SOUNDTRACK: TAME IMPALA-“Lucidity” (2010).
I heard this song on the NPR’s 5 Artists You Should Have Known in 2010. The album, Innerspace, is only available in Australia (imported on Amazon for big bucks) but I guess that’s why people download music.
This song is really cool. It feels very My Bloody Valentine to me. However, inevitable comparisons to The Beatles abound, but that’s mostly in the vocals (which is kind of funny since they are Australian). But it’s really a very sixties British vocal sound–not unlike early Who).
The big difference comes in the music which is psychedelic and wild in ways that The Beatles never quite managed. There are great big washes of noise, and the sound quality sounds retro, even though it obviously isn’t. Comparisons to the great Swedish band Dungen are not misplaced either.
I’ve listened to a few more tracks by them on YouTube, and I think this album could easily be one of the best of 2010 if only more people could hear it!
[READ: January 3, 2010] The Return
With the completion of this collection of short stories, I have now caught up with all of the published works of Roberto Bolaño (in English of course). [The next book, Between Parentheses, a collection of nonfiction, is slated for June].
So The Return contains the 13 short stories that were not published in Last Evenings on Earth. That collection inexplicably took shorts stories from his two Spanish collections Llamadas telefónicas (1997) and Putas asesinas (2001) and combined them into one collection in English. It wasn’t quite as evident in Last Evenings, but it seems more obvious here that the stories in Putas asesinas are grouped together for a stylistic reason. So, to have them split up is a bit of a bummer. And yet, having them all translated is really the important thing. And, again, Chris Andrews does an amazing job in the translation
This collection of stories was very strong. I had read a few pieces in Harper’s and the New Yorker, but the majority were new to me. Bolaño is an excellent short story writer. Even if his stories don’t go anywhere (like his novels that never quite reach their destination), it’s his writing that is compelling and absorbing.
This collection also had some different subject matter for Bolaño (it wasn’t all poets on searches).
“Snow”
Despite what I just wrote, “Snow” is a pretty typical Bolaño story: the narrator met Rogelio Estrada a few years ago on a drunken night. And the narrator now feels compelled to tell Estrada’s story. Estrada’s father was a big deal in the Chilean Communist Party, but they fled for Moscow in 1974.
In Moscow, Estrada eventually fell in with a rough crowd. But he quickly moved up in ranks to become a top man in Misha Pavlov’s “mafia.” He job was to go around securing women for Pavlov’s pleasure. In the main story, Pavlov requested the presence of the nation’s high jumpers (he loved athletes), and one in particular, Natalia Chuikova, an 18-year old newcomer.
Of course, Estrada falls for her, but he also can’t afford to not introduce her to Pavlov. He manages to do both, but eventually, Pavlov discovers their affair and a conflict arises. However, as Bolaño does so well, that doesn’t end the story (you can’t have a climax end a Bolaño story). The end is a fascinating denouement. I was delighted with the intrigue and foreign setting of this story.
“Another Russian Tale”
It was smart to put these two stories next to each other (as they were in the original). This story also features a narrator relating the story of someone else. In this case the storyteller is Amalfitano (who heard the story from yet another person!). Is it the same man as in 2666? Who knows?
This story is about a sorche, a Spanish rookie who fought in WWII with the German Northern Army. Eventually, his nickname morphed from sorche to chantre, which means cantor and he imagined himself the troop’s singer, even though he couldn’t sing (I love weird details like this in Bolaño).
The soldier was injured and was mistakenly reassigned to a wing of the SS where he basically just swept the barracks. He was eventually captured and tortured. And, in another wonderful detail, while he was shouting coño (Spanish for cunt), it was misheard as Kunst (German for art). And that can make a big difference. A wonderful story of language in which art can save your life.
“William Burns”
I’ve read this story before. It was more enjoyable the second time (a common trait with Bolaño). This story (also several steps of removal from the storyteller) is about a man who commits an act which he later regrets. Click the above link for a fuller review, but I’ll mention that he is staying with two women who fear that a man in town is a murderer. It’s a briskly paced story full of many levels of intrigue.
“Detectives”
This story is unrelated to The Savage Detectives. It is a dialogue between two detectives. They are fighting with each other, but in the way of partners who have worked together for a long time. The argue about various aspects of their culture until one of the detectives relates the story of when he found Arturo Belano in a Chilean prison. He was a classmate of Belano’s and was able to afford him some niceties. Although, as he notes, Belano was a physical and mental wreck by the time he found him. It’s a funny story (kind of) and Bolaño has a natural way with dialogue. This story of Belano’s prison is a famous part of Bolaño’s life, so this fictionalization is kind of neat.
“Cell Mates”
This is the story of a man and his relationship with a woman, Sofia. They are together for some time, although from the start he knows that she is trouble. There’s a lot of details in the story, and it’s rather compelling, but there’s not much to say about it without giving everything away. Suffice it to say that every time he thinks that he and Sofia are apart, he is inexorably drawn back to her. Their relationship goes back through several levels of connections.
“Clara”
This story is similar to “Cell Mates” in that the narrator is involved with a woman, Clara, who is really trouble. Clara was a beautiful but unstable woman. It’s not as much fun to read these two back to back because although the details are different the basic trajectory of the story is the same. Although “Clara” is a sadder story overall.
“Joanna Silverstri”
Joanna is a porn star. And this is the story she tells to a Chilean detective. She recounts a time when she reconnected with porn star Jack Holmes. (If you know anything about “classic” porn, there is a famous actor John Holmes, but I’m not sure if this is supposed to be the same guy. There’s enough detail to make it seem real, although I’m no connoisseur, so I don’t know for sure). It’s a surprisingly tender story of a dying man and a woman who is drawn to him. The funny thing is that the man who the detective is asking about has nothing, really, to do with the story she tells, and we ultimately learn nothing about that story.
“Prefiguration of Lalo Cura”
I had read this story before as well. Lalo Cura is a major figure in 2666, but he seems unrelated to this character (this story was written long before 2666, so who knows). Like the preceding story, this one is set around the porn industry. Lalo’s mother and aunt were both in a lot of porn movies made by a German director. This director is much more of an aesthete than one might suspect in the porn industry and Lalo gives great details about the man’s surprisingly affecting films (click the above link for more details).
But aside from the movies, the story is ultimately a quest. Lalo goes searching for an actor who had sex with his mother on film while she was pregnant with him.
I’m still not sure what the “Prefiguration” part of the title means to the story, though.
“Murdering Whores”
This was my least favorite story in the collection. It grew on me by the end, but I found the action too nebulous to really enjoy. I suppose a second read would make it more enjoyable, but I’m disinclined to read it again. The story is about a whore, yes, who captures a singer that she followed on TV, whom she calls Max. She has him tied up in her house. The story is basically a monologue (although his actions are described in alternating paragraphs in parentheses). There was just something about this piece that never really gripped me.
“The Return”
This is probably Bolano’s funniest story. I’d read it before and it was even more fun the second time. The premise is simple, the narrator has died and he informs us that there is life after death and Jean-Claude Villeneuve is a necrophiliac. He has amusing proof of this fact. But what is kind of a grotesque story actually proves to be touching and a little sad. A great piece of fiction (which you can read more about if you click the link above).
“Buba”
I waited to read this story last because it was the longest one in the book. And I’m happy I did because it was so different from the other stories that it really stands out as a final piece of the book. It is the story of a soccer player (a first for Bolaño, I believe). It also features the second mention of Colo-Colo, the premiere Chilean fútbol team.
The story is about a young fútbol player who is injured early on in the season, but is expected to return reasonably soon. While he is waiting, the team hires another player–Buba. Buba is African, and they are to be roommates. When they first meet, the narrator is unsure about this new African man and his weird African mannerisms and music. But soon, he decides that they can be friends and they wind up spending a lot of time together with a third player Herrera.
One night Buba asks them for some of their blood. They are freaked, understandably, but agree to his crazy plan. Buba takes the blood, goes into the bathroom, plays his crazy music and then cleans up after himself. The next day, their team wins big; Herrera scores a goal and Buba scores two. And the rest of the season continues these excellent ways. he narrator soon returns .
So this is a fascinating story of the supernatural. Except that thes tory doesn’t just end with fútbol matches. In fact, the end of the story is many many years later after all three players are no longer playing (for various reasons). And the end casts a question over Buba’s practices.
Its a really great story, especially if you like soccer. But even if you don’t, the interpersonal dynamics are fascinating and it’s a compelling story, too.
“Photos”
This is the shortest story in the collection. It seems like it could be an excerpt from one of his longer books. Artuto Belano is reading a book of French poets. And he spends much of his time thinking about various French poets (those he has read and those he has not). But mostly he looks at the author photos in the book. He imagines them now (twenty-some years after the publication of the book) and ranks who he would certainly have sex with.
It’s one of Bolaño’s more internal pieces as nothing much happens. It certainly helps to know about French poets, which I don’t.
“Meeting with Enrique Lihn”
This final story in the book is also one I have read already. I found the story confusing on first read. But this time, the hallucinogenic quality of the story paid off for me.
Basically, Bolaño has a dream that he is meeting the long-dead Enrique Lihn. Lihn knows him and thinks highly of him from when he was younger, but obviously Bolaño is freaked out because Lihn is dead. This is one of those rare stories when Bolaño is not Belano or some other pseudonym. And I believe it is one of his most honest stories. For more thoughts, click the link above.
—
This is really a terrific story collection and it is an excellent place to start the exploration of Bolaño’s writing.
For ease of searching I include: Bolano, telefonicas
I am also including the original line up (thanks Eric) of the stories in their original publications, just for anal retentivity). Titles in red appeared in Last Evenings on Earth.
PUTAS ASESINAS’ contents (translations are approximate now official):
El Ojo Silva (Mauricio “The Eye” Silva)
Gómez Palacio (Gómez Palacio)
Últimos atardeceres en la tierra (Last Evenings on Earth)
Dias de 1978 (Days of 1978)
Vagabundo en Francia y Bélgica (Vagabond in France and Belgium)
Prefiguración de Lalo Cura (Prefiguration of Lalo Cura)
Putas asesinas (Murdering Whores)
El retorno (The Return)
Buba (Buba)
Dentista (Dentist)
Fotos (Photos)
Carnet de baile (Dance Card)
Encuentro con Enrique Lihn (Meeting with Enrique Lihn)
LLAMADAS TELEFÓNICAS is evidently broken down into three sections
(this is all from Wikipedia, so I’m taking their word for it).
*LLAMADAS TELEFÓNICAS:
Sensini (Sensini)
Henri Simon Leprince (Henri Simon Leprince)
Enrique Martín (Enrique Martín)
Una aventura literaria (A Literary Adventure)
Llamadas telefónicas (Phone Calls)
* DETECTIVES:
El gusano (The Grub)
La nieve (Snow)
Otro cuento ruso (Another Russian Tale)
William Burns (William Burns)
Detectives (Detectives)
* VIDA DE ANNE MOORE
Compañeros de celda (Cell Mates)
Clara (Clara)
Joanna Silvestri (Joanna Silvestri)
Vida de Anne Moore (Anne Moore’s Life)
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