It came out in 2004. Has anything better or on the level came out since?

Also, what did you think of it?

>>24543122 (OP)
As I don't read contemporary books, I can't comment on it.

I read it on a three week business trip that basically made me want to kill myself. Reading it every night in a stupid hotel room, it reminded me that there is humanity outside of the insanity of the corporate world.

Ever since I've been depressed that I will never be remotely as cool as Bolano. What an absolute Chad.

>>24543130
Do you go to a coffee shop and, when asked for your order, just say "sorry I don't drink coffee and I don't eat cake either" and leave???

>>24543140
It's not really like that. It's rather like I was already sitting inside the shop and you come up to me and ask "have you read that book? what did you think?" and I answer truthfully.

The passenger/Stella maris were better

>>24543122 (OP)
McCarthy came out with No Country and The Road after it but I can't name anything since then that I know of that's really good
>>24543155
Don't listen to this guy

>>24543161
Idiot

Austerlitz is pretty kino imo

It was pretty much the last hoorah for that kind of 1000 page maximalist door stopper, and tastes have since moved on, so there hasn’t been much ‘like’ it since.

I think Elizabeth Strout is better than Bolano

>>24543122 (OP)
Cover is a fragment of Gustave Moreau's painting 'Jupiter and Semele'

>>24543122 (OP)
No one talks about The Third Reich, it's so much more interesting psycbologically than A Distant Star. I get the impression 2666 follows more so the threads of Bolano's pet themes he explores in ADS and Nazi Literature in the Americas.

>>24543453
You can't even spell Bolaño's name right, so why should anyone take you seriously?

>>24543302
Have you checked out this? Supposed to be very good as well

>>24543303
hello anon who actually reads outside of the approved /lit/ canon

>>24543474
Chúpame la polla, maricón de mierda.

>>24543122 (OP)
sorry I don't read sp*nish

>>24543453
Based Third Reich is fantastic. Nazi Literature... will always be my personal favourite

>>24543677
Nazi Literature in the Americas is fantastic, it's the book that got me into Bolaño
Will read the Third Reich soon

>>24543122 (OP)
>what did you think of it?
Pissed me off when I realized I was never going to read something like it again. It's so original, funny, strange, and well-written, never boring, and so full of this darkness specific to Latin America that someone finally put into words, this kind of hoplessness and dread that thrives in slums and corrupted cities. One of the best reading experiences I've had. Didn't want it to end.
Favorite part? Either Critics' or the Crimes. Least favorite? Amalfitano's. Most underrated? Fate's.

i'm unable to enjoy gimmicky novels like ulysses or gravity's rainbow after noticing what simple language this book used and how well the prose flowed, it's enough to read about pelletier and espinoza and their hunt for archimboldi, or fate reporting on black cities or amafiltano shuttling btn spain and mexico rather than find out the latest literary experiment by some eccentric intellectual, there's something relatable about how he communicates with such little pretense or it could just be the effect of translation but then again i got the same feeling from tolstoy, it just seems like i work so hard to read native english speakers and their colloquialisms and euphemisms but never reap equivalent reward

>>24543122 (OP)
The scene in Part 5 where Ingeborg runs away into the mountains and Hans finds her and they talk about the stars being the past was one of the best scenes I've ever read in a book. One of those moments where you go "God I never would have put it that way but that's it!" and you're just glad somebody got it down on paper.

>>24543122 (OP)
2666 is Bolaño's masterpiece. I found it captivating.
Other 21st century works: The Dying Grass by WTV, Solenoid by M. Cartarescu, Laura Warholic by Alexander Theroux, Novel Explosives by Jim Gauer, The Garden of Seven Twilights by Miquel de Palol (written 1989; 1st Eng. tr. 2023).

>>24543142
No one approached you, though. You made the conscious effort to not only come to this thread but to type out your post and complete the captcha. You decided to enter the coffee shop and theatrically declare your aversion to coffee.
To try to subvert what others see with their own eyes is the lowest sort of dishonesty.

>>24543488
nta but I'm 200 pages into this. It's ok, it's very self-reflexive and leans heavily on the singularity of life experience but I don't really care much for Cartarescu's thoughts. I don't find him especially insightful. I'm still enjoying it. The only Bolaño I've read is Antwerp, which I enjoyed more than Solenoid so far, and I hope 2666 is better.

>>24543733
Fate part was the best. The only chapter where Bolaño's cultural and psychological sensibilities were shown. The other parts were full of cliches (academia, corruption, world war, etc) and lacked the psychological/philosophical element that were promised to me.
>>24544188
I could not stop laughing at that part. It was embarrassing. I know she's supposed to be crazy but still
>>24543302
Just because it's long and fragmentary doesn't mean it's a maximalist novel. I don't count it as one

>>24543733
>and so full of this darkness specific to Latin America that
Ever heard of jack the ripper?
This is just the legend updated with Mexican whores instead of English ones

>>24545060
ze cartel are bread winning members of society.
make sure you come to the midnight sacrifice of a Mexican whore in the desert.

>>24545060
Jack the ripper was one dude
The murders are implied to be commited and covered up by many different people, everybody's a potential monster in Santa Teresa

>>24545060
Mexico did Jack the Ripper first btw
>Francisco Guerrero Pérez (1840 – November 1910), known as El Chalequero and other nicknames, was a Mexican serial killer who killed twenty prostitutes in Mexico City from 1880 to 1888, and one final victim in 1908. Due to his modus operandi, Guerrero was considered an organized, sedentary missionary killer motivated by hatred, and was frequently compared to Jack the Ripper (whom Guerrero predated).
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Francisco_Guerrero_P%C3%A9rez