This Sunday brings me just one week from finishing 2666, and as the readalong is wrapping up I find myself suspecting what remains of the novel won’t blow me away the way it would need to for me to really feel excited about the whole thing. It’s not that I don’t like the book at all or think it’s good; I think it’s great. But not…great enough. I know I shouldn’t fault it for not living up to ridiculously high expectations—and that just because I submitted to some serious book-world hype!—and in fact I don’t think I do.
Whatever I say in my defense should be taken with a grain of salt, of course. 2666 is a big book, and I don’t just mean long. Or just sweeping. More like all-consuming, somehow. It’s heavy, like half-dreaming that you’re being crushed. From Levi Stahl’s review of the book:
if there is a system underlying Bolaño’s fictional universe, in which characters and symbols recur across multiple volumes, it is one that we can only intuit, one whose meaning seems always to be turning the corner just ahead of us. The hermetic qualities of Bolaño’s work bear some of the false coherence of the insane; perhaps this novel’s meaning is ultimately singular, fully penetrable only by the author himself.
I feel this, even before having finished a single one of Bolaño’s books. And that’s a project I can get behind. But I find it difficult to agree that “[t]here is something secret, horrible, and cosmic afoot, centered around Santa Teresa.” Certainly, that seems to be the view of many readers. And I suppose that is what the text suggests. But as horrifying as the world of 2666 is, I’m reading something else that’s just blowing it out of the water in that area.
And that brings me to Parade’s End. Status: finished the third volume, A Man Could Stand Up–, this morning. I want to say that each volume has been better than the last, but the first one was too good for me to be sure of that. It’s a strangely good comparison to 2666 though. Both consist of separate but linked books and deal with a Horror. But where 2666 leaves me buried under something heavy, Parade’s End makes me feel great bliss and then like I’ve been punched in the stomach a moment later, and back and forth again. The actual experience of reading it is the best I’ve had in ages, with Virginia Woolf a close recent second. Anyway, I’m just gushing here.
I’m also less than one week away from the third of April’s big books, The Brothers Karamazov. Going into Part IV I’m unfortunately feeling fatigued with Dostoevsky, and maybe a bit with Russians in general. But I hope that’s not the case because I learned (in 2666, in fact) of a Russian author I simply must read and now, and that’s Vladimir Odoevsky. The Russian Hoffmann, or the Russian Kleist, or something. Anyway, someone who definitely should have made the Russian mini-unit just now.
I am very glad you enjoyed Parade’s End-or maybe enjoyed is to trivial an expression for the book-I am 2/3 through it-I just love so many of the sentences in the book-I think readers should read The Good Soldier first-I got side tracked in reading it due to a family trip but will finish it soon-I am finding it hard to blog about in a way that feels at all adequate-
So do I. The Good Soldier is one of my favorite books, but I haven’t read it in a long time. I’ve been meaning to do a re-read for a while and I think after this I really will.
I admire your fortitude and persistence. I’m a short book person myself. Oddly, however, I seem to find those few long books I’ve completed to be fantastic reads.
I have just ordered myself Parade’s End. I hadn’t heard of it before your review, but having read your thoughts and looked it up – I was sold. Thank you!
Parade’s End was amazing. But I’m not sure I want to write much about it now. I’m just going to mooch off of everyone else’s posts.
Dostoevsky has wiped me out, too. I’m managing about a chapter a day in Part IV. Now, as for this V. Odoevsky – who? What? Must. Read. V. Odoevsky.
debnance—Yes, I really am a short book person too. There just happen to be a lot of long books I really want to read and many I really love.
litlove—Awesome! But the fact that even someone with your background hasn’t heard of this makes my inside person cry a bit—not saying anything against you at all, but how did our culture leave this out as vital? I’m not fully done with the tetralogy yet but I am confident in saying this is the absolute best war novel I have ever read. I desperately want to send a copy to my dad, who loves that kind of thing, but worry he might not be able to get past the high modernism. But if he could…we shall see.
AR—Yeah, the best stuff is the hardest stuff to write about, as usual. And your reaction is exactly what mine was to hearing of Odoevsky. I haven’t started any of it yet but I’m taking it as a very good sign that the title story in the collection I found is called “The Salamander.” That puts it smack in the tradition I was expecting.
Ah, but do remember that I am a European literature specialist, and that all my formative years, from about 17 onwards were spent reading French and German books. I have huge holes in my Eng lit knowledge, have never read Hardy, Shelley, Johnson, Conrad, Joyce, you name it! But to be fair, Ford Maddox Ford is out of vogue here at present, as are many of the Edwardians. These trends come and go, and he’ll be back in favour soon no doubt.
Ah, well that makes a lot of sense, I had not realized. And I hope you’re right about trends.