Antwerp - Roberto Bolaño

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Antwerp

by
Roberto Bolaño

general information | our review | links | about the author

Title:	Antwerp
Author:	Roberto Bolaño
Genre:	Novel
Written:	(2002) (Eng. 2010)
Length:	78 pages
Original in:	Spanish
Availability:	Antwerp - US
	Amberes - US
	Antwerp - UK
	Antwerp - Canada
	Anvers - France

Spanish title: Amberes
Translated by Natasha Wimmer
Originally written 1980, but first published in 2002
Includes a short introduction by Bolaño, written in 2002, 'Total Anarchy: Twenty-Two Years Later'

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Our Assessment:

B : youthful experimentation -- and yet already with much that is vintage Bolaño

See our review for fuller assessment.

The complete review's Review:

Written in 1980, but first published in 2002, shortly before his death, Roberto Bolaño's Antwerp is a compact and very short, fragmentary work in fifty-six pieces. His first novel, it is a very loose piece of fiction, with barely a story to it -- though characters and storylines do recur throughout the text. It has the feel of literary experimentation, full of stops and starts in a quick series of sketches, with bursts of risk-taking that are (just) held in check.
In a brief introduction added in 2002 when the book was first published, 'Total Anarchy: Twenty-Two Years Later', Bolaño begins:

I wrote this book for myself, and even that I can't be sure of.

It is a personal record, taking scenes from experience, from a busy, exhausted, uncertain life -- all reflected in the work itself. Of that period of his life he notes:

Naturally, I met interesting people, some of them the product of my own hallucinations.

It's still a time when he is figuring out what he wants to do and be; it's no coincidence that he mentions that: "I didn't have children yet" -- the stabilizing influence of family life still absent here, where the characters -- and the writer-figure, in particular -- are still unmoored.
In his introduction he also writes:

The scorn I felt for so-called literature was great, though only a little greater than my scorn for marginal literature. But I believed in literature: or rather, I didn't believe in arrivisme or opportunism or the whispering of sycophants. I did believe in vain gestures. I did believe in fate.

The author figures prominently in the text -- even by name. In a typical, compressed sequence -- here the last lines of the fourth chapter, 'In my own bewitchment':

The language of others is unintelligible to me. "Tired after being up for days" ... "A blond girl came down the stairs" ... "My name is Roberto Bolaño ... "I opened my arms" ..

Much is presented in fragmentary sequences, and through different ways of seeing: collections of quotes, such as above, or in cinematic terms -- often literally through a camera lens:

The camera zooms in: impassive faces that somehow, without intending to, shut you out. The author stares for a long time at the plaster masks, then covers his face. Fade to black. It's absurd to think that this is where all the pretty girls come from. Empty images follow one after the other

In one parenthetical aside:

(In this scene the author appears with his hands on his hips watching something off screen.)

The author is often an isolated figure -- so too in his writing:

I'm alone, all the literary shit gradually falling by the wayside -- poetry journals, limited editions, the whole dreary joke behind me now

Motifs, characters, concerns recur. A campground setting, nameless girls, violence, love, Antwerp, Barcelona: everything remains elusive, the author alone, the scenes like those in a movie (to go along with the actual scenes from movies that are described (as, for example: "The spectators watch the screen and slap at mosquitoes")).
A chapter promising 'Synopsis' offers only a thin slice of the whole; but then Antwerp can't be reduced to simple synopsis. And even Bolaño's characters admit to confusion:

Look, said the voice ... "A vacant lot at dusk" ... "Long blurry beach" ... "Sometimes you'd think he'd never use a camera before" ... "Crumbling walls, dirty terrace, gravel path, a sign that says Office" ... "A cement box by the side of the road" ... "Restaurant windows, out of focus" ... I don't know what the hell he's trying to get at.

But it's important to remember that Bolaño insists:

There are no rules. ("Tell that stupid Arnold Bennett that all his rules about plot only apply to novels that are copies of other novels.") And so on and so on.

In Antwerp Bolaño willfully makes certain that his novel is no copy of any other novel. He's still trying to find his way -- and would go on to take somewhat more conventional (and accessible) routes -- but it's a quite fascinating document of the author as a young artist.
Antwerp is no easy, approachable read, yet may not be the worst book for the uninitiated to start in on -- though it should be clear that, while the book foreshadows later Bolaño, it is a very, very different beast. In any case, it is the epitome of a secondary work: while definitely not the only Bolaño-fiction you'd want to read, it is an addition to his body of work that should be welcomed (and enjoyed) by anyone who has or wants to concern themselves with him.

- M.A.Orthofer, 13 January 2010

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Links:

Antwerp:

Anagrama publicity page
Sellerio publicity page

Reviews:

Fili d'aquilone (Italian)
Ronald Flores (Spanish)
El lamento de Portnoy (Spanish)
narrativa (Spanish)

Roberto Bolaño:

The complete review's Roberto Bolaño page
Roberto Bolaño at sololiteratura
Interview in Bomb
The Mysterious Chilean by Wendy Lesser at The Threepenny Review
Profile in the San Francisco Bay Guardian

Other books by Roberto Bolaño under review:

Other books of interest under review:

See Index of Latin and South American literature
See Index of Spanish literature

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About the Author:

Chilean author Roberto Bolaño lived 1953 to 2003.

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