2666

By: Roberto Bolaño

Narrated by: John Lee, Armando Durán, G. Valmont Thomas, Scott Brick, Grover Gardner

Length: 39 hrs and 15 mins

Publisher's summary

National Book Critics Circle, Fiction, 2009

Composed in the last years of Roberto Bolaño’s life, 2666 was greeted across Europe and Latin America as his highest achievement, surpassing even his previous work in its strangeness, beauty, and scope. Its throng of unforgettable characters includes academics and convicts, an American sportswriter, an elusive German novelist, and a teenage student and her widowed, mentally unstable father. Their lives intersect in the urban sprawl of Santa Teresa—a fictional Juárez—on the U.S.-Mexico border, where hundreds of young factory workers, in the novel as in life, have disappeared.

©2004 the heirs of Roberto Bolaño (P)2009 Blackstone Audio, Inc.

Critic reviews

This winner of the 2008 National Book Critics' Circle Award for Fiction is the master work from "one of the greatest and most influential modern writers" (New York Times Book Review)

"...think of David Lynch, Marcel Duchamp (both explicitly invoked here) and the Bob Dylan of Highway 61 Revisited, all at the peak of their lucid yet hallucinatory powers." (New York Times)

"It is safe to predict that no novel this year will have as powerful an effect on the reader as this one." (Publishers Weekly, starred review)

Will be re-read!

The only problem with this master piece is its length. It's impossible to grasp it all in one go, but it makes me want to start again straight away!

Not a book for the casual reader (listener)

Imagine standing on top a mountain overlooking a nation. listening,feeling and seeing every tough,conversation and action. This is the burden 2666 inflicts on the reader. The book itself is an amazing achievment. And its clear Bolaños layed all of his soul in it. But only those with the highest levels of reading prowess will be able to get thru the massive story. I myself had to tap out with much regret.

has some good elements

this book is all right. about 3 of the 5 sections are interesting. i didn't care as much about the "part about the crimes"
it just seemed like a list of murders in mexico.
i'd recommend other books before this....

I didn't want it to end

39 hours long and I didn't want it to end.
For one thing, I had no idea where Bolano was going with this one--andl that is a treat. For another, even though this touches on some grim facts of life as humans in the world there are in this book a myriad of interesting tales and people. Very entertaining and often funny Sometimes I found myself in the midst of a conversation and said to myself--wait a minute, who are these people and how are they related to the character I was following? Going back just a few minutes always cleared that up.
On the performances--I enjoyed them all. But the first reader gets extra stars for making a very difficult text enjoyable, funny, easy to follow. There were four professors of German Literature, one from France, one from Italy, one from Spain, and one from England who just kept going to meetings and he made that fascinating. He is the reason I could get into this book--which was utterly rewarding.

Where do I start........

What made the experience of listening to 2666 the most enjoyable?

I don't know what to say about this book other that I suspended my judgment and let the writing take me along the somewhat labyrinthine path to a decidedly and expected unresolved conclusion. I loved the writing and knew from the beginning that there would not be a neat ending with all loose parts nicely tied up. This being said, I was not displeased with the ending. The writer was an amazing thinker to create the various realities of the novel, some gritty, some academic, some banal.

What did you like best about this story?

The language and development of character

Have you listened to any of the narrators’s other performances before? How does this one compare?

I have not listened to him before

Who was the most memorable character of 2666 and why?

Archimboldi was an enigma until the last chapter and by the time we meet him we are eager to learn more about this elusive person

Any additional comments?

I will certainly listen to another book by Bolano, but not right away. I want to savor the experience of 2666

Coup De Grace

This book with make you bend the knee to the greatness and horror a dying man felt we needed to pay attention to.

A Groundbreaking Masterpiece

Any additional comments?

Advice for listening to 2666: Go with Bolano's drift, surrender to the dream you’ve woken up into here and take in all the sights and sensations the way you would somewhat sleepily from your window’s perch on a guided tour bus through hell. One thing a novel like this lets us do is to live the many lives Rimbaud suggested were due to each of us. All these people’s living rooms, hotel lobbies, bars, ranches, churches, streets and landscapes you would never have access to on your own, Bolano has given you a passport to. Don't listen to this book the way you would a conventional novel that pulls you onwards towards an inevitable conclusion. There is no light at the end of the tunnel you're in here, the book does not gravitate towards a conclusion but rather around and around an abyss at the center, a black hole surrounded by a kaleidoscope of intuitively related experiences and details. Drink the Kool-Aid, buy the ticket, take the ride!

2666 By: Roberto Bolano

Bolano's writing is quite hypnotic, his ability to keep the reader / listener engaged and waiting in anticipation of the next word is truly magical. His goal of writing a "work" of substance and girth was certainly achieved, however it was disrupted by untimely circumstance. The book is incomplete, thus the 3 star rating.

Intriguing

What made the experience of listening to 2666 the most enjoyable?

The uniqueness of the story and the minute details

What did you like best about this story?

That the story was complicated and extremely thought provoking.

What about the narrators’s performance did you like?

The several narrators brought and individual personality to each section.

If you could take any character from 2666 out to dinner, who would it be and why?

Hans Reiter. He had so many different experiences in his life.

Wonderful combat between the writer and that “thing”

This is a masterpiece well worth spending time over. The audiobook performers are super amazing and the content is immersive.