{"id":1767,"date":"2009-06-06T00:01:14","date_gmt":"2009-06-06T04:01:14","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/mookseandgripes.com\/reviews\/?p=1767"},"modified":"2018-02-12T15:21:21","modified_gmt":"2018-02-12T19:21:21","slug":"roberto-bolanos-nazi-literature-in-the-americas","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mookseandgripes.com\/reviews\/2009\/06\/06\/roberto-bolanos-nazi-literature-in-the-americas\/","title":{"rendered":"Roberto Bola\u00f1o: Nazi Literature in the Americas<\/em>"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Nazi Literature in the Americas<\/strong><\/em><\/span>
\nby Roberto Bola\u00f1o (Literatura nazi en Am\u00e9rica<\/em>, 1996)
\n<\/span> translated from the Spanish by Chris Andrews (2008)<\/span>
\nNew Directions (2009)<\/span>
\n280 pp<\/span><\/p><\/h3><\/div>

\"nazi-literature-in-the-amer\"<\/a><\/p>\n

O<\/span>ver the Christmas holiday last year I read Roberto Bola\u00f1o's\u00a02666<\/a><\/em>. I\u00a0wrote\u00a0a review that balances on the negative side because it just didn't come together for me \u2014 at all. The over-the-top praise surely didn't help me going in to the book.\u00a0That said,\u00a0taking\u00a02666 <\/em>by its pieces, I loved it. The writing was so compelling and interesting, as were the individual stories. I\u00a0figured\u00a0that I'd probably get along better with Bola\u00f1o's works of less than 900 pages that he actually finished before he died.\u00a0My first attempt: Nazi Literature in the Americas<\/em>.<\/p>\n

Strangely enough, this one was even more in pieces even than 2666<\/em>, but it tied together better and felt more cohesive.\u00a0What we have here is a series of short (usually only a few pages, sometimes as short as a paragraph) biographical sketches of\u00a0a few dozen\u00a0writers from Latin and North America. Some tie together because they are from the same family or from the same movement, but all tie together because of their extremely far Right political views in which they see the hope for the human race (at least, the human race as they'd like to define it):<\/p>\n

\n

Shortly before his death, in a letter to a friend in Buenos Aires, he foresaw a radiant epoch for the human race, the triumphant dawn of a new golden age, and he wondered whether the Argentinian people would rise to the occasion.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Of course, it's no secret, if you read the title, that their views are terrifying.\u00a0 And Bola\u00f1o has a great ability to present their wishes in detailed lists\u00a0where the writing, in its disinterested rhetoric, is\u00a0very compelling\u00a0(not the thoughts:\u00a0I said\u00a0\"the writing\").<\/p>\n

\n

As a young man, Salv\u00e1tico advocated, among other things, the re-establishment of the Inquisition; corporal punishment in public; a permanent war against the Chileans, the Paraguayans, or the Bolivians as a kind of gymnastics for the nation; polygamy; the extermination of the Indians to prevent further contamination of the Argentinean race; curtailing the rights of any citizen with Jewish blood; a massive influx of migrants from the Scandinavian countries in order to effect a progressive lightening of the national skin color, darkened by years of promiscuity with the indigenous population; life-long writer's grants; the abolition of tax on artists' incomes; the creation of the largest air force in South America; the colonization of Antarctica; and the building of new cities in Patagonia.<\/span><\/p>\n

He was a soccer player and a Futurist.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

I love that little \"He was a soccer player and a Futurist\" thrown in the next paragraph, as if what we read above were just facts of biography and nothing more. In fact, Bola\u00f1o is incredibly adept at making these writers seem real. Though none in this book\u00a0is real, all\u00a0are realistically situated among real writers and real literary and political movements.\u00a0One moment that stood out to\u00a0me was an ill-fated encounter one of the characters had with the poet Allen Ginsberg.\u00a0The episode was made more real in light of a recent article I read about a similar encounter between the poet and the younger poet Matthew Dickman (Dickman's encounter was completely different than the one in this book; it\u00a0ended in a kiss, not a beating).<\/p>\n

The pseudo-reality becomes important when you realize just why (well, at least one reason why)\u00a0Bola\u00f1o wrote this book.\u00a0When I started it, I couldn't get my head around this man's depth of imagination. Here he has created a series of realistic figures, complete with the titles of the novels they wrote, dissertations about them, movements they joined, all told in greater detail and with more flare than many good biographies.\u00a0He does an excellent job seeming to sound like a disinterested, though fluent,\u00a0purveyor of information while keeping in the editorial jabs, one of the best things about such magazines as The New Yorker<\/em> and The Economist<\/em>. Here's a good example of a place where I was laughing out loud while admiring Bola\u00f1o's scope:<\/p>\n

\n

That was not to be P\u00e9rez Mas\u00f3n's last visit to the jails of socialist Cuba. In 1965 he published Poor Man's Soup<\/em>, which related \u2014 in an irreproachable style, worthy of Sholokov \u2014 the hardships of a large family living in Havana in 1950. The novel comprised of fourteen chapters.\u00a0The first began: \"Lucia was a black woman from . . .\"; the second: \"Only after serving her father . . .\"; the third: \"Nothing had come easily for Juan . . .\"; the fourth: \"Gradually, tenderly, she drew him towards her . . .\"\u00a0The censor quickly smelled a rat.\u00a0The first letters of each chapter made up the acrostic LONG LIVE HITLER.\u00a0A major scandal broke out.\u00a0 P\u00e9rez Mas\u00f3n defended himself haughtily: it was a simple coincidence.\u00a0The censors set to work in earnest, and made a fresh discovery: the first letters of each chapter's second paragraph made up another acrostic \u2014 THIS PLACE SUCKS.\u00a0And those of the third paragraph spelled: USA WHERE ARE YOU.\u00a0And the fourth paragraph: KISS MY CUBAN ASS.\u00a0And so, since each chapter, without exception, contained twenty-five paragraphs, the censors and the general public soon discovered twenty-five acrostics.\u00a0I screwed up, P\u00e9rez Mas\u00f3n would say later: They were too obvious, but if I'd made it much harder, no one would have realized.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

I was being short-sighted, though, in just admiring Bola\u00f1o's scope.\u00a0What he has to say about literature and rhetoric is quite profound.\u00a0There are several places where he highlights the works of an author and I thought That sounds interesting<\/em>.<\/p>\n

\n

A number of the poems are noteworthy:\u00a0 <\/span><\/p>\n

\u2014 \"A Dialogue with Hermann Goering in Hell,\" in which the poet, astride the black motorcycle of his early sonnets, arrives at an abandoned airfield, in a place known as Hell, near Maracaibo on the Venezuelan coast, and meets the shade of Reichsmarschall, with whom he discusses various subjects: aviation, vertigo, destiny, uninhabited houses, courage, justice and death.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u2014 \"Concentration Camp,\" by contrast, is the humorous and at times touching story of Zwickau's life as a child, between the ages of five and ten, in a middle-class neighborhood of Caracas.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

And after thinking hmmm, interesting<\/em>, I had to stop and cringe. Ahh, the seductive power of literature and rhetoric. Sometimes something so reprehensible is made interesting and noteworthy, perhaps even praiseworthy, because of the skillful use of language holding it up, even if the ideas it espouses are ugly.\u00a0I found this book a nice review of several tragedies of the 20th century. Rhetoric will undoubtedly continue to be the cause of tragedies to come (but hopefully also of good things).\u00a0Of course, it is ironic coming from a master rhetorician who seductively pulls us into these accounts with great sentence fluency, comedy, and poetry. And they are interesting, and compelling, and horrific (indeed, the book is complete with an EPILOGUE FOR MONSTERS).<\/p>\n

On a final note: Somehow, after 175 pages of brief biographical sketches, all from a scholarly third person, Bola\u00f1o throws in a mighty conclusion.\u00a0It's worth reading for many reasons, but to feel his conclusion is its own reward. So, see if you can guess how I feel about Bola\u00f1o now.<\/p>\n<\/div>