His final conclusion was they should be separate. Before he died Bolaño went back and forth about whether these parts should be published separately or in toto. The book consists of five quite separate novellas connected by numerous motifs, themes, and storylines: The Part About the Critics The Part About Amalfitano The Part About Fate The Part About the Crimes The Part About Archimboldi. What is most interesting about 2666, though, is not the mess of chaos and murder that brushes up against so many of the disparate characters and plots as the way people incorporate the insanity of all that inexplicable violence into the stories they tell themselves about life so that they can live decently or obliviously or both. It seems, in fact, that the more powerless, random, and senseless murder is in our world, the more those chosen instruments become entangled and part of the problem. We are living a more global version of the central motif of 2666, the obscure and usually distant connection people have to senseless, random, weekly death that our chosen instruments of law and order are completely powerless to do anything about. It probably can’t be read quickly no matter who you think you are. Besides, 2666 is considered one of the most important novels of the early 21st century. If you can disavow that habit, and feel comfortable with the slow pace of reading, you will probably extend your life by at least eight years, maybe ten. TV and movies make us think we have to eat whole stories quickly.

The beauty of books, as opposed to TV and movies, is that you can take your time and just tackle two or three pages a night for fifteen to twenty minutes at a shot. It represents a year of reading for me (with some other stuff thrown in, but nothing I stayed with or finished). I finally finished Roberto Bolaño’s novel 2666 last month (912 pages in English 1,136 in Spanish).

Bolaño's 2666