Status
Available
Call number
Genres
Collection
Publication
Frankfurt am Main Fischer Taschenbuch 2013
Description
"On vacation with his girlfriend, Ingeborg, the German war-game champion Udo Berger returns to a small town on the Costa Brava where he spent the summers of his childhood. Soon they meet another vacationing German couple, Charly and Hanna, who introduce them to a band of locals--the Wolf, the Lamb, and El Quemado--and to the darker side of life in a resort town. Late one night, Charly disappears without a trace, and Udo's well-ordered life is thrown into upheaval; when Ingeborg and Hanna return to their lives in Germany, he refuses to leave the hotel. Soon, he and El Quemado are enmeshed in a round of Third Reich, his favorite World War II strategy game, and Udo discovers that the game's consequences may be all too real. Written in 1989 and found among Roberto Bolaño's papers after his death, The Third Reich is a stunning exploration of memory and violence. Reading this quick, visceral novel, we see a world-class writer coming into his own--and exploring for the first time the themes that would define his masterpieces The Savage Detectives and 2666"-- "A comedic novel from the author of The Savage Detectives and 2666"--… (more)
Media reviews
Nowhere is it acknowledged either inside or outside the book that The Third Reich is a relatively early work, dating from before 1990 [...] Any innocent reader is likely to be baffled by the book, which wasn't written as a historical novel but has become one. [...] Ignore the suggestion on the
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slipcase of The Third Reich that it's "the perfect way to discover" Bolaño and start [with By Night in Chile]. Show Less
"The Third Reich" is a fun and engaging read, perfectly suited for your own beach vacation, but the ending does little justice to all that precedes it.
Indeed, I kept responding to it like a person living in two times. Mainly I was reading the novel now, and finding it thoroughly, weirdly absorbing. Partly I was reading as if I were an unfortunate editor in around 1990, wondering how I was going to tell Bolaño that this wasn’t quite a finished
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book yet, that his plot led nowhere, that his characters kept trailing off into incoherence. Show Less
“The Third Reich” is a mesmerizing tale: sleek, linear, easily digested, beautifully translated. But it cannot pretend to rival Bolano’s mature work. Nor will any serious Bolano fan prefer its trim, conventional story line to his sprawling masterpieces. Yet the book shows Bolano as we’ve
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hardly seen him before: young, sniffing for new ground, applying old-fashioned suspense to a very modern chaos. Show Less
In The Third Reich, Bolaño kicks down the wall dividing realism and melodrama, mixing together elements of both and unifying it all with his warm-hearted and sophisticated irony.
User reviews
LibraryThing member Narboink
This was my third Bolaño novel, (the first two being "2666" and "The Savage Detectives"). Familiarity with where he would eventually end up as a novelist makes reading "The Third Reich" an eerily fun experience. It also illuminates the central themes of his later works. "The Third Reich" is the
"The Third Reich" is a surprisingly good novel, even though it often feels like it was written a century ago. I know that doesn't make sense, but I kept thinking about Thomas Mann while I was reading this. Some plot points and characters don't appear to make sense, but they somehow fit. It's a gloomy, old-world novel that keeps reminding you that it is actually rather contemporary.
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name of a strategic board game that mirrors the battle chronology of World War II, and Bolaño has made the champion player a young German on vacation in Spain. It's worth noting that Bolaño had a special interest in the ineffable qualities of evil that seem to pass through time and space in a steady, yet unknowable, way. The real-world migration of Nazi war criminals to South America seems connected in an almost spiritual way to Bolaño's fictional portrays of German war veterans and Nazi mystique."The Third Reich" is a surprisingly good novel, even though it often feels like it was written a century ago. I know that doesn't make sense, but I kept thinking about Thomas Mann while I was reading this. Some plot points and characters don't appear to make sense, but they somehow fit. It's a gloomy, old-world novel that keeps reminding you that it is actually rather contemporary.
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LibraryThing member jorgearanda
This early Bolaño novel is self-consciously immersed in the world of wargames. "The Third Reich" of the title seems to be the game "The Rise and Decline of the Third Reich", and the gaming session that the book narrates seems to make sense and to be mostly reproducible on a real board.
Although I
Although I
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found it revelatory that Bolaño was a gaming enthusiast (he had to be, considering this novel), and that he could capture so well the mix of dedication and embarrassment that is so prevalent in the hobby, this is not one of the main strengths of his novel. The Third Reich is even better as an exploration of our relationship with violence and authoritarianism, even in our most seemingly trivial acts. As is usual with Bolaño, this intense exploration implies going down a descending spiral into darkness; there seems to be little happening in the surface, but the nightmares lurk beneath. Great characters, powerful images. Show Less
LibraryThing member espadana
Not long after finishing the impressive "The Savage Detectives", yesterday I finished reading "The Third Reich", Roberto Bolaño's posthumous book that was launched this year.
The book was written in 1989 (therefore prior to "...Detectives" and to the monumental "2666", his last oeuvre), but it is
The story starts slow, intentionally mimicking the apparent boredom of the Costa Brva town where the action takes place, but everything soon builds up to a tense, suffocation and surreal psychological tale of war, politics, love, literature, and everything else we came to find and love in Bolaño's works.
The book was written in 1989 (therefore prior to "...Detectives" and to the monumental "2666", his last oeuvre), but it is
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possible to see in it the unique characteristics of Bolaño's mastery - the literary references, the unforgettable characters, the total domain of writing and narrative.The story starts slow, intentionally mimicking the apparent boredom of the Costa Brva town where the action takes place, but everything soon builds up to a tense, suffocation and surreal psychological tale of war, politics, love, literature, and everything else we came to find and love in Bolaño's works.
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LibraryThing member byebyelibrary
This is a book so strange, yet conventional, yet transcendent. Bolano has a strange motif of Germany and Germans running through all of his works. This book is the apex of this motif, a brilliant sort of death and rebirth in Del Mar. I am baffled by those who call this a throwaway, published only
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of the strength of Bolano's other masterpieces. This work stands alone and is arguably Bolano's most hopeful and optimistic vision. Show Less
LibraryThing member iffland
Somehow weird and kafkaesk - I had this constant feeling of there being a secret message hidden message that I just didn´t get. Also had the constant feeling that the protagonist just not behaves like he should regarding his age. Mixed feelings overall!
Language
Original language
Spanish
Original publication date
2010 (original Spanish)
2011 (English: Wimmer)
Physical description
19 cm
ISBN
9783596187867