2666: The Part About Archimboldi

by Roberto Bolaño

This section of the novel, comprising the third separate book in the soft-cover, boxed edition, takes the reader full circle by focusing on Benno von Archimboldi, the Prussian post-war author whom the literary critics in the first part of the novel have devoted their lives to studying.

This section details the life of Archimboldi, née Hans Reiter, from his earliest childhood to his early eighties, where his life begins to intersect with the other sections of the novel.

Reiter is a strange child, more concerned with diving and sea life than anything else. He befriends the nephew of the Baron von Zumpe, and makes his way to Berlin. Eventually, he goes off to war, and later becomes a novelist. As with all other parts of this book, there are lengthy digressions and tangents, such as when Archimboldi (still Reiter) discovers the notebook of a Jewish writer, Ansky, and the reader is told his life story. Towards the end of the book, we see the connection between Archimboldi and the killings in Santa Teresa.

What is interesting is the fact that Bolaño never dwells on the reclusiveness of Archimboldi. Where in the first section, this seems like a central facet of the man's life, here it is treated casually. It is also interesting to see the depth of Archimboldi's relationship with Mrs. Bubis, who is both the wife of his publisher and the Baroness von Zumpe, a figure who he encounters repeatedly at key moments of his life. In the first section of the novel, Mrs. Bubis claims no specific knowledge of Archimboldi to the literary critics, yet this part of the novel makes clear her lie.

Thematically, this section does overlap with the others with great frequency. While there are few asylums in this part of the novel, and even fewer killings, the theme of men killing women return again and again. Archimboldi discusses this with his wife Ingeborg, and later, as she lays ill, a farmer who they couple are lodging with admits to having killed his own wife.

The novel ends here, but it does not really conclude. In many ways, it returns us to the beginning of the book, as Archimboldi sets out for Mexico, which will, later on, spur the literary critics to do the same.