2666: The Part About the Critics

by Roberto Bolaño

Seeing as this book is so long and dense, I thought it would be better to record my thoughts on each of the five individual sections that comprise Bolaño's last novel.

"The Part About the Critics" tells us of four literary critics - three professors, one each from France, Spain, and Italy, and an adjunct professor from England (and the only female in the bunch) who are the world's preeminent experts on the writing of Benno von Archimboldi, a post-war German author of middling fame. These four, who become friends, and eventually, some of them, lovers, regularly meet at various academic conferences and literary symposia, and their friendship becomes stronger through the course of this part of the book.

Norton, the female Archimboldist, holds great power over the others. She becomes the lover of Pelletier, the French Archimboldist, and then Espinoza, the Spanish one. Morini, who suffers a degenerative illness, is often left out of their dramas, as the two other professors both compete and attempt to share her.

As the book progresses, they receive some reports that Archimboldi may be in Sonoro Mexico. The three able-bodied friends travel there to hunt for him.

This opening section contains much of what made me enjoy Bolaño's "The Savage Detectives". He suffuses the book with mystery, while telling what appears on the surface to be a rather bland story. The professors talk for pages, have vivid dreams usually involving water, and generally feel superior to anyone not as well read as they are.

I have enjoyed the beginning of this book, and look forward to the next section, which looks to be about Amalfitano, the Chilean professor who has acted as a guide to the friends during their time in Mexico, and who appears increasingly nervous.