Last Evenings on Earth by Roberto Bolaño

In several of the stories in “Last Evenings on Earth”, the characters are called by the first letter of their names such as K, U, V, and of course B who is a stand-in for the author himself. Not that this story is all that traditional, since it follows the entire life and travels of this woman until middle age and then ends with ‘and then I never saw her again’.īolano does not make it easy for the reader to like his work. Probably my favorite is ‘Anne Moore’s Life’ which is the most traditional story in the collection. I enjoyed most of the stories in this book. Since ‘Last Evenings on Earth’ was published first I selected this book figuring the other might be leftovers. His collected stories are available in two books, “Last Evenings on Earth” and ‘The Return”. This time I thought it would be best to turn to shorter works by Bolano. However this book seemed to me a one-off humorous pastiche rather than a novel of any sort of depth. I had a much better experience with this book, actually enjoyed reading it. This novel is a totally imaginary encyclopedia of Nazi writers in North and South America. I waited a couple of years before my next excursion into Bolano territory which was ‘Nazi Literature in the Americas”. Later I was told that it gets better after that. However after reading 143 pages, I gave up in frustration, annoyed by the seemingly endless repetition of the young Mexican writers hanging around and talking about whatever. When I saw that the Complete Review had given an A- to “The Savage Detectives”, I jumped right in and started reading that novel, even though it was 577 pages. When I first read the high praise for Roberto Bolano, I was all ready to jump into his work. I’ve been on the lookout for new Latin American writers for quite some time. I also reached back in time to the early writings of Joaquin Maria Machado de Assis and Ciro Alegria which were both excellent. I have been a huge fan of Latin American literature starting with Gabriel Garcia Marquez’s ‘A Hundred Years of Solitude’ and going from there to Mario Vargas Llosa to Manuel Puig to Julio Cortazar to Isabel Allende to Jorge Amado to many other writers. I’ve read quite a few reviews of Bolano’s work where the critics fall all over themselves in praising his work and calling him an important author, and I’ve been trying to figure this phenomenon out for a long time. “Last Evenings on Earth” by Roberto Bolano (1997, 2001) stories – 219 pages Translated by Chris AndrewsĪmong my many reading goals is a strong desire to understand and appreciate the fiction of Chilean writer Roberto Bolano.

Last Evenings on Earth by Roberto Bolaño