Status
Available
Call number
Genres
Publication
Stockholm : Tranan, 2009
Description
As through a crack in the wall,By Night in Chile's single night-long rant provides a terrifying, clandestine view of the strange bedfellows of Church and State in Chile. This wild, eerily compact novel--Roberto Bolano's first work available in English--recounts the tale of a poor boy who wanted to be a poet, but ends up a half-hearted Jesuit priest and a conservative literary critic, a sort of lap dog to the rich and powerful cultural elite, in whose villas he encounters Pablo Neruda and Ernst Junger. Father Urrutia is offered a tour of Europe by agents of Opus Dei (to study "the disintegration of the churches," a journey into realms of the surreal); and ensnared by this plum, he is next assigned--after the destruction of Allende--the secret, never-to-be-disclosed job of teaching Pinochet, at night, all about Marxism, so the junta generals can know their enemy. Soon, searingly, his memories go from bad to worse. Heart-stopping and hypnotic,By Night in Chile marks the American debut of an astonishing writer.… (more)
Media reviews
Det finns mycket mer att säga om Roberto Bolaño. [...] Att läsa honom är som att sömnlös i natten vrida på radions AM-band och höra röster, städer, kontinenter lysa upp i mörkret och åter försvinna.
Det finns överhuvudtaget mycket symbolik och allegori i denna korta roman. Men bilderna är så verkningsfulla och melankoliskt sköna att de inte alls tynger prosan så som symboler ofta brukar göra.
User reviews
LibraryThing member John
Some reviewers complain that although short (130 pages), there is only one paragraph break (and I couldn’t even find that on a quick scan!) with some sentences running on for pages, but I found the rhythm easy to get into and it reflects what memory is: a flow of images and thoughts that are
The novel, the death-bed reminiscences of Father Sebastian Lacroix (a poet and well-known literary critic) occur in Chile (and partly in Europe) pre-Allende, Allende, and post-Allende under Pinochet. The leitmotif is set on the very first page. Father Lacroix rummages around in his memory to “belie the slanderous rumors” that a “wizened youth” spread to sully the good Father’s name. As Father Lacroix muses: “One has to be responsible, as I have always said. One has a moral obligation to take responsibility for one’s actions, and that includes one’s words and silences, yes, one’s silences, because silences rise to heaven too, and God hears them, and only God understands and judges them, so one must be very careful with one’s silences. I am responsible in every way. My silences are immaculate. Let me make that clear.” But are they? Is he complicit in evil by his silence?
Even the good Father knows his silences may not be “immaculate” as he sifts through memories and asks himself: “Is it always possible for a man to know what is good and what is bad?” And then the old rationalization that even those who pride themselves on intelligence and culture fall back on: “we all knew that something had to be done, that certain things were necessary, there’s a time for sacrifice and a time for thinking reasonably.” Can a person always recognize a moral choice when the situation presents itself and can he/she make the right decision, always recognizing that doing nothing, staying silent is, in itself, a decision and one of the worst kind? What about the other kind of silence: of suspecting or knowing just enough to know that one does not wish to probe, to know further because that might force a moral choice? These are some of the issues that Bolano explores and in doing so, he spares no one: not the intellectuals who think themselves above plebian concerns but who turn a blind eye to moral involvement in order to preserve their intellectual rigour and detachment; not the church which he pillories with a brilliant parody on death by falcons to control pigeons; not the politicians and military who jostle for power regardless of the human toll, precisely because “the other” is not human and must be eliminated to crush opposition, however defined.
Still, Bolano does not completely despair: “Chile itself, the whole country, had become the Judas Tree, a leafless, dead-looking tree, but still deeply rooted in the black earth, our rich black earth with its famous 40-centimetre earthworms.” So, renewal is possible, because the earth is strong, but how is the tree to grow and be shaped as it is through the actions and inactions of men and women? There is no answer. This is life.
In the final touch, the good Father realizes that he is the wizened youth, “whose cries no one can hear”. The cries are the actions and silences that Father Lacroix must now acknowledge in assessing his life and his engagement and, as the final line of the novel says: “And then the storm of shit begins.”
A book that impresses me more and more as I think about it. Definitely recommended.
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sometimes clear and other times murky, musings, certainties, questions, doubts, self-doubt; the reconstruction of past feelings and events is as varied as the participants and often equally so within the memory of a single person; none of us remember perfectly (in fact, such a thing does not exist) and there is always the tendency to forget or smooth-over or deny embarrassing or weak moments, however much we may wish to fool ourselves.The novel, the death-bed reminiscences of Father Sebastian Lacroix (a poet and well-known literary critic) occur in Chile (and partly in Europe) pre-Allende, Allende, and post-Allende under Pinochet. The leitmotif is set on the very first page. Father Lacroix rummages around in his memory to “belie the slanderous rumors” that a “wizened youth” spread to sully the good Father’s name. As Father Lacroix muses: “One has to be responsible, as I have always said. One has a moral obligation to take responsibility for one’s actions, and that includes one’s words and silences, yes, one’s silences, because silences rise to heaven too, and God hears them, and only God understands and judges them, so one must be very careful with one’s silences. I am responsible in every way. My silences are immaculate. Let me make that clear.” But are they? Is he complicit in evil by his silence?
Even the good Father knows his silences may not be “immaculate” as he sifts through memories and asks himself: “Is it always possible for a man to know what is good and what is bad?” And then the old rationalization that even those who pride themselves on intelligence and culture fall back on: “we all knew that something had to be done, that certain things were necessary, there’s a time for sacrifice and a time for thinking reasonably.” Can a person always recognize a moral choice when the situation presents itself and can he/she make the right decision, always recognizing that doing nothing, staying silent is, in itself, a decision and one of the worst kind? What about the other kind of silence: of suspecting or knowing just enough to know that one does not wish to probe, to know further because that might force a moral choice? These are some of the issues that Bolano explores and in doing so, he spares no one: not the intellectuals who think themselves above plebian concerns but who turn a blind eye to moral involvement in order to preserve their intellectual rigour and detachment; not the church which he pillories with a brilliant parody on death by falcons to control pigeons; not the politicians and military who jostle for power regardless of the human toll, precisely because “the other” is not human and must be eliminated to crush opposition, however defined.
Still, Bolano does not completely despair: “Chile itself, the whole country, had become the Judas Tree, a leafless, dead-looking tree, but still deeply rooted in the black earth, our rich black earth with its famous 40-centimetre earthworms.” So, renewal is possible, because the earth is strong, but how is the tree to grow and be shaped as it is through the actions and inactions of men and women? There is no answer. This is life.
In the final touch, the good Father realizes that he is the wizened youth, “whose cries no one can hear”. The cries are the actions and silences that Father Lacroix must now acknowledge in assessing his life and his engagement and, as the final line of the novel says: “And then the storm of shit begins.”
A book that impresses me more and more as I think about it. Definitely recommended.
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LibraryThing member browner56
Sebastian Urrutia Lacroix, a failed priest, literary critic, and occasional poet, is dying. In a long and rambling deathbed confession, Urrutia looks back over the achievements and shortcomings in his life with an increasingly shaky grasp of reality. His memories, which range from the specific
Although brief in length, this is a deceptively complex novel. It can be read as either a straightforward tale of one man’s final thoughts before passing away or as an allegorical and political history of the author’s native land of Chile. It is no secret that Bolaño’s sentiments ran contrary to those of the military dictatorship that controlled the country for many years—in fact, he spent time in jail under the Pinochet regime—and that attitutde of dissent is evident throughout the entire book. However, the story can also be seen as an indictment of the community of Chilean artists and writers that turned a blind eye toward the repression happening around them at that terrible time.
‘By Night in Chile’ is not as well known nor as well received as the author’s longer works of fiction (‘The Savage Detectives’, ‘2666’), but that should not dissuade potential readers. Bolaño was a marvelous writer and his talents for stylistic innovation (e.g., the entire story is essentially told in a single paragraph stretching to more than 100 pages) and insights into social conventions and human nature are on full display here. His prose is at once challenging, thought provoking, and profoundly moving, which is a most generous reward for the effort it takes to read it.
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(meetings with Pablo Neruda, teaching Marxist philosophy to Augusto Pinochet) to the absurd (engaging in falconry with European clergymen), come tumbling out in a stream-of-consciousness style as his end draws nearer. Throughout the narrative, Urrutia takes a decidedly defensive tone as he attempts to justify his actions to the unseen “wizened youth” who sits in judgment.Although brief in length, this is a deceptively complex novel. It can be read as either a straightforward tale of one man’s final thoughts before passing away or as an allegorical and political history of the author’s native land of Chile. It is no secret that Bolaño’s sentiments ran contrary to those of the military dictatorship that controlled the country for many years—in fact, he spent time in jail under the Pinochet regime—and that attitutde of dissent is evident throughout the entire book. However, the story can also be seen as an indictment of the community of Chilean artists and writers that turned a blind eye toward the repression happening around them at that terrible time.
‘By Night in Chile’ is not as well known nor as well received as the author’s longer works of fiction (‘The Savage Detectives’, ‘2666’), but that should not dissuade potential readers. Bolaño was a marvelous writer and his talents for stylistic innovation (e.g., the entire story is essentially told in a single paragraph stretching to more than 100 pages) and insights into social conventions and human nature are on full display here. His prose is at once challenging, thought provoking, and profoundly moving, which is a most generous reward for the effort it takes to read it.
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LibraryThing member poetontheone
Though far shorter than my first encounter with Bolaño, The Savage Detectives, this novella typifies his thematic preoccupations: the fragile sinews that join the literary and the political, the apprehensive nature and mood of memory, and the bizarre events materialized in strained political
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climates. There is something to Bolaño's work, tonality perhaps, that is so decidedly steeped in the tradition of the Latin American novel. However, he also exceeds it. The beginning of the novel, WHere Urrutia travels to Farewell's estate, appropriately named La Bas after the novel by Huysmans, possesses a decidedly Decadent mood that the book never fully shakes off. This book is a bit haunted, but by what? The hypocrisies of the Church? The blood on the boots of Pinochet? Above all, by the fear of transformation. A fear inspired by the knowledge that as we live the world moves and churns outside us indifferent to our wants and despite our protest, and when we die it moves beyond us, and all that remains is a series of soft impressions that we utter or pen down, trying to situate our small incision in the fabric of history. That is what this novella captures, with exactitude and seamless grace. Show Less
LibraryThing member soylentgreen23
In '2666' Bolano mentions an exchange with a reader of books - maybe a pharmacist by trade, I can't remember - who lists his favourite books as the shorter works of great writers, and Bolano wonders what has happened to the courage of the novel reader (in general) in preferring the shorter, more
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carefully crafted works to the sprawling epics - 'Bartleby' instead of 'Moby Dick' and so on. So really I should prefer '2666' to 'By Night In Chile', and I do, but only because there's more of Bolano's scintillating writing in the former; this book still contains everything I could possibly ask of a novel, sucking me in as it did with the very first page and spitting me out, a changed man, at the end. 'By Night In Chile' might only last two paragraphs, and run to only 130 pages, but it is as involved and involving as any great novel, and I'm so, so glad that I troubled myself to read it. Show Less
LibraryThing member labfs39
Father Urrutia Lacroix is on his deathbed, confronting the "wizened youth" of his idealistic younger self, and ranting in a semi-confessional, desultory style that runs the entire book without pause. He relates his desire to write poetry and how that brought him into the circle of literary critic,
By Night in Chile is a stinging indictment of the literary elite and their role as bystanders, if not contributors, to the terror that permeated Chile under Pinochet. Replete with references to literary figures ranging from Dante to Ernst Jünger, as well as Chilean historical personages, the novel is best read with easy access to the Internet. Bolaño also condemns the Catholic Church for being "the well in which the sins of Chile sink without a trace." His imagery of the priests of Europe using falcons to bring down the pigeons and even doves of the people they supposedly guide is chilling. In addition to it's intellectual interest, the novel is wonderfully written with lines that are both concise and illustrative. Impressive.
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Farewell, where he met many illustrious members of the literary intelligentsia, including Neruda. But Urrutia remained on the outside and eventually fell into a despondency broken only by an offer from two shady members of Opus Dei to travel Europe investigating ways to preserve the integrity of the Church. Upon his return he is drawn into a complicit relationship with the Chilean military junta, until he even he finds it hard to justify his actions.By Night in Chile is a stinging indictment of the literary elite and their role as bystanders, if not contributors, to the terror that permeated Chile under Pinochet. Replete with references to literary figures ranging from Dante to Ernst Jünger, as well as Chilean historical personages, the novel is best read with easy access to the Internet. Bolaño also condemns the Catholic Church for being "the well in which the sins of Chile sink without a trace." His imagery of the priests of Europe using falcons to bring down the pigeons and even doves of the people they supposedly guide is chilling. In addition to it's intellectual interest, the novel is wonderfully written with lines that are both concise and illustrative. Impressive.
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LibraryThing member FicusFan
The recap of this book sounded interesting. A dissolute and half-hearted priest is recounting his life and transgressions on his deathbed, a confession. He is Chilean and the book is set during the time of Allende and Pinochet. He hob-knobs with the great and the powerful, rather than taking on
The priest, Father Urrutia, is more a priest because he needs a clean day job and doesn't know what else to do, than through any calling or belief in God. He is attracted to literature as a writer and a critic. He is from the pampered upper class and has no real concern for the poor or those who are not in his artistic circle.
Unfortunately, the book is rather bland and bloodless. I don't really care about the priest, and I am neither interested nor horrified by his acts of omission and commission.
It is a very short book, but very badly written. Its a translation so I am not sure who is to blame. But it is almost 1 sentence that is 130 pages long. I am serious, there is very little punctuation. Perhaps that is why there is a distance to the events and people in the book.
The story is more of an excuse for his life and the choices he made, rather than a confession. He really isn't sorry. It is a musing on the life he lead and an attempt to justify himself. He was fine with working for the corrupt and the powerful, as long as his goals were met. He appears not to be a literary giant, and he knows it, so he settles for fame as a critic. He is aware that it gives him power to uplift or to crush others, especially those new to the literary scene.
The corrupt dictators also have the power to crush life, but Urrutia is oblivious to that aspect. He seeks out power and wants attention and will take it where he can find it. The implication is that he will even pander sexually to get what he wants.
It was short so it wasn't hard to read, and perhaps there is more than I am getting, but I thought it was a very average book.
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pastoral duties.The priest, Father Urrutia, is more a priest because he needs a clean day job and doesn't know what else to do, than through any calling or belief in God. He is attracted to literature as a writer and a critic. He is from the pampered upper class and has no real concern for the poor or those who are not in his artistic circle.
Unfortunately, the book is rather bland and bloodless. I don't really care about the priest, and I am neither interested nor horrified by his acts of omission and commission.
It is a very short book, but very badly written. Its a translation so I am not sure who is to blame. But it is almost 1 sentence that is 130 pages long. I am serious, there is very little punctuation. Perhaps that is why there is a distance to the events and people in the book.
The story is more of an excuse for his life and the choices he made, rather than a confession. He really isn't sorry. It is a musing on the life he lead and an attempt to justify himself. He was fine with working for the corrupt and the powerful, as long as his goals were met. He appears not to be a literary giant, and he knows it, so he settles for fame as a critic. He is aware that it gives him power to uplift or to crush others, especially those new to the literary scene.
The corrupt dictators also have the power to crush life, but Urrutia is oblivious to that aspect. He seeks out power and wants attention and will take it where he can find it. The implication is that he will even pander sexually to get what he wants.
It was short so it wasn't hard to read, and perhaps there is more than I am getting, but I thought it was a very average book.
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LibraryThing member donato
I'm giving this 3 stars even though I don't feel that I can properly review it. This book must be read in one sitting. It just has to be.
And I didn't (read it in one sitting).
It has no chapters, no section breaks, no paragraphs. It's just one long monologue.
I don't think I quite caught what it was
I'll get back to you when I've re-read it properly....
And I didn't (read it in one sitting).
It has no chapters, no section breaks, no paragraphs. It's just one long monologue.
I don't think I quite caught what it was
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about, thought it's certainly not about one thing. Chile, literature, heroism, honesty...?I'll get back to you when I've re-read it properly....
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LibraryThing member meggyweg
Meh. This book was just Not For Me. The writing style had the trifecta of things I hate: no plot, sentences that ran on for pages, and no paragraph breaks at all. Roberto Bolano is supposed to be the greatest Latin American writer since sliced bread. I'll take their word for it. I'm just glad the
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book wasn't any longer than it was, or I would not have finished it. Show Less
LibraryThing member Voise15
An elegantly written 'death-bed' confession, full of allegory and innuendo - exploring the tension between silence and complicity in Pinochet's Chilean regime - within the life of priest and sometime poet / literary critic Father Sebastian Urrutia Lacroix, but also the relationship between artists,
Bolano's playful spirit shines through although this is a serious and thoughtful novel - I particularly enjoyed the Father's accounts of his visits (or not, as he recalls!) to the soirees of Maria Canales.
The somewhat esoteric form of the novel (a single paragraph of 130 pages and a final paragraph of one line) appears at first glance to be intimidating, but as commented by other reviewers, the wonderful rhythmic style of Bolano makes this a pleasure to read.
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the intelligensia and authority generally.Bolano's playful spirit shines through although this is a serious and thoughtful novel - I particularly enjoyed the Father's accounts of his visits (or not, as he recalls!) to the soirees of Maria Canales.
The somewhat esoteric form of the novel (a single paragraph of 130 pages and a final paragraph of one line) appears at first glance to be intimidating, but as commented by other reviewers, the wonderful rhythmic style of Bolano makes this a pleasure to read.
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LibraryThing member Isgodchekhov
Sordel, Sordello, Which Sordello?
Having heard much about the deceased-mega-hyped-Chilean-novelist works, but having yet to read them, I started with his 2000 New Directions published By Night In Chile. Of his oeuvre at the time of this posting eight have been translated into English, and New
Bolano is known for populating his works with actual (and thinly veiled hypothetical) historical and literary figures. By Night and Chile can lay claim as having Pinochet and Nobel prize winning Chilean poet Pablo Neruda as characters (with speaking parts).
It is a first person account, confessional-memoir of one Sebastian Urrutia Lacroix, aka Father Urrutia. A now old Jesuit Priest slash poet who we learn on his deathbed is compelled to “clear up a couple of points” of his life. He does so in a single paragraph or stanza, at times dreamlike, almost always lyrical. (he can do this, he’s a poet after all). In Father Urrutia’s account there are six flashbacks, scenes or slices of time in which form the novels’ chronological structure. We are reliant on the lucidity of his memory, as he “tries to penetrate the phantasmagoric folds of time”. What becomes apparent, immediately, is the reader must treat his tale as an implied poem, or literary work, NOT a report of events. Secondly, he is old and his “memory” waivers in its detail and style suiting Bolano’s purpose perfectly, as his narrator is given a long leash to vary the language from the surreal to the limpid, and since thematically we are examining the relationships of literature/literati vs the state and religion in a culture he has masterfully wielded his form to his function.
Besides our narrator, the second most important character is Father Farewell. We are told Farewell is Chile’s most important literary critic, who just by coincidence is ALSO a Jesuit Priest. Farewell acts as a mentor and sounding board for our narrator and a friend of significant Chilean writers (Neruda spends time at his digs). The first section takes place at Farewell’s estate, La Bas, (significantly the name of a novel by the Fin de siècle writer Karl Huysmans). To the background of a haunting tango, there is a bacchanalian scene on the terrace, where the iconic Neruda is spied by the younger narrator chanting to the moon. Farewell drunkenly asks the younger Urrutia if he is familiar with the “role of night” in the Italian Troubadour poets, particularly Sordel de Goit (or) Sordello Da Goito as sometimes known. He chants, Sordel, Sordello, which Sordello? Dante’s Sordello? (he figured in the Purgatory section of The Divine Comedy) Pound’s Sordello? (referenced in the Cantos) or Sordello’s own planh (funeral lament) on the death of his patron, Blacatz? He could be seen as a either the unprincipled historical figure, or Dante’s Sordello, a moral voice of his country. This “confession” parallels Dante’s Sordello, who was prevented from confessing and reconciliation by sudden death.
This drunken Sordello riff frames a theme of the novel, and prefigures later scenes that explore the role of the literati, the intelligentsia and their place in one’s country. This early epiphany also sets in motion the young priest Urrutia’s quest to become a “storyteller”(poet). But we also see that he is impressionable, and maleable, and readerly sympathies with him are cast in doubt.
This novel is layered with images, allusions and symbols. On second reading, I decided it is as a whole a lot more allegorical than at first glance. Motifs that Urrutia/Bolano works in the text. Birds and more birds, (yes those are pigeons in day glow orange on the novel’s cover page).
Urrutia is early on referred to as a fledgling, Farewell is frequently seen having qualities of the falcon. The voice of the popes are referred to the sound “distant screeching of a flock of birds”. There even an insinuated corrupt “Trinity” Poet/Church (Dogma)/ State, but Urrutia asks, does it matter, as long as you are bored, and turn your back on the ugliness:
Sooner or later, everyone would get their share of power again. The right, the center, the left, one big happy family…sometimes at night, I would sit on a chair in the dark and ask myself what difference there was between fascist and rebel. Just a pair of words. Two words, that’s all. And sometimes, either one will do!
I will resist going further into depth here so as to avoid plot spoilers, but would be happy to discuss my notes in the “Comments”
Following the Don Salvador and Opus Dei sections, our judgement and sympathies for our narrator/hero(?) is further questioned when Urrutia in cloak and dagger fashion is solicited and accepts tutoring the illustrious Pinochet junta in Marxism.There is then the question of betrayal. Urrutia needs the assurance of Farewell to measure whether he was right in helping the junta. If one has no moral alignment, no true loyalties, or rather, if the powers are not clear cut, undefined, can there be such thing as betrayal?
Who or where, are the patriots? Can there be “patriotism”?
Sordel, Sordello, which Sordello? Indeed
You will have to read By Night and Chile and decide for yourself.
Having heard much about the deceased-mega-hyped-Chilean-novelist works, but having yet to read them, I started with his 2000 New Directions published By Night In Chile. Of his oeuvre at the time of this posting eight have been translated into English, and New
Show More
Directions has plans for at least 6 more titles.Bolano is known for populating his works with actual (and thinly veiled hypothetical) historical and literary figures. By Night and Chile can lay claim as having Pinochet and Nobel prize winning Chilean poet Pablo Neruda as characters (with speaking parts).
It is a first person account, confessional-memoir of one Sebastian Urrutia Lacroix, aka Father Urrutia. A now old Jesuit Priest slash poet who we learn on his deathbed is compelled to “clear up a couple of points” of his life. He does so in a single paragraph or stanza, at times dreamlike, almost always lyrical. (he can do this, he’s a poet after all). In Father Urrutia’s account there are six flashbacks, scenes or slices of time in which form the novels’ chronological structure. We are reliant on the lucidity of his memory, as he “tries to penetrate the phantasmagoric folds of time”. What becomes apparent, immediately, is the reader must treat his tale as an implied poem, or literary work, NOT a report of events. Secondly, he is old and his “memory” waivers in its detail and style suiting Bolano’s purpose perfectly, as his narrator is given a long leash to vary the language from the surreal to the limpid, and since thematically we are examining the relationships of literature/literati vs the state and religion in a culture he has masterfully wielded his form to his function.
Besides our narrator, the second most important character is Father Farewell. We are told Farewell is Chile’s most important literary critic, who just by coincidence is ALSO a Jesuit Priest. Farewell acts as a mentor and sounding board for our narrator and a friend of significant Chilean writers (Neruda spends time at his digs). The first section takes place at Farewell’s estate, La Bas, (significantly the name of a novel by the Fin de siècle writer Karl Huysmans). To the background of a haunting tango, there is a bacchanalian scene on the terrace, where the iconic Neruda is spied by the younger narrator chanting to the moon. Farewell drunkenly asks the younger Urrutia if he is familiar with the “role of night” in the Italian Troubadour poets, particularly Sordel de Goit (or) Sordello Da Goito as sometimes known. He chants, Sordel, Sordello, which Sordello? Dante’s Sordello? (he figured in the Purgatory section of The Divine Comedy) Pound’s Sordello? (referenced in the Cantos) or Sordello’s own planh (funeral lament) on the death of his patron, Blacatz? He could be seen as a either the unprincipled historical figure, or Dante’s Sordello, a moral voice of his country. This “confession” parallels Dante’s Sordello, who was prevented from confessing and reconciliation by sudden death.
This drunken Sordello riff frames a theme of the novel, and prefigures later scenes that explore the role of the literati, the intelligentsia and their place in one’s country. This early epiphany also sets in motion the young priest Urrutia’s quest to become a “storyteller”(poet). But we also see that he is impressionable, and maleable, and readerly sympathies with him are cast in doubt.
This novel is layered with images, allusions and symbols. On second reading, I decided it is as a whole a lot more allegorical than at first glance. Motifs that Urrutia/Bolano works in the text. Birds and more birds, (yes those are pigeons in day glow orange on the novel’s cover page).
Urrutia is early on referred to as a fledgling, Farewell is frequently seen having qualities of the falcon. The voice of the popes are referred to the sound “distant screeching of a flock of birds”. There even an insinuated corrupt “Trinity” Poet/Church (Dogma)/ State, but Urrutia asks, does it matter, as long as you are bored, and turn your back on the ugliness:
Sooner or later, everyone would get their share of power again. The right, the center, the left, one big happy family…sometimes at night, I would sit on a chair in the dark and ask myself what difference there was between fascist and rebel. Just a pair of words. Two words, that’s all. And sometimes, either one will do!
I will resist going further into depth here so as to avoid plot spoilers, but would be happy to discuss my notes in the “Comments”
Following the Don Salvador and Opus Dei sections, our judgement and sympathies for our narrator/hero(?) is further questioned when Urrutia in cloak and dagger fashion is solicited and accepts tutoring the illustrious Pinochet junta in Marxism.There is then the question of betrayal. Urrutia needs the assurance of Farewell to measure whether he was right in helping the junta. If one has no moral alignment, no true loyalties, or rather, if the powers are not clear cut, undefined, can there be such thing as betrayal?
Who or where, are the patriots? Can there be “patriotism”?
Sordel, Sordello, which Sordello? Indeed
You will have to read By Night and Chile and decide for yourself.
Show Less
LibraryThing member ChazzW
Bolano’s slim novel takes the form of a deathbed confession of a Catholic priest, one Father Urrutia. Although by ‘calling’, a priest, Urrutia is by ‘profession’ a writer and literary critic. The historical context is the period from the rise and fall of Allende to the assumption of power
There is one pointed and powerful metaphor that is drawn toward the end of the novel. Urrutia is part of a literary salon that meets several times a week at the home of a Maria Canales. The talk is of the theater, poetry, literature and all of the arts. Meanwhile, as we later find out, the basement of the house is used as an interrogation chamber for enemies of the state by her husband Jimmy Thompson, a sort of shadow CIA operative.
Unfortunately, this one very vivid metaphor does not a compelling novel make. I found it somewhat muddled and lifeless - strangely without much impact.
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by Pinochet and his Generals. The crucial polemic of Bolano’s text is the collaboration - either active or passive - between the elite literati, the clergy and the repressive regime.There is one pointed and powerful metaphor that is drawn toward the end of the novel. Urrutia is part of a literary salon that meets several times a week at the home of a Maria Canales. The talk is of the theater, poetry, literature and all of the arts. Meanwhile, as we later find out, the basement of the house is used as an interrogation chamber for enemies of the state by her husband Jimmy Thompson, a sort of shadow CIA operative.
Unfortunately, this one very vivid metaphor does not a compelling novel make. I found it somewhat muddled and lifeless - strangely without much impact.
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LibraryThing member FPdC
When I picked up this one hundred and fifty pages long book I thought I was in for a tough reading experience: after all the fact that it had only two paragraphs (one of which is one hundred and forty nine pages long...) did suggest a dense piece of literature. But appearences are indeed
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misleading: it is a very easy to read (although not light), very interesting book. Its main character, an ailing chilean priest and literary critic, indulges in an extensive one night monologue remembering aspects of his life (some pretty bizarre ones, such as when he gave a set of lectures on marxism to Pinochet's Junta) and pondering on the meening of it all. A fast, febrile, writing. An excelend book by one of the most important contemporary latin american writers. Show Less
LibraryThing member PaulBerauer
This book is the deathbed confession of a priest in Chile, during the years surrounding the Allende presidency. The priest is as much of a literary figure as a religious one, and his confession follows his life as a critic and a priest in Opus Dei. It is his job as a critic however, where most of
Overall a good book, and a good introduction to Roberto Bolano, though a little less blood-filled and sex-filled than most of his books.
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the focus is one. The priest spends his time meeting the rich and powerful and it is these activities that preoccupy the priest in his last days. Overall a good book, and a good introduction to Roberto Bolano, though a little less blood-filled and sex-filled than most of his books.
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LibraryThing member joshberg
Some sections of this novel really grabbed me, while others left me too easily distracted. Part of this I chalk up to my own indiscipline, part to the demands of the book: the whole thing is a single paragraph, and many sentences are several pages long. But the writing is elegant and the
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conceit--the monologue of a dying Chilean priest/literary critic lamenting his quiet complicity with the Pinochet government--is arresting. To better appreciate the narrative's temporal unity, I'd read the whole book in one sitting if I had it to do over again--it's slim at 130 pages, and reads fairly quickly once one finds its rhythm. Strong final sentence: "And then the storm of shit begins." Show Less
LibraryThing member PaulDalton
This book has been deservedly praised. Bolano has fashioned a subtle and allusive narrative,beautiful rendered in one long hypnotic monologue, in which Father Sebastian Urrutia Lacroix relates from his death bed the acts and the omissions that led to his never-quite-intended acquiesence with the
'....my cassock flapping in the wind, my cassock like a shadow, my black flag, my prim and proper music, clean, dark cloth, a well in which the sins of Chile sank without a trace' (p.60, NDP975)
Many thanks to Chris Andrews, who coincindentally grew up as I did in Newcastle New South Wales, for the translation of this book. It was the first of Roberto Bolano's works to appear in English.
I will be reading more Bolano. Next stop either the Savage Detectives or Last Evenings on Earth.
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crimes of the military junta. '....my cassock flapping in the wind, my cassock like a shadow, my black flag, my prim and proper music, clean, dark cloth, a well in which the sins of Chile sank without a trace' (p.60, NDP975)
Many thanks to Chris Andrews, who coincindentally grew up as I did in Newcastle New South Wales, for the translation of this book. It was the first of Roberto Bolano's works to appear in English.
I will be reading more Bolano. Next stop either the Savage Detectives or Last Evenings on Earth.
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LibraryThing member o_nate
An odd but ultimately compelling revery, with vivid images & dreamlike logic. Not everything works, but enough does.
LibraryThing member theageofsilt
An almost surreal account of a priest who becomes complicit in the period of repression of human rights during the Pinochet regime. It has always been of interest to me how seemingly "civilized" cultures of Latin America which produce great writers and thinkers suddenly plunge into savage violence.
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This has occurred in Chile, Argentina, Brazil and Paraguay. The novel addresses the mentality that accommodates and justifies totalitarianism. Show Less
LibraryThing member bookomaniac
Things will never work out between Bolano and me. I do recognize his writing talent, his enormous erudition and his creative handling of literary legacies. This short story certainly proves that. It is a retrospective of a Chilean Opus Dei priest on his deathbed, a long, messy last breath so to
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speak, actually 1 paragraph written in stream-of-consciousness, mainly focusing on the literary world of Chile (Bolano's homeland). Bolano juggles with covert and overt references, in an endless stream of memories and stories, which mainly expose the hypocrisy of the Chilean elite (including literati), even dictator Pinochet appears briefly on the scene. Absolutely relevant, this satire. This is he kind of book that certainly can blow you away, but to me its trance-like narrative style and the messy accumulation of story elements are a bit too excessive to really stick. Show Less
LibraryThing member KrisR
In Bolaño's stream of consciousness narrative, he presents the deathbed confessions of Father Sebastián Urrutia Lacroix, a Jesuit in Chile who also wrote as a literary critic and a poet. Through a spellbinding combination of feverish memories and anecdotes, dreams and nightmares recalled, and
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desperate justifications of past actions and inaction, Father Sebastián leads the reader through an evocative and disturbing picture of life and art in Pinochet's Chile. I found the novel mesmerizing. In one long paragraph, Bolaño moves deftly through Father Sebastián's life, using the priest's fears about his own choices and actions as a means to point an accusing finger at the Chilean literati, at modern society in Europe and the Americas, at all of us. Show Less
LibraryThing member librarianbryan
Did I like this book? Sure, I liked it, but it was still a major let down. Reading The Savage Detectives and 2666 first, this one was a little slight. I can see how it would have made a splash though when it was first translated. No one writes like Bolano. He deserves the praise. I didn't feel like
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I learned anything from this book, but perhaps he was not writing this book for me. Perhaps he was writing it for someone else, an accusation against someone else, like a prayer into space. Show Less
LibraryThing member TomMcGreevy
As riveting as a conscious descent into dementia can be ... stream of consciousness musings on a life lived under strict self-control, the facade of order falling away as death nears.
LibraryThing member proustitute
In this slim book, Bolaño manages to attack everything from the literati to religion, from politics to dissident desires, from memory and its unreliability to flat-out fabrications and historical inconsistencies.
The narrative voice here is really the technical vehicle that navigates the reader,
The narrative voice here is really the technical vehicle that navigates the reader,
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and it's at this that Bolaño succeeds in such a wonderfully brilliant and uncharted way. While at times reminiscent of Dostoevsky's Underground Man or Camus's Clamence, or perhaps the comparison is solely rooted in the motif of confession, Bolaño's Urrutia is a literary, religious, political, and existential crisis all his own. Show Less
LibraryThing member b.masonjudy
Bolano's novel is entirely retrospective, told from the point of view of a Catholic priest as he ruminates on his life as a poet and critic in Chile. It was an interesting structural choice although I found the constant second guessing of the narrator, due to the faults of memory, to be a bit
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grating after a while. The theme of literary immortality reoccurs and Bolano includes some tales throughout the novel, told to the narrator to reinforce the way in which all efforts are temporal even those accomplished with the most high-minded aspirations. I can't say I was too taken with the book on a whole but the narrator's opinions and classical education made this a more rigorous read than I expected. Show Less
LibraryThing member jonfaith
There are a pair of immediate observations concerning By Night in Chile. The first involvees its lyrical quality; this is more a cycle of poems than mere standard novella. Episodes unfold and the focus clips along back to the Narrator, who isn't as unreliable as I first guessed. The second acute
Confining itself to the Gothic whsiper, By Night in Chile does echo in one trope. There's certainly depth and poetic violence; what I think seperates Bolano is the imaginary bibliography; that Borgesian codex of spectral works which exist in world just so close yet distant from our own dusty trevails.
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sense from the book is one of dread. There are a number of darkened hallways, closed doors, and isolated hilltops in the book. One gathers gradually that it isn't sage to look around too closely.Confining itself to the Gothic whsiper, By Night in Chile does echo in one trope. There's certainly depth and poetic violence; what I think seperates Bolano is the imaginary bibliography; that Borgesian codex of spectral works which exist in world just so close yet distant from our own dusty trevails.
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LibraryThing member pessoanongrata
His best? Not sure yet. It's certainly the funniest work I've read of his. There are some great comical scenes of the Father teaching Pinochet and his generals the basics of Marxism, as well as a dead-stop hilarious discussion of the merits and uses of literature between the Father and his literary
I kick myself for not having the energy or focus to soak up more spanish and read him unfiltered...
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critic friend, Farewell. His genius, I believe, is weaving this tragicomedy into the brief, recollected life. I was expecting to be annoyed by the deathbed flaneur conceit, but very early in the story I bought into the epic sentence 'confessions'...it worked, somehow. One expects this to be a thousand pages long, but he gives us only a fraction of the shit story, one hundred and thirty or so. I also like that he doesn't emphasize his anti style; in other words his style of writing reads as if he doesn't give a shit about style. But of course he does. I think. I kick myself for not having the energy or focus to soak up more spanish and read him unfiltered...
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Language
Original language
Spanish
Original publication date
2000 (original Spanish)
2003 (English: Andrews)
Physical description
149 p.; 20 cm
ISBN
9789185133970