Cody's Reviews > Nazi Literature in the Americas

Bolaño’s exquisite work here is underappreciated in a lot of circles for one virtue: it’s a whole mess a goddamn fun. Sure he’s working out of a Latin-American tradition of fictions-within-fictions; he calls bullshit on himself for it slyly throughout the book. I think any read benefits from having a running knowledge of at least some of the real authors that he peppers throughout. But even if you have zero context, there's such glee on these pages (I wore gloves) that it is hard to resist getting caught up in the excitement.

Special mention must go out to the ‘Speculative Fiction’ chapter, as Bolaño’s clearly having way too much fun coming up with sci-fi storylines and titles. His enthusiasm is infectious and surprisingly sweet, even as it lampoons the hell out of that most ridiculed of genres. More than a few made me chortle, three made me guffaw. I glee'd once, prematurely.

Bolaño’s is a mordant sense of humor than never bubbles anywhere near demonstrative. Assuming the pose of ‘history’ to satirize some institutional sacred cows expose them to be the paper tigers that they really are. The previous sentence is an absolutely stellar example of idiom abuse. I, robot, digress.

In my opinion, his brio should be respected and celebrated. Poor sonofabitch had to go and die at 50, robbing the world of a man who knew the back roads to a good piss-take and wrote flawlessly. But I see that Rupert Murdoch is still alive, so, you know, I guess life’s fair after all. Touché, Beelzebub.