2666 (novel)

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2666 is the last novel by the Chilean writer Roberto Bolaño . After many years of illness, during which Bolaño wrote, he died of liver failure shortly after presenting the first draft to his publisher. 2666 was released in Spain about a year later, in 2004.

The German translation by Christian Hansen was published on September 7, 2009 and comprises 1096 pages.

action

The work consists of five parts (books), each of which is self-contained but loosely interwoven. In the foreword by the author's heirs it is explained that Bolaño originally wanted to see the parts published individually at annual intervals in order to achieve the greatest possible profit for his family. His heirs finally decided to publish the work as a whole. Bolaño was unable to complete "2666" because of his untimely death. The editors did the editorial work with the help of notes and various versions of the text left by Roberto Bolaño.

The part of the critic

In Part 1 “The Critics' Part”, four German scholars from Madrid , London , Paris and Turin get to know each other. You research and publish on the fictional German writer Hans Reiter, who publishes under the pseudonym Benno von Archimboldi and whom you consider the most important German author of the 20th century. Archimboldi, about whose life and whereabouts nothing is known, is said to have traveled to Santa Teresa in the northern Mexican province of Sonora . The English German studies specialist and her two colleagues from Madrid and Paris set out to find Archimboldi and travel with them to the Mexican city. There your search remains unsuccessful. In addition to a look at the bustling, sometimes self-referential science scene in which the protagonists participate, a scenario of erotic-sexual attraction and competition between them is presented, which surprisingly dissolves.

The part of Amalfitano

Part 2 “The Part of Amalfitano” is dedicated to the life of the Mexican philosophy professor Amalfitano, whom the protagonists of Part 1 get to know in Santa Teresa. Amalfitano is of Chilean origin (like the author) and came to Barcelona via Argentina (here he translated a book by Archimboldi). This is where part 2 begins and describes the life of the single scientist who receives a professorship at the University of Santa Teresa. As in Part 1, the feminicides in this city are mentioned here rather in passing.

The part of Fate

The main character of part 3 "The Part of Fate" is an Afro-American journalist from New York who travels to Santa Teresa to report on a boxing match and there, among others, meets Rosa Amalfitano, the daughter of the philosophy professor. In the aftermath of a night that seemed threatening and confusing (and also against the background of rampant feminicide and drug trafficking ), the journalist and Rosa Amalfitano flee across the border to Arizona, USA.

The part about the crimes

Finally, part 4, the longest section of the novel, focuses on the feminicides in Santa Teresa, which first appeared in 1993. Bolaño modeled the murders of Ciudad Juárez . The regular body finds and investigations are described, partly in the style of police reports . Interwoven are stories from the professional and private everyday life of investigating police officers, from journalists who report on the murders and a member of parliament whose friend disappears without a trace in Santa Teresa. It becomes clear that this is happening in a sometimes extremely misogynistic climate and in view of high social inequality . The murdered women largely come from the working class of the maquiladoras , who live on the edge of the subsistence level, and many plan to immigrate illegally to the USA .

The part of Archimboldi

“The Part of Archimboldi”, part 5, with which the novel ends, begins as a kind of biography of Hans Reiter, the German writer. Childhood and youth near the Baltic Sea and Berlin are portrayed . This is followed by Reiters active participation in World War II : invasion of Poland , attack on France , transfer to the Eastern Front , where he is wounded in Ukraine . During his convalescence he discovers the notes of a Jewish Russian who had hidden from the Einsatzgruppen : a subjective (partly exemplary, partly fantastic) account of the development of a Jewish intellectual in the Soviet Union, from the October Revolution to the Stalinist show trials . During the withdrawal of the Wehrmacht , Hans Reiter came across a crucified Romanian general, followed by a stay in an American prisoner of war camp in Ansbach . There, Reiter murdered a fellow prisoner who had told him about his involvement in the Holocaust . After that, Reiter settled in Cologne and wrote his first novel. Inspired by the Mannerist painter Giuseppe Arcimboldo , he takes the stage name Benno von Archimboldi. One novel follows another (with little public response). Moves to Kempten , then stays in Italy , where he apparently disappears for years. Death of the partner. More novels. Stays on Greek islands, return to Italy, Venice. At the end of this book, the novel returns to Santa Teresa, the geographical and ideal center of the work.

title

According to the afterword by Ignacio Echevarria , a friend and close confidante of the author, the title is meant as the year. Echevarria quotes from Bolaño's novel Amuleto : “At this hour, the Avenida resembles a cemetery, but neither a cemetery from 1974 nor one from 1968 or 1975, but a cemetery in 2666, a cemetery forgotten behind a dead or unborn eyelid , the watery remnant of an eye that, because it wants to forget something, has forgotten everything in the end. "

reception

2666 was celebrated internationally with euphoria as a literary masterpiece. Bolaño was posthumously awarded the National Book Critics Circle Award in 2008 for his work 2666 .

expenditure

Web links

Secondary literature

  • Hennigfeld, Ursula (ed.), (2015) Roberto Bolaño: Violencia, escritura, vida . Madrid: Dumped.
  • Manuel Clemens, study with a view. The learned novel based on the example of Roberto Bolaños “2666” and Sibylle Lewitscharoff's “Blumenberg” , in: Ibero-American Yearbook for German Studies, No. 7 (2014), pp. 153–175.
  • Christgau, Nataniel: Death and Text. To Roberto Bolaños "2666" . Berlin: Matthes and Seitz, 2016.

source

  • Roberto Bolaño "2666" Munich 2009