Roberto Bolano's 2666: Book Review

Roberto Bolano’s 2666: Review

By Armando Ortiz

Introduction:

Roberto Bolano,born in Chile, spent significant time in Mexico with brief visits to Chile and El Salvador before eventually moving to Spain. There he had several odd jobs before having success with writing. In between his travels and writing, Bolano faced addiction but managed to get clean. As a result he managed to create literature that is not your common everyday reading. Instead it's material that makes you think, unblinds and changes your life. 

First and foremost, Bolano’s 2666 is a novel that will leave a lasting impression on your life and conscience, making it a worthwhile read. 2666 explores the search for answers to unsolved murders through the use of symbolic imagery. Additionally, the novel delves into the theme of migration and its impact on individuals. Another significant aspect of the novel is the presence of marginalized characters and their struggles.

Bolano populates his novel with characters from the cultural and societal fringes, taking readers on a journey from Mexico to the U.S. and eventually settling in Europe. Bolano reveals how invisible affect marginalized individuals and lead to collective amnesia, blinding us to what is truly happening in our communities. He does this by telling the story in a dark and gothic manner, as if one were watching a mystery horror movie.

This essay will mainly focus on two themes found in Bolano’s epic novel. I will start first with a short description of some of the various characters that live in the novel and what makes them unique. Then I will move on to a reflection on the world that Bolano paints in his writing where the poor, oppressed and marginalized exist, and make connections to our contemporary society and culture.

Frontier Characters at the Margins:

The novel is riddled with writers of all sorts. Struggling writers that are barely making ends meet, but are publishing books and articles- though in small time publications. Life for these artists is tough, earning low wages and publications are meant for small readerships.

For instance, one of the characters in the novel is professor Morini, a German literature specialist who chairs the academic circle responsible for selecting papers for publication. Although he is a cultural gatekeeper he is drawn to the life of a marginal artist who at one point decides to cut off his hand. This artist does so for shock value and monetary gain.

Another character, Oscar Fate, works for an African American magazine and is forced to delve into Santa Teresas’s criminal underworld. He visits the training compound of a boxer and there finds a fellow African American from Los Angeles who is working as a sparring boxer. They both reminisce on life in Mexico and the US. 

Similarly, Josue Hernandez Mercado, a Chicano character, works for a small community newspaper. The books he's written and published are written in an unorthodox manner, where he code switches from Spanish and English, making him an unconventional writer on the crossroads of two cultural fringes. Despite his unconventional style a small-time literary company from Texas has published two volumes of his poetry and two of his novels. Similarly, we encounter a person who picks up from where Josue left off. Mary-Sue Bravo, is another Chicana writer who works for a small-time newspaper in Phoenix, Arizona.

Furthermore, Lalo Cura is a local from Santa Teresa and is recruited into the police force. The gradual transformation of his life from street kid to police officer is interesting. Lalo has a penchant for learning and at one point begins to independently read books on how to conduct investigations. He begins implementing what he’s been learning, but is quickly discouraged to do so by his boss. Later, Lalo’s life gets further entangled in the mysteries of his city. 

Moreover, these characters are representative of endemic issues around the world. The problems of a society whose marginalized ghetto dwellers are intimately in tune with. They are left to solve their problems with crime and violence. In Bolano’s world this is not possible, because no one attempts to stop the murder of women and the disappearance of males. These characters, despite their unconventional backgrounds, attempt to solve the unknown murders.

Fear, Poverty and Marginalized:

 A broader theme that he deals with is precisely the life of the poor and vagrants. The overlooked are left to fend for themselves and to find some type of concrete solution to their daily survival, which turns into fear of being involved in anything that might jeopardize their lives. Witnesses to crimes prefer to run away to avoid involvement and implication. In Santa Teresa cops and medical help rarely show up on time, preferring to let time pass so as not to have to go through the whole process of questioning people. Though there are crimes and violence happening in Santa Teresa the only attention it gets is from sensationalist magazines or or small time reporters - the marginal publications. 

In relation to the marginalized populations in Santa Teresa, Bolano explores the theme of poverty and the exploitation of marginalized people. Jobs are plentiful in the city, but not enough time for selfcare; pay is minimal at most and delayed. There is a sense that people are able to sustain themselves, but not in the manner that is intended for to further develop socially, communally and culturally. The city experiences a constant influx of people, partly due to its proximity to the US border and the demand for cheap labor. The pull to these centers seems to be a dark force, like a meat grinder, where people end up not by choice nor by chance. In essence, the fictional city of Santa Teresa is representative of the pressures societies living on the margins face. 

Similarly, the German peasants recruited to fight on the Russian front during World War Two are descendants of German peasants who fought in The Great War. In the novel the poor fight the poor in wars, and return to their hometowns maimed. As  handicapped men, attempting to resume their “normal” peasant lives. Just like some of the cops in Santa Teresa, who are drawn into violence regardless how that came to be, come from the chronically poor parts of Mexico. Their allegiances fluctuate between government officials and powerful narcos, who provide them with food, pay and guns to kill or protect them. In the end these cops, like the soldiers of the eastern front, are also powerless. Somehow, we become accomplices to these ills, because we are either blind or have been kept blind. We forget that we might be one step away from being in poverty and homeless. 

Reflection and Conclusion:

The novel connects to my world because it reminds me how to get entertained is easier than staying informed. It is easy to hear about a girl that was kidnapped somewhere in the Midwest, yet remain blind to numerous women disappearing in Native American Reservations. There are those that do look at the grimy and overlooked side of life, but they are few and their voices have yet to reach the ears of the general population. Bolano becomes the shaman who points at how there is no spiritual or moral starvation, but there is a general malnourishment in society. As long as humans walk this earth the greatest concern and fear is not what might become of us, but of what we are now and have been for centuries doing to each other. 

Bolano created characters that in real life might get overlooked and live in the fringes. He focuses on how our surroundings and the margins of society are affected by external forces. It is either society or the powers that be that create a collective amnesia, blinding us to what occurs in our communities. A meaningful existence that has ritual and meaningful connection is missing, and maybe has been its inception. 

Bolano exposes the ills of society, highlighting how the powerful dominate the weak. He makes us look at our own communities as he reveals these things in his novel. The irony is that all around the world, the poor and marginalized, the invincible, are the ones who become keenly aware of the forces that affect the lives of other invisible populations. To them what happens in the streets is nothing new, but what was happening in Santa Teresa was shocking.