Bolano’s 2666
6 July 2010
So I read 2666 with the Infinite Summer crowd, and posted here, weekly, my favorite quotes and my growing disenchantment with the novel.
And nobody in the whole wide world noticed that I stopped reading 50 pages from the end. Just fizzled out 840+ pages into a book…and don’t know when, if ever, I’ll pick it up again.
I’m glad I engaged with Bolano’s massive undertaking but I just didn’t like the text. Some moments, sure, but they were few, far between, and underleveraged. I’ll try Savage Detective some day. After the long list of books already recommended to me, and the stuff sitting in my pile of “the second I get a chance I’m reading this.” And after I finish some journal submissions. And client work. And another novel.
Maybe in 2026.
6 Comments
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You read 850 pages of a book you didn’t really like? Girl, you have stamina. I’m very impressed. I’d have junked it at about page 30.
I’ve only read #14 & #6 on your list. And of the two, I really only liked #14. (Though I’m sure I could get stoned for not caring for #6 in some circles…)
kitch, stubborness is a terrible curse. ;-)
ck, the list I gleaned from the comments, in order is:
Cloud Atlas
The Road
Oscar Wao
Middlesex
Pastoralia
Never Let Me Go
Fortress of Solitude
The Known World
Gilead
On Beauty
Black Swan Green
Evidence of Things Unknown
Let the Great World Spin
and
the few bits of David Foster Wallace I haven’t read, then Infinite Jest again.
I agree with TKW. If I don’t like a book, I put it down with no guilt. I could never read 100 pages of a book I didn’t like, let alone 800+. You are too generous!!
And, as you might imagine, I vote that you write a novel before you do anything else. But that’s just me…
Fie, I finished one last summer. Been sending it to agents ever since. No progress. Reorganized it before Butter was born. Need to send it out again. Don’t care this week, though.
For the record, I want to say I noticed. I just thought I missed something and so I didn’t say anything. I’m also a firm believer that there are too many good books out there to read to waste time on ones you don’t like.