2666

The most interesting book that I read in 2012 was 2666 published posthumously by the Chilean author Roberto Bolaño. Debuted in 2004 by Editorial Anagrama (Barcelona), this 1,000-page novel presents an intricate structure of numerous, seemingly unrelated narrative lines that eventually intersect in the Chihuahua desert of northern Mexico. In some ways reminiscent of Brazilian Ivan Ângelo’s A Festa that focuses on corruption and oppression in a “read-between-the-lines” narrative, 2666 is ultimately a denunciation not only of the violence against women occurring along the US-Mexican border, but also of the de facto governmental complicity in the crimes. The unstated perpetrators of the heinous violence are the savage drug cartels; the implicit target of Bolaño’s harshest criticism is the government that only pays lip service to enforcement and on many levels indirectly and directly abets the illicit cash flow with its ensuing atrocities. This view eventually emerges from a five-part structure that encompasses the arcane world of scholars of obscure European literature, a New York sportswriter, the German army at the Eastern front during World War II, and most importantly the fictitious town of Santa Teresa standing in for Ciudad Juárez. Although he wrote it as a single work, just before his death Bolaño instructed that 2666 be published as five separate novels in order to ensure the patrimony he left for his family. Indeed, each section could conceivably stand alone, while sharing some characters and themes with the others. However, Bolaño’s heirs decided to come out with the novel as a single tome, and the impact of the work gains from this integration. In the end, Roberto Bolaño constructed a narrative as disturbing and desolate as the countryside that he depicted.