Comments on: Horacio Castellanos Moya Is Disgusted with the “Bolano Myth”

By: amcorrea

amcorrea — Wed, 30 Sep 2009 15:54:02 +0000

A very interesting discussion…
Minor quibble: If you refer to Horacio Castellanos Moya by his last name, it should be “Castellanos”. Moya is his mother’s maiden name. It’s an easy mistake to make when discussing Latin American and Spanish authors…which is why some bookstores (unfortunately) shelve Gabriel García Márquez under “M” rather than “G” (his last name is García)…and Mario Vargas Llosa under “L” rather than “V”, etc.
But thanks very much for linking to his article. :)

By: JR

JR — Sat, 26 Sep 2009 03:16:00 +0000

Indeed. I only just started reading and studying Latin American lit, and I’m already getting weary and tired of all this anti stuff. For example, how the Boom is just a product of US fetishism of Latin America, etc, that Mignolo and Colás talk about. Reminds me of what the Mexican film director Arturo Ripstein said recently: Something like, “In Mexico, they will never forgive you if you are successful.”
As if a Ghanan or Thai person that Moya met at an airport would know more about LA lit than just García Márquez or Bolaño. As if in the US we don’t advertise our own authors in terms of biography. Please… And since I’m a Chinese-American–how well does Moya know the long, great history of Chinese literature? Judging from my experiences with educated Latin Americans, I’d say next to ZERO. So why’s he bitching that we don’t know about Gallegos or Sarmiento, lol.
Of course, this is all to be viewed in terms of the power differential between LA and its close neighbor, the United States. I understand that. I’m not saying that Moya isn’t making some good points. But, seriously, deep down, a lot of this seems to me to be mere old-fashioned whining.

By: Scott Esposito

Scott Esposito — Thu, 24 Sep 2009 20:08:52 +0000

Sonya,
This is a very important part of this discussion. Obviously, anyone would be wrong to expect an outside reader to be as cognizant of a foreign culture as someone raised within it. But I don’t think that’s what Moya is asking of American readers.
I am fully for the idea that anyone can read a book from any tradition at any time and get something out of it. If I didn’t believe that, then I would be seriously condemning literature’s power to communicate. But I also think that being aware of the context can make a reading much richer.
I think what Moya is primarily calling out here (although keep in mind that this is a lengthy piece of writing), is the use of stereotypes to sell an image of Bolano palatable to American consumers. Clearly, if we are only reading Bolano to reflect our preconceived notions of a place or tradition, we are reading him wrong and defeating one of the purposes of literature.

By: Travis

Travis — Thu, 24 Sep 2009 19:31:49 +0000

Here’s an interview in Poets & Writers with Jonathan Galassi, the president of FSG. I find that Grove/Atlantic editor Jofie Ferrari-Adler’s P&W interviews with agents and editors are usually a good corrective to the worry that publishers are all corporate stooges who care about nothing but the bottom line.

By: JS

JS — Thu, 24 Sep 2009 18:25:27 +0000

I have to agree with Sonya, everything is about perspective. Sonya – I think the outsider’s reading vantage point is always valid, it can’t be anything else. A “responsible” reader can only educate themselves to a point but they will never have the same exact perspective that a foreign writer has about their work and can only come so close to understanding a work the way a reader from the author’s same culture will. You can never completely step into another person’s shoes, even a person from your same culture.
I find it ironic that non-english writers and readers aften lament the fact that the work of their culture is not read often enough in the english speaking world. This is a perfect example of a writer whose work has gotten much attention and now people are lamenting that too. Which way is it going to be? The attitude seems to be, “read/buy our stuff but don’t critique it or form an opinion about it because if you do it will be irrelevant”. Has it escaped people that the kinds of readers who will take the time and make the effort to read a translated book like Bolano’s are the exact types that will want to discuss/critique/form opinions about the work?
I could go on!

By: Sonya

Sonya — Thu, 24 Sep 2009 02:46:32 +0000

I’ve read Bolano having no idea about any persona or myth created around him; the hype I’ve been subject to is mostly the “this is great literature, you’ve got to read it” hype, which is why I started (with his stories, Last Evenings On Earth).
This discussion makes me wonder about the issues that arise any time we read work which comes from a place — both geographically and psychically — that is foreign to us. There is simply no way for a non-Latin American/non-Spanish speaker to read Bolano the same way a Latin American would; this is the case with any writer, really. So how ARE we to read writers who are writing of experiences and cultures and psyches (and in languages) that are not our own? It would be naive to imagine that the otherness is not, in fact, part of the pleasure for an outsider. Does the intelligent, “responsible” reader do everything in her power to self-educate and become closer to an insider, or is the outsider’s reading vantage point ever valid for what it is?

By: Mel U

Mel U — Thu, 24 Sep 2009 00:56:47 +0000

I would personally rather be informed as to the reading life of Bolano rather than his drug use. To me “Savage Detectives” is a great study of the reading life. Roberto Bolano has been for sure treated as an “outlaw” writer as a marketing device.

By: fausto

fausto — Wed, 23 Sep 2009 22:21:51 +0000

But is it marketing? Like Scott, I don’t think the publisher is to blame. The responsibility lies with the press and, probably, the american readers who need the clichés Moya mentions to actually pay attention… One thing though: if it’s true the traditional press is the main culprit here and places like Quarterly conversation did a very good job, one cannot help to think JH Cunningham, in his essay on Neruda, Bolaño and Huerta, fell prey to the myth. Bolaño – Neruda? Although Bolaño probably didn’t despise Neruda’s poetry as much as he claimed or alluded in his work and interviews, there is absolutely no doubt that he was in complete opposition with Neruda’s political stance in regards to his poetry. Bolaño was, in that respect (and in many others), of Lihn’s school. Doesn’t the essay draw from the myth of revolutionary Bolaño more than from his actual work? It certainly feels like it.

By: V. Francone

V. Francone — Wed, 23 Sep 2009 21:57:18 +0000

Good points overall, but I like to think that any marketing tricks used to sell Bolaño’s books will ultimately fail. I know there are people who bought The Savage Detectives and 2666 because of the hype and really did not care for the books, perhaps because they did not fit with the prescribed Latin American thing we have up here in these United States. They won’t look at another Bolaño book again.
Too bad—these same readers might have been more pleased with the New Directions publications.

By: Diana Raabe

Diana Raabe — Wed, 23 Sep 2009 21:50:07 +0000

I have to say I’m one of those who took Bolano on his own terms and while I’d admit, yes, he’s definitely a great writer, there was something – just not good – about 2666, at least “The Part About the Crimes”. Bolano was relentless with the graphic descriptions. Even so, I hardly attributed that (or even his style in general) to the fact that he’s South American. I did, however, wonder what it would be like to read him in his native language.
After reading all 900-some pages, it occurred to me that some who had jumped on the Bolano Bandwagon may not have read 2666 in its entirety. I would recommend the book – but not to everyone.