Uncover the Mysteries of Chile's Nightlife with Roberto Bolano's By Night in Chile

Charles B.: It gives you the sense of an outsider looking in. It has gorgeous musical refrains that shape the text in lieu of a plot. Long sentences, in which every comma is essential. It resolves with a sense of beauty and sorrow that feels insufficient, unfulfilling, yet memorable.

United States on Jan 24, 2023

Max: Give it a try, interesting insight into Chile and the Chilean mind-set.Also addresses some of the crimes committed by the Americans in Chile under Pinochet.

United Kingdom on Jan 16, 2015

Dave: First book I've ever been unable to finish. As another reviewer wrote, the author has experimented with writing as a continuous block of text. Paragraphs exist for a reason, not using them makes reading tiresome as you pick the story apart manually. I got about half way through the book and gave up, having not formed any attachment to any of the characters. The story seemingly rambling around various locations with no particular plot, and the individual events not of any real interest. I was hoping to learn a little about Chile, but it didn't do that because it assumes knowledge and I suspect this book will only be of interest to those who already know of the personalities that appear and the recent history of Chile. For this reason the satire mentioned by other reviewers went over my head. Perhaps if I had persisted the genius of the piece would be revealed to me, but I lost all will to care about the protagonist and what he gets up to. I've purposely not used paragraphs in my review to give a taste of what you'll be getting if you read this book.

United Kingdom on Dec 18, 2014

exHawaiian: I have tried to get into this book 3 times now, and each time, I find it tedious. I have read up to 1/3 of the book, and cannot get past that point. The style of the author, a narrative in a rambling first person style, just drags on and on. I am sure that in the original language, were I able to read and appreciate Spanish, would be more poetic in nature, more imbued with depth of nuances. Since this is the memoirs of a very old man, who has a long tale to relate, I keep thinking that he should be getting to the point before he dies .I do not mean to belittle the work, as it must resonate with many readers to be given such good reviews, just not with me.

United States on Aug 19, 2013

snailman 21: A mere 130 pages and double-spaced this seemed like a suitable novel to read on a trip, which is how I first encountered it. Though interesting and unusual - it's one long paragraph - it was quickly put on one side to be eclipsed by other reading matter. Some 2-3 months later, however, a chance reference to Pablo Neruda came as a reminder that the great Chilean poet appears in `By Night in Chile' in surreal circumstances. Revisiting this scene convinced me that it alone was worth the price of the book.

Resolving to read it again more slowly, I was drawn into a strange and disturbing world. Who was Roberto Bolaño? And who his self-satisfied protagonist `Father' Sebastián Urrutia Lacroix? The name indicates/implicates The Church, and Bolaño's cryptic epigraph quoting G K Chesterton hints at the grand nightmarish conspiracy of `The Man Who Was Thursday'. The `night' of the title is Father Lacroix's last night on earth, or so he believes, during the course of which a flawed and squandered life returns to haunt him.

A precocious up and coming poet from a poor background, he is invited by the leading literary critic of the day - the aptly-named Farewell - to a literary...

United Kingdom on Jul 22, 2013

William J. Cumbie: I had heard great things about Bolano's work. 2666, likely his best-known work, is over 900 pages long; I instead chose this, a focused novella which I'd heard many describe as his best work.

It's not hard to see why. The novella comes across almost as a single breath: there is only one paragraph break in the entire thing, and images flow freely as the narrator moves from one memory to another without pause. The novella's conceit is that the story is the deathbed tale of a Catholic priest, and the prose feels just as spontaneous and natural as such a confession might be.

You could say the novel weaves together powerful ideas about politics, religion, and literature, but this misses much of what makes it exciting. By Night in Chile is a simply powerful story. Its scenes stay in memory and its lines resonate. It's a page-turner, but one that stays in mind after its pages are done.

I hate to give a review without a "but...", at least a slight one, but there's little to find flaw with here. It's a slim but ambitious book. It does take place in a milieu which may be unfamiliar, but it's easy to look up whatever names don't ring a bell. There's no reason not to read...

United States on May 27, 2012

Gio: ... to judgement! Don't think you know where this novella is going until you get there! It's not very long - only 130 pages - so you might try to read it all in one sitting, letting it take over, coming to believe the voice of the narrator, the celibate homosexual priest/poet/critic who announces in his first words that he is "dying now." It's the credibility of that voice that elevates this rambling, stumbling 'confession' to enormous emotional power. (If you're a potential book buyer who NEEDS a summary of the action first, take a look at the very ample review here in the amazone by "Rhoda".)

Father Urrutia, the priest narrator, has his own timetable for exposing himself. He's all the way to page 56 - or should we admit that there's an 'author' controlling his pace? - before he cautiously reveals his affiliation with Opus Dei and his entanglement with the portions of Chilean society that reveled in the CIA-assisted assault on democracy which placed Pinochet on his throne of torture. If you have no formed opinion of Opus Dei, if you've never even heard of the conspiratorial right-wing cadre, you might as well skip this review and this book. Nothing in it will matter to...

United States on May 29, 2009

Mark Smallwood: Bolano presents the odd story of this self-deluded literary critic and rightist in an unnamed country likely to be Chile, of course, in an engaging first-person point-of-view. Fortunately, Bolano keeps a tight grip on the character POV, and allows us to see the world from the skewed vision of this character, without revealing any unreliability. Still, the book, although a short one, bogs down a bit, particularly in comparison to Distant Star or the short stories in Last Evenings on Earth. An enjoyable read, though not his absolute best.

United States on Jan 04, 2007