Roberto Bolaño (1953–2003)

"The Skating Rink by Roberto Bolaño (Picador) The Chilean’s huge novels The Savage Detectives and 2666 speak for themselves, while his prolific oeuvre, bequeathed by a doomed man in a hurry, will continue to fuel conferences, yet don’t overlook this entertainingly eccentric debut – first published in Spain in 1993 but published in English for the first time this year – which is worthy of the Coen brothers and somehow made plausible by the colourful characterisation." Eileen Battersby of The Irish Times

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Sprawling epic.

This took me a long time read, 116 days I think. There is in no doubt that it's masterful, Bolaño's writing is stylish and throbs with imagery and erudition, a rhapsodic climax to his life (he died whilst writing/editing this).

2666 is a five part gargantuan tome, each episode orbiting in varying proximity around a North-Mexican town, riddled with murders. It also has a backdrop of a German author's mystique (and life in the last chapter) which together serve leitmotifs and themes of loss, death, absence and violence.

The part about the crimes was particularly impressive. The relentless catalogue of death was special and like nothing I've read before. It had to be that long and there had to be that many for such devastating effect.

It reminded me of a dark David Mitchell novel; effortless genre-switching, bewildering pedantry.

It's definitely worth the effort, a great, great, novel, abundant with the human condition and the weaknesses and strengths of our species.… (more)