls believed, but to hide it” (790).

He also tells a lengthy story about an (unnamed) great writer.  The typewriter man read everything by the author.  He even went to the three lectures the man gave in Cologne, and on that third lecture, he studied the man: his appearance, his mannerisms, everything.  Even after the writer died, he still continued to love the writer’s works.  But one day he decided to give up literature all together, and he found it wasn’t that hard.

Some time later, he went with a doctor friend to a morgue (he was very interested in the proceedings there).  And while he was waiting he watched a man struggling trying to put a corpse into a locker.  The typewriter man went in to help him.  He lit a cigarette and offered one to the morgue attendant (who informed him that smoke is harmful to the dead.  I laughed) (789).

It was only then the he realized that he morgue attendant looked just like the great writer (although obviously it was not him) and he was speaking to the man as if he were the great writer and he was ashamed and embarrassed for having done so.

Archimboldi, for that is his name now, left with the typewriter.

He also ran into the tramps Otto and Gustav once again.  They were still together, but wer far more cantankerous.  Rather than praising the Otto’s account of the armored division, he was accusing him of compliance with the Nazis.

Archimboldi took 20 days to type his book.  He made a carbon copy and then went to the library to find publishing houses.  The librarian, as all good librarians do, offered great service, helping him in ways that he never expected.  She went beyond the call of duty, anticipating his needs, and helping a poor soul struggling in his quest for knowledge.  (

One of the librarians, who knew him and that he wrote asked whether he needed assistance and Archimboldi told her he was looking for literary publishing houses that were still active.  The librarian said she could help….  When she was done, she handed Archimboldi a list of twenty publishing houses (792).  [So nice to see a wonderfully positive portrait of a librarian!]

He sent one copy of his novel to Hamburg, to Mr. Bubis [everyone recognize that name?  I had forgotten it.] and one copy he hand delivered to a publisher in Cologne.  It was rejected there, so he brought it elsewhere, where it was also rejected.  His third try was by a publishing house called The Adviser.  The publisher’s named was Mickey Bittner.  Bittner was a paratrooper during the war and when Archimboldi went to the house, Bittner told a very lengthy recount of a carpet bombing and how to survive it (which is basically to “drink schnaps, drink cognac, drink brandy, drink grappa, drink whiskey, drink any kind of strong drink, even wine if that’s all there is, to escape the noises, or to confuse the noises with the throbbing and spinning of one’s head” (795).

Bittner seemed encouraging of Archimboldi’s novel, but Archimboldi had no faith in Bittner.  And after two months, he went to Bittners office to inquire about the status.  Bittner was in Antwerp at the time checking on a shipment of bananas (Bittner was involved with many businesses); however, a group of paratroopers was there talking.  And we get a fascinating story about a man trapped under a pile of corpses in the snow.  He survived by masturbating.  At first it was tentative, but then it grew intense.  And he found himself growing stronger with each ejaculate until he was finally rescued.  And his rescuers were surprised by how good he smelled.  [I am still marvelling that I just typed those words together].

The paratroopers offered Archimboldi a “job” that evening which was basically unloading “freight” from a train.  After the job was done, they talked of General Udet.  Archimboldi hadn’t heard of him, but it turns out that he killed himself because of the lies spread about him by Göring.  Archimboldi was aghast at this, because “if there was anything he was sure about it was that the war provided more than sufficient reason to commit suicide, but the tittle-tattle of scum like Göring clearly didn’t qualify” (799).  And he spoke to the room: “So he didn’t kill himself because of the death camps or the slaughter on the front lines or the cities in flames, but because Göring called him an incompetent?” (799).

The paratrooper were completely offended by this.  And they were prepared to fight him, but seeing as how big he was, they thought better of it.  Rather, they gave him his money for the night’s work and told him to get out.

Two days later her returned to Bittners’s place and got his manuscript back.  And he realized that in all this time waiting for publishers to get back to him, he hadn’t written anything at all.   But then he received a letter from Hamburg!  Mr Bubis wrote to say that he wanted to publish Lüdicke and offered him a small (embarrassingly small, Bubis felt) advance payment for the book).  This would also include publishing rights in Germany, Austria and Switzerland.  Archimboldi showed Ingeborg the letter and her first question was “Who is Benno von Archimboldi?”  He explained that he was trying to protect himself as a war criminal.  She didn’t believe him, and was sure he was lying.  He thought about why he used a pseudonym and he decided that yes, it was for his future protection that he did so.

Mr Bubis invited him to Hamburg. And from there we learn more about the man Bubis.  Before 1933 he had published promising German writers.  But in 1940 he fled to London, where he determined just how many of his writers had become Nazis or joined the SS.  He despaired at this, but rather than committing suicide about it he just beat himself up.  And now he promised himself he would only meet a prospective writer in person first, to judge the man.

Mr Bubis had a staff: a copy editor, a bookkeeper and the redoubtable Marianne Gottlieb, his most faithful employee.  She had even driven the car that took Mr & Mrs Bubis to the Dutch border to escape the Nazis.  When Mr Bubis returned to Hamburg in 1945 (his wife had died), he found Mrs Gottlieb living in poverty.  He brought her to live with him and she slowly recovered her sanity.  From then on, she worked for him in any capacity she could.

Even though he had his hand in many baskets (politics for one), his true love was publishing and he wanted to return to Hamburg and reopen his publishing house.  And yet, just before returning, he met a woman in Mannheim.  She was in her early 30s, (not 40 or 50 as would be more expected of him), she was not terribly intellectual (as everyone would have expected of him), and most surprising, she was not Jewish but Aryan.  Everyone thought it was a joke when he unveiled her along with his reopened publishing house.  But it was not a joke and they were soon married.

Archimboldi arrived at Mr Bubis’ office where he was interrogated about his name:

“To be called Benno in the first place, is suspicious”
“Why? Archimboldi wanted to know”
“Why because of Benito Mussolini, man!  Where’s your head?”

He explained that he is named after Benito Juárez.  Bubis guessed the origin of his last name as Giuseppe Arcimboldo, but still wanted to know about the von.  “I’m Prussian” he said, standing ready to leave.

But Bubis interrupted him, told him to stay and to go in and see his wife.  And when Archimboldi went into the back office, he met the new Mrs Bubis, who [much to my heart’s delight!] is the Baroness von Zumpe!  She recognizes him but doesn’t recognize the name.  He states that BvA is his name, now.

[I was so delighted that Mrs Bubis turned out to be the baroness.  There are so many characters who we read about in great detail and then never see again.  And that’s not a complaint, that’s just how the book was set up–almost exclusively.  But to have a character (and a fascinating one at that) recur TWICE in this book was very exciting for me.]

The baroness brings him to the hotel where he will stay for a few days in Hamburg.  They catch up on what happened to them, and eventually they make love.   And he tells her his real name.   He also asked if she wanted to know what happened to Entrescu.  He told her and she seemed nonplussed by his demise (saying he may have even enjoyed knowing that’s what happened to him).  She then went on to talk about what magnificent lover he was (and not just because of his huge cock!)

Archimboldi wasn’t so sure of that, “To which the baroness responded with a smile, saying it was clear Archimboldi had never fucked Entrescu.  Which promoted Archimboldi to confess that it was true, he had never gone to bed with Entrescu, but he had in fact been an eyewitness to one of the general’s famous trysts.
“With me, I suppose,” said the baroness.
“You suppose right,” said Archimboldi (814).

The scene ends with them laughing together.

He returned home and spent several days with Ingeborg laughing and recounting stories and just being incredibly happy.  So happy that before Lüdicke has been published, Archimboldi had finished book number two: The Endless Rose.  Bubis loved it and decided from then on that he would publish everything that Archimboldi wrote and that he would “protect” him as a writer.

The books were pretty poorly received and sold even worse, yet Bubis remained firmly behind him.  Archimboldi went on several reading tours which were poorly attended, and yet, he continued writing.  His third book was The Leather Mask.  After he finished it, Archimboldi asked Bubis for an advance to buy a typewriter of his own (he was stilll renting the man’s typewriter).  Bubis sent him a beautiful heavy typewriter of his own “They believe in me, Archimboldi repeated” (817).

In total 96 copies of The Leather Mask sold.  And although Bubis still believed in Archimboldi, he took the opportunity of meeting critic Lothar Junge to ask him what he thought of his new protegé.  The lengthy dinner (interrupted by a two page recounting of the Sisyphus myth) resulted in Junge saying he was not that impressed by Archimboldi.  The baroness wondered why Bubis cared about Junge’s opinion.  He himself didn’t care he said, but he felt that Archimboldi would.

Archimboldi’s fourth book, Rivers of Europe arrived soon thereafter.  And Archimboldi received a huge sum in advance of the book.  This proved ideal, since Ingeborg had been diagnosed with tuberculosis.  They took the money and moved to Kempten in the Bavarian Alps for the cold, dry climate.

While there Archimboldi wrote book #5 Bifurcaria Bifurcari.  Ingeborg was impressed by how great a typist he had become, reminiscing about when she was a girl visiting an office pool and hearing the music of all the typewriters clacking in unison (with a Pre-Raphaelite Hitler painting hanging over the office (!)).  She then realized that there could be music in anything.  [This scene, reminiscent of Mad Man in a weird way, was so delightful poetic set within such a mundane setting (And the portrait of Hitler was so surreal.  It was a wonderfully detailed and vivid scene].

But this time Buibs didn’t like the book and the baroness couldn’t get past page 4.  But still he stuck with his author.  There was a little discontent over the advance for this book, as it was smaller than the previous one.  At first Bubis was offended but then he realized that yes, it was less, and Archimboldi did have a right to be upset.  So he paid him the balance.

Eight months after going to Kempten in the alps, they returned there, but the town seemed less pretty, so they moved even further off the grid.  They rented a room from a man named Fritz Leube.  Leube was concerned about Ingeborg coughing up blood, but he allowed them to stay in his room.  One night, Ingeborg confronted him about the rumor that he had killed his wife.  Leube laughed it off and pressed for details about this rumor, saying that without details the rumor couldn’t be true.

Archimboldi and Ingeborg spent their time there fucking all over the place (even in the barn).  And yet the night after she talked to Luege about his wife, Ingeborg got up during the night and walked out into the snow. Archimboldi woke with a start and set out to find her (after waking Luege for his help).  After wandering through the snow and giving up hope, Archimboldi found her standing near the border post.

She told him to look at the stars, they were beautiful.  But more importantly, they were the past.  “All this light is dead…. It’s the past, do you see?  When these stars cast their light, we didn’t exist, life on Earth didn’t exist, even Earth didn’t exist….  It’s the past, we’re surrounded by the past” (831).

Archimboldi went to the border post to see if they had any supplies they could use.  When his knock went unanswered, he broke the window and found three dead soldiers inside.  He returned to Ingeborg and they walked back to the village, “While the whole past of the universe fell on their heads” (832).

COMMENTS

So 2666 is almost done.   I’m still not making any bets about what the last 60 pages will hold.  Even though my one hope of having the baroness show up again came true, I’m wondering if I can ask for one more thing from the book.  I would like to see Archimboldi go to Santa Teresa.  I don’t need him to meet anyone from Part One, I don’t even need to see him in Santa Teresa at the same time as the scholars, I would just like to see that he is heading there.

That’s not too much to ask, is it?

As for everything else that has gone on, I’ve found that reading the rest of Bolano’s shorter works was a pretty good preparation for this one.  Themes remain the same, stories that are “unfinished” are par for the course, and we see a lot of writing about writing.

Although there has been quite a lot about writers and writing in this book, especially this final section, it felt like this week’s read was full to the brim with it.  There are so many ideas about writing and the writing life, what it’s like to write and what it takes out of you.  I’d always learned/heard that you’re not supposed to write about being a writer (like you’re not supposed to write songs about how tough it is to be on tour).  But somehow, I didn’t mind reading about these writers (probably because they are very fascinating).

I am totally fascinated that even at this stage I don’t know how this book will end.  And regardless of how the book turns out and what I actually “think” about it, I’m grateful to have been exposed to all of these other Bolaño books.

–For ease of searching I Include: Bolano