December 3, 2009
What Bolaño Read: his top 5, and his top 5,000
by Melville House
Over the next two weeks, we’ll be hosting “What Bolaño Read,” a series of posts by Tom McCartan charting the reading habits of Roberto Bolaño, the Chilean novelist, poet, and short story writer. Bolaño was a prolific writer, the author of numerous books, including 2666, The Savage Detectives, and By Night in Chile, but he was also a dedicated reader. The series celebrates the publication of Roberto Bolaño: The Last Interview & Other Conversations, which is just out from Melville House. (And recently excerpted by the New York Times here.) Click here to read all posts in this series.
Roberto Bolaño read almost everything. Understanding his dedication to reading is fundamental to understanding him as an author and, more importantly, as a person.
Take this: “In one way or another, we’re all anchored to the book. A library is a metaphor for human beings or what’s best about human beings, the same way a concentration camp can be a metaphor for what is worst about them. A library is total generosity.”
When Monica Maristain interviewed him in 2003 for Mexican Playboy (in what would be his last interview) she asked him to name five books that marked his life:
“In reality the five books are more like 5,000. I’ll mention these only as the tip of the spear: Don Quixote by Cervantes, Moby Dick by Melville. The complete works of Borges, Hopscotch by Cortázar, A Confederacy of Dunces by Toole. I should also cite Nadja by Breton, the letters of Jacques Vaché. Anything Ubu by Jarry, Life: A User’s Manual by Perec. The Castle and The Trial by Kafka. Aphorisms by Lichtenberg. The Tractatus by Wittgenstein. The Invention of Morel by Bioy Casares. The Satyricon by Petronius. The History of Rome by Tito Livio. Pensées by Pascal.”
A behemoth list of wonderfulness spanning centuries and continents.
In a 2002 interview for Bomb magazine Carmen Boullosa asked him to list his literary genealogy. Note his use of the word “obvious.”
“As to my idea of a canon, I don’t know, it’s like everyone else, I’m almost embarrassed to tell you, it’s so obvious: Francisco de Aldana, Jorge Manrique, Cervantes, the chroniclers of the Indies, Sor Juana Ines de la Cruz, Fray Servando Teresa de Mier, Pedro Henríquez Ureña, Rubén Darío, Alfonso Reyes, Borges, just to name a few and without going beyond the realm of the Spanish language.”
Over the next two weeks, we’ll be plunging into these lists, trying to understand what Bolaño found in these writers and how they influenced his work.
Hiding hundreds of pieces of book art in books themselves 
Wes Anderson is making book trailers now? 
“A complex page-turning plot … a commentary on power, sex, corruption and poverty.” — Verve 
“I WOULD PREFER NOT TO” T-SHIRTS 
10 Comments
Hopscotch, Moby-Dick, Don Quixote, Life: A User’s Manual, and The Castle. Once again, R.B. manages to make me love him even more.
Hopscotch, Moby-Dick, Don Quixote, Life: A User’s Manual, and The Castle. Once again, R.B. manages to make me love him even more.
Back in 2006, World Literature Today had a strange little feature that, among other things, amounted to a reading list. In it, Bolano mentioned, among several others, two that struck me: Sidney’s Astrophel and Stella and Masters’ Spoon River Anthology. Doesn’t seem to be available online.
Back in 2006, World Literature Today had a strange little feature that, among other things, amounted to a reading list. In it, Bolano mentioned, among several others, two that struck me: Sidney’s Astrophel and Stella and Masters’ Spoon River Anthology. Doesn’t seem to be available online.
Oh wow, thank you! Been looking all over for a list of Bolaño’s loves. Looks like he had good taste, too.
Oh wow, thank you! Been looking all over for a list of Bolaño’s loves. Looks like he had good taste, too.
I look forward to all these posts. I’ve been interested in finding out what needs to be translated by Alfonso Reyes. A couple books of essays made it into English in the 50s, long out-of-print. Borges and Gabriel Zaid talk about him and quote him a lot. It seems he had a legendary personal library.
I look forward to all these posts. I’ve been interested in finding out what needs to be translated by Alfonso Reyes. A couple books of essays made it into English in the 50s, long out-of-print. Borges and Gabriel Zaid talk about him and quote him a lot. It seems he had a legendary personal library.
Advice on the Art of Writing Short Stories – Roberto Bolano (in World Literature Today, Vol. 80, No. 6 (Nov. – Dec., 2006))
1. Never approach short stories one at a time. If one approaches short stories one at a time, one can quite honestly be writing the same short story until the day one dies.
2. It is best to write short stories three or five at a time. If one has the energy, write them nine or fifteen at a time.
3. Be careful: the temptation to write short stories two at a time is just as dangerous as attempting to write them one at a time, and, what’s more, it’s essentially like the interplay of lovers’ mirrors, creating a double image that produces melancholy.
4. One must read Horacio Quiroga, Felisberto Hernandez, and Jorge Luis Borges. One must read Juan Rulfo and Augusto Monterroso. Any short-story writer who has some appreciation for these authors will never read Camilo Jose Cela or Francisco Umbral yet will, indeed, read Julio Cortazar and Adolfo Bioy Casares, but in no t way Cela or Umbral.
5. I’ll repeat this once more in case it’s still not clear: don’t consider Cela or Umbral, whatsoever.
6. A short-story writer should be brave. It’s a sad fact to acknowledge, but that’s the way it is.
7. Short-story writers customarily brag about having read Petrus Borel (Joseph-Pierre Borel). In fact, many short-story writers are notorious for trying to imitate Borel’s writing. What a huge mistake! Instead, they should imitate the way Borel dresses. But the truth is that they hardly know anything about him – or Theophile Gautier or Gerard de Nerval.
8. Let’s come to an agreement: read Petrus Borel, dress like Petrus Borel, but also read Jules Renard and Marcel Schwob. Above all, read Schwob, then move on to Alfonso Reyes and from there go to Borges.
9. The honest truth is that with Edgar Allan Poe, we would all have more than enough good material to read.
10. Give thought to point number 9. Think and reflect on it. You still have time. Think about number 9. To the extent possible, do so on bended knees.
11. One should also read a few other highly recommended books and authors – e.g., Peri hypsous (1st century A.D.; Eng. On the Sublime, 1554), by the notable Pseudo-Longinus; the sonnets of the unfortunate and brave Philip Sidney, whose biography Lord Brooke wrote; The Spoon River Anthology (1916), by Edgar Lee Masters; Suicidios ejemplares (1991; Exemplary suicides), by Enrique Vila-Matas; and Mientras ellas duermen (1990; While the women sleep), by Javier Marias.
12. Read these books and also read Anton Chekhov and Raymond Carver, for one of the two of them is the best writer of the twentieth century.
Advice on the Art of Writing Short Stories – Roberto Bolano (in World Literature Today, Vol. 80, No. 6 (Nov. – Dec., 2006))
1. Never approach short stories one at a time. If one approaches short stories one at a time, one can quite honestly be writing the same short story until the day one dies.
2. It is best to write short stories three or five at a time. If one has the energy, write them nine or fifteen at a time.
3. Be careful: the temptation to write short stories two at a time is just as dangerous as attempting to write them one at a time, and, what’s more, it’s essentially like the interplay of lovers’ mirrors, creating a double image that produces melancholy.
4. One must read Horacio Quiroga, Felisberto Hernandez, and Jorge Luis Borges. One must read Juan Rulfo and Augusto Monterroso. Any short-story writer who has some appreciation for these authors will never read Camilo Jose Cela or Francisco Umbral yet will, indeed, read Julio Cortazar and Adolfo Bioy Casares, but in no t way Cela or Umbral.
5. I’ll repeat this once more in case it’s still not clear: don’t consider Cela or Umbral, whatsoever.
6. A short-story writer should be brave. It’s a sad fact to acknowledge, but that’s the way it is.
7. Short-story writers customarily brag about having read Petrus Borel (Joseph-Pierre Borel). In fact, many short-story writers are notorious for trying to imitate Borel’s writing. What a huge mistake! Instead, they should imitate the way Borel dresses. But the truth is that they hardly know anything about him – or Theophile Gautier or Gerard de Nerval.
8. Let’s come to an agreement: read Petrus Borel, dress like Petrus Borel, but also read Jules Renard and Marcel Schwob. Above all, read Schwob, then move on to Alfonso Reyes and from there go to Borges.
9. The honest truth is that with Edgar Allan Poe, we would all have more than enough good material to read.
10. Give thought to point number 9. Think and reflect on it. You still have time. Think about number 9. To the extent possible, do so on bended knees.
11. One should also read a few other highly recommended books and authors – e.g., Peri hypsous (1st century A.D.; Eng. On the Sublime, 1554), by the notable Pseudo-Longinus; the sonnets of the unfortunate and brave Philip Sidney, whose biography Lord Brooke wrote; The Spoon River Anthology (1916), by Edgar Lee Masters; Suicidios ejemplares (1991; Exemplary suicides), by Enrique Vila-Matas; and Mientras ellas duermen (1990; While the women sleep), by Javier Marias.
12. Read these books and also read Anton Chekhov and Raymond Carver, for one of the two of them is the best writer of the twentieth century.