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)

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.

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....

Avoiding Mister Death

Someone, I don't know who it was, said that the difference between a piece of genre fiction and a literary novel is that, in literary novels, the author gives you far more detail than you need as a reader. What you make of that excess of detail then determines whether you are a literary reader or not.

There are truly great things about this book. Although the meta-narrative voice stays true, its five parts each offer a very different narrative style. I'm not going to bother with a synopsis, because other reviewers have done this, but it moves from quirky, cosy satire to grim documentary realism to modern historical fiction.

For me, it was mostly a story about death and the humorous, tragic, poignant or obsessive strategies we use to put it off. We're all treading water. Whether one distracts oneself focused on the ludicrously esoteric (the part about the critics), or by living through one's child (The Part about Amalfitano), or by allowing oneself to be carried up on the chaos of events (The Part about Fate), or by hovering close to the edge of death itself and living within its shadow (The Part about the Crimes), or by ccupying oneself with the act of narration (The Part about Archimboldi), I think Bolaño wrote a book about the ways people put off death. Which makes sense, since he was dying while he wrote it. "Thanatos," says Bolaño in the last part of the book, "is the greatest tourist on earth."

There are a lot of sparkling moments of truth in this novel. The one I feel I will carry away with me most durably is that, in our relationship with our societies, there is a strange tipping point - a moment triggered by a collision of dire circumstances - at which, individually, alterity stops being a delight, an adventure, a richness of life's tapestry, and seems to become a mortal threat to the existence of the self. Whether it is the other as Foreigner, or as a member of another class, or race, or gender, the human psyche can flip from appreciation to blind terror in a very short space of time. And beyond that point, we are a murderous, inhuman bunch.

Perhaps one of the greatest disappointments in the novel comes about because, by the end of his life, it is clear that Bolaño acquired a hell of a lot of wisdom, and yet he leaves no real place for love. I think he had taken the measure of most things, but not that. Perhaps because, despite his honest and insightful grasp of many things, he chose, like so many modern literary writers, to let that subject embarrass him into silence. In this way, it has the same, familiar asymmetry, you see in a lot of contemporary literature. Bolaño went to his grave successfully innocent of sentimentality, which, in my view, makes the novel a little less courageous than it could have been.

I'm not a literary reader. And the single star I did not give this book probably reflects my insufficiency as reader more than it does Bolaño's ability as a writer. I found his meta narrative style of over-elaboration grating and unfruitful. And I found his rejection of sentimentality predictably post-modern.

That being said, I don't regret the time I spent reading this book at all. It is a rich, harrowing journey, well worth the effort.

Regarding the narration, it was very good overall. However, I found the choice of Scott Brick as narrator for "The part about the Crimes" was a poor one. This part focuses on the hundreds of murders of young women in Santa Teresa (a thinly veiled docu-drama narrative of the serial killings in Ciudad Juarez). He really loads emotion into his voice, and I felt this was particularly antithetical to the purpose of the almost list-like account of the murders. I'm pretty convinced the dryness of the style of this portion of the novel was meant to explore the phenomenon of the 'normalization' of violence. I found Brick's reading really betrayed the author's efforts to do this.

I just don't know

Alright, I finally made it through the whole thing. There were many times that I seriously considered throwing my ipod out. Having finished it I can't decide now whether it's a masterpiece or just awful. There are equal parts of both. Part one and three were excrutiating to listen to. At the same time I really enjoyed parts two and five. I'm going to need some time to mull this over. Anyone who attempts this will have to be more than patient. The style is very different and the book(s) roam all over, both in geographic terms and styles of narration. Good luck.

Monumental. Staggering

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

Good god what a book. Had a little trouble adjusting when narrators would switch, but the power of the story, the humanity, tragedy, violence, and brilliance just overwhelmed me. I'm kind of in shock still. Not a book I am likely to forget

What other book might you compare 2666 to and why?

Hmm other Bolano books, for one, such as 'Savage Detectives'. Also brought to mind 'A brief history of seven killings', and perversely also 'War and Peace'. I have not yet read Austerlitz but I suspect that is similar too, as many have compared Bolano to Sebald. Perhaps Sebald=Archimboldi?

Which scene was your favorite?

The 4th section, about the murders, was definitely the most shocking

If you were to make a film of this book, what would the tag line be?

I wouldn't

Any additional comments?

I think i need a cigarette.... damn...

This might be the best book I've ever listened to!

I can't say enough good things about this book. I've already ordered a physical copy because I know I'm going to need do read this book more than once. it's very funny, entertaining, and engrossing. What a page turner! The writing is amazing, the different performers are all perfectly suited to their respective section, and I wanted this book to be never-ending. Brilliant!