In the ambit of Latin American literature, Roberto Bolaño is a titan. The Chilean writer has produced some of the world’s most renowned works originally written in Spanish. Among his works, two stand out: The Savage Detectives and 2666. Both books are among the must-reads in Latin American literature if not world literature in general. While the former is widely considered by many a literary pundit as his magnum opus, it was the latter that made him a household name, at least amongst the anglophone readers. Both books are also a minefield for quotable lines and passages. In this quotable quote update, I am sharing lines that captured my interest in 2666, the second novel by the highly esteemed Chilean writer that I read.
Do check out my complete review of the second volume of Roberto Bolaño’s first translated novel by clicking here.
“What a sad paradox, thought Amalfitano. Now even bookish pharmacists are afraid to take on the great, imperfect, torrential works, books that blaze a path 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.”
~ Roberto Bolaño, 2666
“I think he had little interest in kowing where the soul goes when the body dies, although he wrote about that too. He was interested in dignity and he was interested in plants. About happiness he said not a word, I suppose because he considered it something strictly private and perhaps, how shall I say, treacherous or elusive. He had a great sense of humor, although some passages of his books contradict me there. And since he wasn’t a saint or even a brave man, he probably did think about posterity. The bust, the equestrian statue, the folios preserved forever in a library. What he never imagined was that he would be remembered for lending his name to a combination of three flavors of ice cream.”
~ Roberto Bolaño, 2666
“Did Jesus Christ suspect that someday his church would spread to the farthest corners of Earth? Did Jesus Christ, he asked, ever have what we, today, call an idea of the world? Did Jesus Christ, who apparently knew everything, know that the world was round and to the east lived the Chinese (this sentence he spat out, as if it cost him great effort to utter it) and to the west the primitive peoples of America? And he answered himself, no, although of course in a way having an idea of the world is easy, everybody has one, generally an idea restricted to one’s village, bound to the land, to the tangible and mediocre things before one’s eyes, and this idea of the world, petty, limited, crusted with the grime of the familiar, tends to persist and acquire authority and eloquence with the passage of time.”
~ Roberto Bolaño, 2666
“They talked about what they’d felt as they rained blows on the fallen body. A combination of sleepiness and sexual desire. Desire to fuck the poor bastard? Not at all! more as if they were fucking themseles. As if they were digging into themseles. With long nails and empty hands. Though if your fingernails are long enough your hands are never really empty. But in this dreamlike state, they dug and dug, rending fabric and ripping veins and puncturing vital organs. What were they looking for? The didn’t know. Nor, at that state, did they care.”
~ Roberto Bolaño, 2666
“That is, it was the fear that afflicts most citizens who, one fine (or dark) day, choose to make the practice of writing, and especially the practice of fiction writing, an integral part of their lives. Fear of being no good. Also fear of being overlooked. But above all, fear of being no good. Fear that one’s efforts and striving will come to nothing. Fear of the step that leaves no trace. Fear of the forces of chance and nature that wipe away shallow prints. Fear of dining alone and unnoticed. Fear of going unrecognized. Fear of failure and making a spectacle of oneself. But above all, fear of being no good. Fear of forever dwelling in the hell of bad writers.”
~ Roberto Bolaño, 2666
“My friend (if I may still call him that) believed in humanity, and so he also believed in order, in the order of painting and the order of words, cince words are what we paint with. He believed in redemption. Deep down he may even have believed in progress. Coincidence, on the other hand, is total freedom, our natural destiny. Coincidence obeys no laws and if it does we don’t know what they are. Coincidence, if you’ll permit me the simile, is like the manifestation of god at every moment on our planet. A senseless god making senseless gestures at his senseless creatures. In that hurricane, in that osseous implosion, we find communion. The communion of coincidence and effect and the communition of effect with us. ”