tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5393996338560944889.post583663850426506524..comments2024-03-02T02:26:00.928-05:00Comments on bleakonomy: 2666: The Part About the Crimes, pages 404-464tetracontadigonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04604381739383227553noreply@blogger.comBlogger6125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5393996338560944889.post-22376087705475885842010-03-16T15:11:16.565-04:002010-03-16T15:11:16.565-04:00Jeff, it seems opinions vary about that funny, fun...Jeff, it seems opinions vary about that funny, funny pun of Bolaño's. I, myself, am wiping tears of mirth from my eyes at this very minute.Danhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11213051268392108382noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5393996338560944889.post-36807562218282815542010-03-16T14:16:35.222-04:002010-03-16T14:16:35.222-04:00Dan: I think that’s a spot-on description of the p...Dan: I think that’s a spot-on description of the problem. In many ways Bolano’s work is rather juvenile—even at 50ish he still can’t resist playing the Enfant terrible. You’re definitely right that his use of the word seems to lack any kind of literary justification, and comes off like an attempt to scandalize for its own sake (there’s a lot of this in Savage Detectives, too).David Winnhttp://ablogabout2666.wordpress.com/noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5393996338560944889.post-66858649744269242962010-03-16T13:32:59.423-04:002010-03-16T13:32:59.423-04:00I think y'all are right in your reluctance to ...I think y'all are right in your reluctance to assume the narrating voice is Bolaño's, but I'm right with you Dan: enough is enough. <em>Épater les bourgeois</em> never strikes me as very valuable on its own anyway, but when it comes at my own expense and ties into current oppression I have to set my back against every day, my patience stretches very thin indeed.<br /><br />Boy, there's just so much about this book I dislike...Jeff Andersonhttp://andersoncreativeonline.com/jmblognoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5393996338560944889.post-63714854561054339732010-03-16T12:43:56.379-04:002010-03-16T12:43:56.379-04:00David, thanks for your comment.
As I said above, ...David, thanks for your comment.<br /><br />As I said above, I'm not willing to call Bolaño a homophobe. By all the lights I can see, when it comes to the person he was, he was probably supportive or progressive, or whatever other word one might wish to choose. That being said, I think his use of the word "faggot" is flagrantly unjustified, and is being used for its transgressive potential rather than its having any particular literary valence. In other words, I think Bolaño is being cavalier for its own sake, which has become a significant impediment to my ability to appreciate his work.Danhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11213051268392108382noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5393996338560944889.post-30687312421764994952010-03-16T10:19:32.620-04:002010-03-16T10:19:32.620-04:00Dan: First, many thanks for the shout out. I’m new...Dan: First, many thanks for the shout out. I’m new to this bloggin’ business, and I appreciate it.<br /><br />Next, I also made the connection between Florita and Barry Seaman. Daryl over at Infinite Zombies makes the connection as well. I find her one of the more likable characters in the novel, maybe because she’s one of the more better-drawn portraits—almost more than a sketch. One of the (many) things that frustrate me about this book is that, despite all you learn about the characters, you never really feel like you are getting inside their heads. I felt less like this with Florita. <br /><br />As to the F-word, I too find it more than a bit dismaying to keep tripping over this word (or, to continue your metaphor, stepping in it). I can’t claim to know what Bolano is up to but I agree it seems completely gratuitous, in the case of Harry Magana (truth be told I’m not really sure who, exactly, is narrating this book). Your comment brought to mind the section from The Part About Amalfitano, where the voice in his head keeps dropping the F-word, prompting Amalfitano to ask (something like) “what have you got against homosexuals?” And I remember thinking, “What indeed?”<br /> <br />First of all, whether or not Bolano was a rank homophobe, or had he lived would have marched in the streets of Mexico City in support of gay marriage, doesn’t make the use of the word in the novel any less offensive. But your post did prompt me to think about other things I’ve read by and about Bolano for clues to his politics in this regard. I didn’t really come up with much, but here’s what popped into my currently under-caffienated brain:<br />-A quote from an interview in Bomb magazine: “For me, being a poet meant being revolutionary and completely open to all cultural manifestations, all sexual expressions, being open to every experience with drugs. Tolerance meant—much more than tolerance, a word we didn’t much like—universal brotherhood.” Not that this proves anything: as the seemingly endless parade of closeted republican champions of family values shows, you can certainly be gay and a homopohobe.<br />-It’s been awhile since I read the Savage Detectives, but it’s probably his most autobiographical novel, a fictionalized account of the circle of young, libertine, self-styled revolutionary poets and artists that he ran with back in the day. Anyway, that book is peppered with F-words as well (12 uses in a 600 page novel, maybe peppered is the wrong word) but it also features what I remember to be at least one sympathetically drawn gay character, Luscious Skin.<br /> <br />I don’t know. I think one thing at play here that I haven’t heard remarked on anywhere (maybe I just haven’t heard it), is the connection between 2666 and so-called “transgressive” literature—the line that runs from De Sade to Bataille to Burroughs to Gary Indiana. I don’t really know much about this literature, to be honest, but it’s sort of an unconstrained, quasi-pornographic, literature that takes a perverse pleasure in flouting the social conventions of the day. At the same time, the people who practice it see themselves as outsiders, libertines, sort of aesthetic libertarians, and at least the last two writers in my list—Burroughs and Indiana—were gay. There’s plenty of use of the F-word in Burroughs (I think), but Burroughs came of age in a much more closeted era and, while “out”, was famously uncomfortable with his homosexuality. This is certainly not the case with Indiana, who is sort of straddles the 70’s counterculture, 80’s lower east side art world, and the dawn of the AIDS epidemic (his Gone Tomorrow is about all of this), and who also feels free to use the word. Not really sure what I’m getting at here but your post got me thinking. Maybe this helps explain just a little bit, though not excuse, the use of the word.David Winnhttp://ablogabout2666.wordpress.com/noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5393996338560944889.post-119778814014560292010-03-15T23:27:03.984-04:002010-03-15T23:27:03.984-04:00I'm going to go check out David's post, bu...I'm going to go check out David's post, but I'm so freaking done with this book. I won't stop, but your being done with the f word and my being done with the shrugging at rape and murder conspire to make this time to plot our Zadie Smith read for whenever this freaking book finally ends. Good thing there's a Archimboldi section still to come, because if this thing ended with The Crimes I'd be stopping now.Naptimewritinghttps://www.blogger.com/profile/18269912586243855713noreply@blogger.com