Roberto Bolaño's Fiction

Starred review from April 28, 2014
In this superb volume of criticism, poet Andrews, the English translator of 10 of Bolano's books, deftly analyzes the complex themes and narrative layers of Bolano's fictional universe. Although not primarily a study of reception nor a biography, Andrews excels at explaining the anomalous causes of Bolano's rapid rise to fame in North America. He pinpoints Nazi Literature in the Americas as Bolano's "incubator" for future characters and stories. The personal writing system that Bolano used to produce much of his fiction is shown to be a simple yet rigorous method of "expansion, circulating characters, metarepresentation, and overinterpretation." Andrews arranges his critique thematically, with chapters on "Aimlessness," "Duels and Brawls," "Evil Agencies," and "A Sense of What Matters." In addition, he explains how the influence of Borges's "humor and courage" affected Bolano's beliefs about courage as it relates to the persistence of poetry and literature. As expected from a translator, Andrews displays an intimate familiarity with the novels and stories, and includes many close readings, lengthy quotations, and side-by-side comparisons to illustrate the ways Bolano expanded his plots and characters. He even includes an appendix that maps the fictional murders in 2666 onto the real femicides in Ciudad Juarez, Mexico, to show that Bolano did not exaggerate the scale of this atrocity. An indispensable guide to navigating the rich world of Bolano's fiction.

June 15, 2014

Chilean poet, novelist, and short story writer Roberto Bolano (1953-2003) is all the rage, having achieved far greater fame posthumously than when alive. Andrews (Writing and Society Research Ctr., Univ. of Western Sydney) is an appropriate author for a debut Bolano critical study, having translated ten of the author's works as of this writing and penned several articles, the material from a number of which was reworked for inclusion here. He analyzes Bolano's fiction (2666; The Savage Detectives; By Night in Chile) from a topical rather than a chronological approach and generally emphasizes formal and technical elements over thematic ones. After examining the reasons behind Bolano's meteoric rise to popularity, Andrews addresses the major elements of what he calls the author's fiction-making system, such as the expansion on previously written texts and the Balzacian technique of recurring characters. The chapter discussing the theme of violence influenced by Jorge Luis Borges is particularly enlightening. Andrews furthermore discusses the types of evil characters that pervade the novels. Because Andrews pulls in examples from the entire Bolano corpus, he assumes readers have more than a passing acquaintance with his subject's works, and the academic approach may be beyond the scope of the casual reader. VERDICT Profusely documented and with a thorough bibliography, this full-length critical monograph is a great start to what will, one hopes, be a parade of analytical examinations of Bolano's works.--Lawrence Olszewski, North Central State Coll., Mansfield, OH

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