SOUNDTRACK: CAIFANES-El Silencio (1992).
Caifanes was another of the Rock en Español bands that I bought back in the 1990s. I bought two of their records, El Silencio and El Nervio del Volcan. In retrospect I’m not sure why I bought two from Caifanes and only one from Tijuana No! as I find Tijuana No! to be much more satisfying overall. But El Silencio is a fun album as well.
As with a lot the rock en Español bands, the album starts with a really heavy track. “Metamorfeame” is a raging, screaming punk blast. But it’s followed by a Latin-infused mellow second song “Nubes” with a great weird guitar solo. “Piedra” rocks, and Saul Hernández’ voice soars over the heavy bass work (he was meant for stadium rock). It also ends with a little mariachi music as a coda.
“Nos Vamos Juntos” showcases some more great guitar work and “No Dejes Que…” practically sounds like the Alarm or some other stadium rock band. “El Comunicador” is an interesting understated minor key song with interesting production.
The production is by Adrian Belew and you can tell as it seems very much like what I know of Adrian Belew: gleaming and bright and well polished. And, like Belew himself, the album jumps from style to style. Depending on your tastes, this is either great or tiring (and sometime both).
Wikipedia tells me that this album is considered one of the most influential albums from the most influential band to come out of Central Mexico. Well how about that.
[READ: December 16, 2010] Amulet
This book is an extended version of an episode in The Savage Detectives. InDetectives, Auxilio Lacouture has a ten-page story in which she was hiding out in the bathroom of UNAM (Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México) in 1968 during the military takeover (in real life, this is known as the Tlatelolco Masscare). She hid in the bathroom for thirteen days, reading and writing poetry (Auxilio is the mother of Mexican poetry).
The episode in Detectives was pretty exciting recollection. She was in the bathroom when the soldiers broke in. She could see the tanks outside and she could hear the gunshot. So she hid with her feet in the air while the soldiers searched the premises. She promised herself she would not to make a sound until she was discovered. So she read poetry and wrote poetry on the only paper available.
She also reveals that she knew Arturo Belano (but that was after the incident at UNAM) as Belano was considerably younger. In Detectives, she befriends Belano and his family, and winds up staying with them for short periods of time (she doesn’t really have a home but she is no freeloader).
The incidents in Detectives are well-contained and describe the scene and its emotions very well. To expand the story from 10 to 180 (admittedly large-printed) pages, Bolaño messes around with her (and our) sense of time. The basics from Detectives are still in place (in fact much of that first story is quoted as is–except, interestingly, Detectives is translated by Natasha Wimmer and Amulet is translated by Chris Andrews. Hmm, I wonder if the translations vary all that much–am I that obsessed to find out?). But the rest of the story is written in a kind of time-warping haze.
Lacouture relives most of the events of her life, but she relieves them in the context of her “incarceration.” She relates all of the things she thought about while in the bathroom, like reminiscing about Belano ( who, remember she hasn’t met yet). She talks vaguely about her sense of time drifting from the crucial year 1968 to dates in the future and in the past. This book also features the cryptic description of a “cemetery in the year 2666.” (And we know what Bolaño eventually did with the year 2666).
Perhaps the least enjoyable part for me was the extended section about Orestes and Erigone. This story of this myth is told to Auxilio by an artist who (at age 42) still lives with his mother. It covers two chapters (which is a pretty large chunk of the book, actually). And it seems odd to include so much of it for what seems like a small revelation.
Despite this, the ending of the book is more successful. In Chapter 13 she gives a fascinating account of what will happen to various authors in the future.
For Marcel Proust, a desperate and prolonged period of oblivion shall begin in the year 2033. Ezra Pound shall disappear from certain libraries in the year 2089…. Jorge Luis Borges shall be read underground in the year 2045…. Virginia Woolf shall be reincarnated as an Argentinian fiction writer in the year 2076…. Max Jacob shall cease to be read, that is to say his last reader shall die, in the year 2059.
The most satisfying part comes at the end when she grows metaphorical about the state of (what else) Mexican poetry.
I have very much enjoyed all of Bolaño’s books, but this one left me a little cold. I have noticed in the past that some of his books require two reads to really get a lot out of them–especially when they are metaphorical and non-sequential as this one is–but after reading about Auxilio’s exploits in Detectives, (which I re-read to see how much was duplicated), I’m really just not that interested in Auxilio beyond her time in the bathroom. So I don’t think I”ll bother re-reading this one. At least not anytime soon.
This is the second time that Bolaño has expanded a section from one of his novels into its own novel. His book Nazi Literature in America had a chapter that was expanded into the novel Distant Star. Distant Star was a fantastic explosion of the brief account in Nazi, but I fear that Amulet is less successful.
It might work as an introduction to Bolaño’s wild, hallucinogenic style, but I think there’s even better places to start than here.
I Just Read About That... 
I also find it interesting how Bolaño changes some elements in the story from one form (short story) into another (novel). He also does his variations within a genre (the same story told from the point of view of another character, or a poem which becomes a short story). It appears he does not want to repeat himself so the variations and additions he makes are something entirely different and always exciting to read.