2666

For Christmas I got Jonathan 2666, the 864 page novel by the dead Chilean novelist Roberto Bolano. The book itself is a work of art. I got a beauty edition--the book is divided into three parts in paper back--all fit into a fantastically designed box covered with cool graphics. This way you can still read the book with one hand, and you feel proud just to carry it around.

I waited three months to see if Jonathan would dig into it, but by March I felt I had a right. I dove in. It was slow going at first. It is a book written for a pace of life that I don't think exists in the United States anymore. It felt like you should read it on a train across country, or on a vacation by yourself when you had eight hours a day to do nothing but disappear into this fantastical universe. Or maybe endless days by the pool, punctuated only by pina coladas.

There were originally five books, all of which he asked his heirs to publish separately. Instead, they chose to publish them together as he intended before his death of liver failure--probably due to heroine use earlier in his life.

I just finished the first three books--or the first tome of three.

It is the best book I have read in years. It is journalism and mystery and noir and magical realism and great literature all rolled into one. Ultimately it is the story of the women who kept disappearing in the maquilladoras in Juarez--but a fictionalized account.

I want to lock my door, drop out of life and just finish the rest of it--the next 400 pages.

I don't know what it is about the book that has gotten to me. I will tell you when I finish.

But I realize that I am increasingly drawn to Latin American writers. I don't know why. It used to be the Russians. Part of it, I am sure, is being in Los Angeles, where life is Latin American. Part of it is being married to a Fernandez. But part of it is that Latin American writers are just fantastic.

Last night I quizzed Jonathan, a longtime fan of latin literature, and at least a pop authority on latin american history, why he thought their writing was so brilliant. He didn't even hesitate. He said it was because:

1) The latins are great storytellers. They sit around at cafes and bars and tell the most amazing stories over tequila and coffee. It is still a great tradition.

2) Life really is crazy in Latin America. To Americans Latin stories are magical realism. But a lot of magical, absurd, fantastical things really do happen there. There are killer bees and kidnappings and Indians and folklore and hallucinations from Mezcal and corrupt policemen and haciendas and a mish mash of cultural beliefs from the Aztec to the Mayan to the Indian to the Spanish all marinating together to create this intoxicating, crazy, incomprehensible national narrative.

3) There is a huge unemployed, or underemployed, highly educated intellectual class. They have a lot of time to write.

4) There are a lot of oppressive regimes and horrible dictators who commit crimes against humanity, causing people to lock themselves into their apartments for safety, where their only outlet is to write and write and write to live.

Good answers.

All I know is that Roberto Bolano, Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Isabel Allende, and Mario Vargas Llosa have become some of my favorite writers. Para mi, as I get older, they get better and better and better.