north american vs. south american solipsism

david foster wallace: depression led him to death.
roberto bolano: death led him to depression.

i'm only a quarter of the way through Roberto Bolano's 2666, an epic hunk of latin literature recently translated into English. i picked it up because of it's magnitude (literal size - 898 pages - and also "figurative size," or reported mass of subject matter and storyline). in this sense it is comparable to Infinite Jest, which i obviously liked (anyone reading this is probably really bored of the prominence of this thing in my blogs. i was thinking about that and realizing that i sort of subconsciously use this blog as a holding bin for my thoughts surrounding IJ and DFW. don't really know how that ended up happening, but i wanted to take a second and clarify that i'm aware of this, and to kind of apologize, because i'm sure you have much better things to be thinking about than books you haven't read. i suppose i'm still using this thing as a personal outlet that has, for some reason, streamlined into one vein rather than a lot of other things. i think it really does come down to not really being willing to open up online. it's a strange dance - discussion of things that have struck me very, very deep and yet are so far removed from my life. it's also hard because there is so much to say. and sticking to things with titles gives me better limit and structure for "sayage"), and so i figured i'd enjoy 2666 as well. it's been a while since i read anything of latin nature; i think my last experience with it was reading Isabel Allende a bunch of years back, and the transition back to this culture's mindset has been notable. i think the fact that the reader kind of needs to make a transition to a mindset is notable in itself. the genre is naturally darker, more verbose, and more supernatural; way less tied to material objects (this last bit is, i feel, reflective of the consumer culture we experience in the states).

needless to say, i'm enjoying the thing. i had to mentally/spiritually prepare myself for it (this is the equivalent to culture-mindset-adjusting), once i recognized how dark it was going to be in comparison to the things i'd been reading (and i don't mean situationally dark. i don't mean the things i've read previously avoid murder and evil and all that; i mean to point out the extent to which tone effects the same occurrence. think about movies and who gets killed in them - how many extras you see getting shot but how the one they choose to highlight with the plot seems drastically more terrible). the point is, Bolano's 2666 is exponentially more sinister of a read than Wallace's Infinite Jest was. what is curious to me, about this, are the facts surrounding the authors. Bolano wrote 2666 as he was dying of liver complications - he wrote it in the face of knowing he was inevitably about to die. Wallace wrote Infinite Jest ten years before he committed suicide. did he know he was going to die? not necessarily, but he wrote in the midst of a struggle with depression. Both authors were captive to the same end, their cause and effect were in contrast. Wallace could not break free from his depression and it led him to death. Bolano could not escape his death and it led his mind to deal with the most mentally disturbing and depressing concepts.

what does this juxtaposition suggest?
i can't think of anything really profound. i should probably finish 2666 first. i want to commend Bolano, for soundly venturing into truly weighty terrain without trying to escape it. Wallace's entire life seemed an escape from the things that were tormenting him, and Bolano's attitude confronts the reality head-on. i suppose he had no choice.


i don't know, it pulls in my heart. both men, both stories. makes me particularly reverent to the incarnation this Christmas, the fact that we are given real life after our deaths. i wonder what books would have been produced had either of these authors written in that reality. i wonder if anything would have been produced had that been that case. i wonder what you do when you're a skilled, insightful artist/communicator and you believe in Jesus Christ.


the last two paragraphs of this review do a really good job commenting on Bolano.

also very fitting because of what it says of the book reflecting American attitude. compared to Infinite Jest: the discrepancies between social commentary from inside our borders and social commentary from outside of them are most prominently detected in the tone, or overall darkness or lightness of the piece. also funny is that Wallace attempts to write from beyond our borders - he uses Canadian and French characters to criticize (see 2 posts ago, that's a French guy talking), but the fact is, Wallace is (was) still an American. and no matter how much he wishes he weren't part of the individualistic, empty life that one can so easily attain in this country, all the adjectives that come along with it still affect him. the distinction makes it obvious to me why Bolano's tone is so much more dark than Wallace's - Wallace still gets to partake from the cornucopia of treasures that any American has access to by the Constitution, and so his mindset (and therefore his writing) is always bound by his blessings. it's kind of like if i were to write a book and a kid from the Oakland ghetto were to do the same. regardless of our skill level and insight (in the analogy to Wallace and Bolano: i would equate these), mine would just be happier-sounding, and the other kid's would be darker - and neither would manifest a less true reality. it's like when i give my testimony, and then someone who spent years in drug and alcohol rehab gives theirs - same point, same truth (Jesus saves!), different experiences and different sides of reality shaping the ways we get there.


so two things the distinction of tone in these works can be attributed to:
1. each author's respective outlook on the world based on the way they look at life because of their respective circumstances - disease and depression (are those worlds simultaneous?).
2. their citizenship.