01 The Return by Roberto Bolaño trans. Chris Andrews

Sex, Violence, and Literature

Roberto Bolaño has been at the top of my list of favorite authors for about four years.
Why? Because he's better than you.
I like to think of him as these things:
1. a failed poet that found success in fiction (everyone that fails is better for it)
2. obsessed with all the best themes at the wrong time, and
3. one that died too young (drug circumstances notwithstanding)

I could easily waste 1000 words discussing the letdowns of the translation by Andrews or the crap editing/production job of New Directions, but those are two negative aspects in this new year of optimism and positivity.

The Return reawakened my love of this Chilean expat. The Savage Detectives has been and remains my favorite work by Bolaño because of the humor, confusion, and scope; Admittedly I've never loved any of his shorter fiction (novellas, short stories).

While there are moments of perfection in all of his writing, I have pages of quotations that forced me laugh, admire, and miss my stop on the train, The Return finds a way to make those moments span an entire story that creates a feeling of eternity but can be read in 30 minutes. It's hard to explain, but within the 13 stories in this collection I felt fear, anger, love, arousal, disgust, awe, and satisfaction.

Yeah, I said aroused. "Joanna Silvestri" is a fantasy. Not my fantasy, but Bolaño makes her yours. I was happy the book is hardbound, just wished it was a bit bigger.

Sex is an obsession for Bolaño-themes of prostitution, pornography, and whores collide with violence and revenge. The story titled "Murdering Whores" really is about a whore that murders. Bolaño doesn't play with cliché. His background in poetry will not allow it. But he knows sex. Sex is used as bait, pleasure, profession, and child rearing.

Why is this worth reading and rereading? Because it is poetry. It makes you experience everything for the first time again, every time. Bolaño creates characters that are realistic, believable, and at the same time you wish they weren't. Nazis, Russians, ghosts, detectives.

Oh yeah, there's an awesome story about witchcraft in the Spanish First Division and Champion's League. I think Bolaño wrote that one for me though.

p.s.-if you think this is crude and that you, as a self respecting young woman or man, would never read such trash, be happy I didn't mention the story on necrophilia

How Soccer Explains the World by Franklin Foer

Let me start by saying that I loved this book. It was phenomenal. Franklin Foer, frequent columnist for Slate magazine online and life-long soccer fan, set out to write a book that would use soccer as a window into the tangled web of current affairs that is globalization. In How Soccer Explains the World, Foer doesn’t so much explain globalization through what he calls “the beautiful game” as he does provide case studies of the political, economic and social developments surrounding soccer in recent years as a result of increased international dependency. Divided into ten concise histories, the book uses various football clubs around the world to show how globalization has affected tribalism (through soccer hooligans of England), ethnic relations, sectarianism, anti-Semitism, corruption, advertising, oligarchies, oppression of women in Islamic nations and American culture wars. It was a bit over my head at times, as I’m not a very politically or economically minded person, but I finished it feeling informed.

Foer is a great storyteller, and more than anything I loved reading his well-informed anecdotes, particularly about the use of the game as a force for political and social change by oppressed Iranian women. He even went on to propose a hypothesis as to why soccer is so unpopular in the United States: yuppie upper-middle class families latched onto the sport as being cosmopolitan and European, and many Americans have resented them for attaching themselves to what they consider the opposite of the most American sport, which, for many, is baseball. It’s a shame too, because after reading this book, I’d love more than ever to be able to watch more matches.

I’d recommend this book to anyone with an interest in the cross-currents of globalization, and the ways that it’s transformed aspects of politics, economy and society in the examples that Foer presents. Although, if you don’t give a rat’s ass about soccer, this book probably is not for you; the most exciting, invigorating writing is reserved for tales of last-minute victories or brawls between emotionally charged fans. It was a highly interesting, highly informative quick read, and one that I’ll be adding to my list of favorites.

(By the way, Franklin Foer is the brother of Jonathan Safran Foer, but I swear that isn’t why I read this book)