Nazi Literature in the Americas (New Directions Paperbook) Review

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(More customer reviews)To preface: As we all know, Roberto Bolano passed away in 2003. Like many in America, New Directions let us in on the secret with "By Night In Chile" and "Distant Star" (which is actually an elaboration of the final story in "Nazi Literature in the Americas"). Next came "Last Evenings on Earth" and "Amulet" last year. "The Savage Detectives" came out via Farrar, Straus and Giroux last year as well and, his masterpiece, "2666" is on its way. If you haven't read any of these, it doesn't matter what order, just read any and all.
"Nazi Literature in the Americas" reads like a history (but not in a bad way). Bolano creates dozens of personalities, each with intricite details and interesting character traits that even a third-party (Bolano) can convey gently. Each character exists throughout North and South America in the twentieth-century, some not dying until 2040 (which Bolano uses to hint that these people still exist into the later twenty-first century).
As the title suggests, each character is tied, in Bolano fashion, to fascist literary movements in their respective time period and country. Edelmira Thompson de Mendiluce, the first chronicled in the novel, is a bourgeois Argentine who met Hitler in the 1930's and was sympathetic to the cause ever since. Max Mirebalais, is a poor Haitian who steals from other European poets and crafts "many masks," which he uses to create an ideology of hate. Argentino Schiaffino is a thug from Buenos Aires who loves soccer and violence and believes in the heirarchy of races and is on the run most of his life for murder.
One gets the point. The problem is, this doesn't half convey the textual density and complexity of the work. The way the characters interact within each others stories, how one influences the other, etc. The depth that Bolano went through to create this world is astonishing (as his epilogue with a glossary of names, places, publishers, books, and miniture biographies of minor characters in the stories).
The beauty, in the end, is that each is not a celebrate of Hitler or Aryan supremacy. Most are misguided and some are playing games even with themselves. The real world is ever present in Bolanos world and the presence of these characters moving, most of the time at odds with the real world, is fascinating. The trick is that each characters intolerance is shown in different ways - not directed at Hitler or other fascist leaders, but in the culture of fascism that still exists today - even as it did in 1996 when this novel was published.
I cannot recommend this more highly. I was anticipating it greatly and I was not let down. The only problem for avid readers of Bolano, is the final chapter, "The Infamous Ramirez Hoffman" is the shortened version of his previous novel "Distant Star," which he does allude to at the beginning of that work. But taken separately, the shortened version does leave much to be desired - which one fulfills with "Distant Star." It is also different because, while famous for his first person narration, "Ramirez Hoffman" is the only instance that Bolano appears in this novel, so take what one can from it.
If you love this, don't worry - New Directions has many more novels coming. This will surely tide fans down until FSG releases Bolano's 1,200+ page masterpiece "2666" sometime, hopefully, next year. Enjoy.

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