I Just Read About That…

SOUNDTRACK:  grouse

Since this article is a complaint, what better soundtrack than a grouse.

Although for cool grouse movies I prefer this one.

[READ: August 18, 2010] “The Complaint: Roberto Bolaño”

In a few short paragraphs, Benjamin Percy tries to undermine the literary value of Roberto Bolaño.  He complains about yet another posthumous release from him.  [Now, of course, anyone doing just a few minutes of research would know that these “posthumous” works are actually not posthumous, just posthumously translated, so it’s not like they’re pulling these works out of drawers of unpublished stories].

Percy is entitled to his opinion.  He doesn’t like Bolaño.  And that’s fine.  He finds him “affected and exhausting.”  (In a previous Esquire, Percy lauds Stephen King, so perhaps he just doesn’t like difficult books).  In fact, he cements his feelings with the argument that Bolaño’s stories are “weighed down with intellectual references.”  Oh no, not intellectual references!  Heaven fordbid his stories aren’t all about killing people, like Percy’s (oh wait, most of them are they are).

Now, I have read two of Percy’s stories (and the graphic novel Refresh, Refresh) and I find his work exciting, but extremely obvious, like a summer blockbuster movie.  No intellectual references will be found there.

In the three stories that I know, someone kills someone else and thinks a bit about it (yet he complains that Bolaño’s characters feel more like ideas than actual people–how many people do you know who have killed someone?  And here’s stories about three!).

He concludes by saying that when “most people” and the “majority of articles” speak about Bolaño they speak about his life (which he admits is fascinating…and it is) not his stories.  He argues that “They mistake a facinating life for fascinating fiction.”

Now, as we know, Bolaño is dead.  His work has only been translated into English since 2003.  And it was in 2007 (with The Savage Detetcives) that he gained any kind of popular fame.  So, for three years he’s been in American popular culture.  Any profile of a relatively new artist is going to give a lot of background story about the person (see every cover story about every person ever written in a magazine profile).  Especially if that person has had a fascinating life.

And yet the first ever article I read about Bolaño (which, yes, talked about his life) was a detailed appraisal of both 2666 and The Savages Detectives.  And made me excited to read both of them.

But another reason why it’s useful to know about his life is because his stories come directly from his life.  It’s useful to know that he was in these places and that his life had as much variety as his stories do.  I’ve written my feelings about Bolaño already, so I won’t bother repeating myself.  And contrary to what Percy says, I find his characters very real.

But I find it very dispiriting that Percy is trashing an “intellectual” author right under an article in which Benjamin Alsup is bemoaning that “so many Americans have given up on big books [and] many of our writers have given up on the very notion of greatness.”  True, Bolaño isn’t American. But his books are big, and he strove for greatness.

Oh, and by the way, I shaved off my beard before I started reading 2666, but I guess I am a serious literary man.

For ease of searching I include: Bolano