2666 by Roberto Bolaño (5 novels in 1!) 🇨🇱/ 🇲🇽

A discussion with three readings from Bolaño’s monstrous monster of a novel.

Recommended if you like:
Foucault’s Pendulum by Umberto Eco
The Black Dahlia by James Ellroy
Nineteen Seventy-Seven by David Peace
JR by William Gaddis

#booktube
#robertobolano
#2666

[tothelithouse]

Amazing review! I read The Savage Detectives last year and have been tempted to pick up 2666. Like you with this one, I read part of TSD very slowly. I’ve read other stuff by Bolaño and I always have to work for it, but most times it’s rewarding.

[scallydandlingaboutthebooks]

I read 2666 last year and your description of it as a monster and monstrous is perfect. I was so glad to have read it by the end. Really enjoyed being reminded of that experience by your review.

[BookishTexan]

Great job explaining this complicated and difficult novel. I have to say that while I thought there were great things in 2666, in the end I didn't think Bolano quite pulled it off. I'm glad I read it though.

[havefunbesafe]

2nd reread for me and it’s delightful and am reading it slowly and savoring every word as if every word was a mask, a mask of many faces, a face of chaos and a face of calm, a calm you find in a desert when the sun sets and all the creatures come out for relief from the sun, which is a mask of chaos pretending to be the calm of a silent dark night.

[ami]

Great review! This has been on my radar for awhile but now I definitely will pick it up!

[Rainierbooks]

Thanks for this!!! I have heard so much about this book and it is obviously one of the novels you just HAVE to READ.

[derekmainereads]

Great video, I’m really excited to find your channel

[sterlingreads]

I don't know. I find it very intimidating. I love the seaweed on the inside cover. I just bought my first Umberto Eco, The name of the rose. I'm getting ready to start reading Our Bodies, Their Battlefields, war through the lives of women by Christina Lamb. I know it's going to brutal. Great video Jack!

[TheCodeXCantina]

The proximity would have forced my hand to have said the pun “this book hits close to home” at least once.

[tobinmoffatt]

Just finished 2666 and loved it. Not the kind of book to be fully absorbed the first go round, no matter how slowly you read, especially given how circular its structure is (if that’s the right shape to assign it...). I’ve already scheduled a re-read in June. Hoping to also read The Savage Detectives in March.

[prognition]

Just got to the Part About the Crimes, so I stopped the video part way through. Excited to hear what you have to say when I am done. Also, where in the hell did you get that excellent shirt?

[bighardbooks]

I've read this novel twice and love it; this novel will be read far into the 21st century IMHO. (The second time I read it was along w audio.) Have you ever been across Nogales AZ into Nogales, Mexico? (Probably, since you live right there.) That's where we used to always cross right by the McDonald's. I also thought Book 4 w all the "Nazi graphics" was as much or more intense than the St Theresa killings. BTW, why are you holding _Folcoult's Pendulum, _ in the beginning of this, hmm? I didn't get a chance to read along w Jason (and now he's taken all his videos down, alas). Wanna buddy read it w me, sometime, next year? Hope so! Good one, Jack! Post script: I see you've already read it. I write my comments as I watch along. Would you consider rereading it? I could use all the help I can get. (Im good w mystical qaballa but all the other stuff? IDK, lmao!) I'd like to read those two Gaddis novels, too; been hearing great things from Chris @ Leaf by Leaf lately.

[johncrwarner]

It is a question
when an author dies
before a book is "finished"
in the sense of "seen as a whole" by the author
Tragically Bolaño died of liver failure in 2003
and this book was in "first draft" at the publishers
and was published the next year.
If he had lived would this book have been one book
or several?

[TheBookclectic]

Wow. If it took that much out of you to read, what the heck is this going to do to me?? This is also fairly recent acquisition for me!

[tomlabooks]

Very interesting comments on a book that’s always scared me - even if I never read it. Did you keep / take any notes to keep track of all the characters and of the main details?

[chainsherlock]

I’ve only read ‘the name of the rose’…I feel so stupid!! Lol

[EveryoneWhoReadsitMustConverse]

Sounds like a literal BEAST! Took me 3 sessions to get through this vid cuz, idk why 🤣 I still am on the fence about reading 2666. Time will tell