Bookstorm

While digging through Triple Canopy's archives, I came across "The Caracas Speech," Roberto Bolaño's acceptance of the 1999 Rómulo Gallegos prize. This is too good pass up.

What's true is that I am Chilean, and I am also a lot of other things. And having arrived at this point, I must abandon Jarry and Bolivar and try to remember the writer who said that the homeland of a writer is his tongue. I don't remember his name. Perhaps it was a writer who wrote in Spanish. Perhaps it was a writer who wrote in English or French. A writer's homeland, he said, is his tongue. It sounds a little demagogic, but I agree with him completely, and I know that sometimes there is no recourse left us but to get a little demagogic, just like sometimes there is no recourse left us but to dance a bolero under the light of streetlamps or a red moon. Although it's also true that a writer's homeland is not his tongue, or not only his tongue, but also the people he loves. And sometimes a writer's homeland is not the people he loves but his memory. And other times a writer's only homeland is his loyalty, and his courage. In truth, a writer's homelands can be many, and sometimes the identity of that homeland depends a great deal on whatever he is writing at the moment. The homelands can be many, it occurs to me now, but the passport can only be one, and that passport is evidently the quality of his writing. Which does not mean writing well, because anyone can do that, but writing marvelously well, and not even that, because anyone can write marvelously well, too. What, then, is writing of quality? Well, what it has always been: knowing to stick one's head into the dark, knowing to jump into the void, knowing that literature is basically a dangerous occupation. To run along the edge of the precipice: on one side the bottomless abyss and on the other the faces one loves, the smiling faces one loves, and books, and friends, and food. And to accept that fact, though sometimes it may weigh on us more than the flagstone that covers the remains of every dead writer. Literature, as an Andalusian folk song might say, is dangerous.

First: the 2009 Tournament of Books has started, where Roberto Bolaño's 2666 reigns supreme. (Is anyone even surprised?)

Second, given that Bolaño is something of a demigod in literary circles, I'm almost ready to believe this is a hoax:

Two new novels by the Chilean author Roberto Bolaño have reportedly been found in Spain among papers he left behind after his death. The previously unseen manuscripts were entitled Diorama and The Troubles of the Real Police Officer, reported La Vanguardia.

The newspaper said the documents also included what is believed to be a sixth section of Bolaño's epic five-part novel 2666.

And third, Ryan, if you remember Capote, then I think you'll get a kick out this little bit: "[Bolaño], who spent the last part of his life in the Costa Brava region of Spain, died at the age of 50 in 2003."

From Roberto Bolaño's 2666:

Sometimes Inspector Juan de Dios Martínez was surprised at how well Elvira Campos could fuck and how inexhaustible she was in bed. She fucks like someone on the brink of death, he thought. More than once he would've liked to tell her it wasn't necessary, she didn't need to work so hard, that just feeling her nearby, brushing against him, was enough, but when it came to sex the director was practical and businesslike. Darling, Juan de Dios Martínez would say to her sometimes, sweetheart, love, and in the darkness she would tell him to be quiet and then suck every last drop from him--of semen? of his soul? of the little life he felt, at the time, remained to him? They made love, at her express request, in semidarkness. A few times he was tempted to turn on the light and look at her, but he didn't, not wanting to upset her. Don't turn on the light, she said to him once, and it seemed to him Elvira Campos could read his mind.

Hey, Ryan, I thought you might enjoy reading this: sales of your favorite book have spiked.

Reviled in some circles and mocked in others, Rand's 1957 novel of embattled capitalism is a favorite of libertarians and college students. Lately, though, its appeal has been growing.

[ ... ]

The reason is explained by the name of a recently formed group on Facebook, the world's biggest social-networking site: "Read the news today? It's like 'Atlas Shrugged' is happening in real life." The group, and an expanding chorus of fretful bloggers, reckon that life is imitating art.

And Jordan, it's interesting: Ryan's been trying to convince me to read Atlas Shrugged. I went so far as to buy the book a few weeks ago, but I haven't been able to bring myself to read it. Still, my experience with the book is nothing like yours:

When I was eighteen, I broke up with Billy. (I know, I already told this story, bear with me.) That was the hardest breakup of my life so far. I was old enough to be blissfully expectant and passionate, but young enough to have almost zero real relationship experience behind me. When we broke up, it destroyed me. I cried day and night for two weeks. At eighteen, I thought my life was over--no kidding. Billy was the one to request that I read Atlas Shrugged. When we broke up, I didn't touch it again for over a year. In fact, I had to hide it from myself so I wouldn't have to look at it every day.

I don't blame you, really. I told Ryan I wasn't going to read it. Yet. We'll see if she can charm me into it.