I just read this passage from 2666:
“He chose The Metamorphosis over The Trial, he chose Bartleby over Moby Dick… What a sad paradox, thought Amalfitano. Now even bookish pharmacists are afraid to take on the great, imperfect, torrential works, books that blaze paths into the unknown. They choose the perfect exercises of the great masters. Or what amounts to the same thing: they want to watch the great masters spar, but they have no interest in real combat, when the great masters struggle against that something, that something that terrifies us all, that something that cows us and spurs us on, amid blood and mortal wounds and stench.”
I’m always excited to hear about a book or piece of art where the author or creator just nailed it in terms of expressing the magnitude— both glory and tragedy— of existence (that’s why I love Kerouac and DFW!); Bolaño hinted at this skill in Savage Detectives and I can’t wait to pick his magnum opus up.
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