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The Secret of Evil
The brightest gleamings from Bolano’s unpublished fiction A North American journalist in Paris is woken at 4 a.m. by a mysterious caller with urgent information. For V. S. Naipaul, the prevalence of sodomy in Argentina is a symptom of the nation’s political ills. Daniela de Montecristo (familiar to readers of Nazi Literature in the Americas and 2666 ) recounts the loss of her virginity. Arturo Belano returns to Mexico City and meets the last disciples of Ulises Lima, who play in a band called The Asshole of Morelos. Belano’s son Gerónimo disappears in Berlin during the Days of Chaos in 2005. Memories of a return to the native land. Argentine writers as gangsters. Zombie schlock as allegory …
160 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 2007
51 people are currently reading
1031 people want to read
About the author
Roberto Bolaño
139 books6,777 followersFor most of his early adulthood, Bolaño was a vagabond, living at one time or another in Chile, Mexico, El Salvador, France and Spain. Bolaño moved to Europe in 1977, and finally made his way to Spain, where he married and settled on the Mediterranean coast near Barcelona, working as a dishwasher, a campground custodian, bellhop and garbage collector — working during the day and writing at night.
He continued with his poetry, before shifting to fiction in his early forties. In an interview Bolaño stated that he made this decision because he felt responsible for the future financial well-being of his family, which he knew he could never secure from the earnings of a poet. This was confirmed by Jorge Herralde, who explained that Bolaño "abandoned his parsimonious beatnik existence" because the birth of his son in 1990 made him "decide that he was responsible for his family's future and that it would be easier to earn a living by writing fiction." However, he continued to think of himself primarily as a poet, and a collection of his verse, spanning 20 years, was published in 2000 under the title The Romantic Dogs.
Regarding his native country Chile, which he visited just once after going into voluntary exile, Bolaño had conflicted feelings. He was notorious in Chile for his fierce attacks on Isabel Allende and other members of the literary establishment.
In 2003, after a long period of declining health, Bolaño passed away. Bolaño was survived by his Spanish wife and their two children, whom he once called "my only motherland."
Although deep down he always felt like a poet, his reputation ultimately rests on his novels, novellas and short story collections. Although Bolaño espoused the lifestyle of a bohemian poet and literary enfant terrible for all his adult life, he only began to produce substantial works of fiction in the 1990s. He almost immediately became a highly regarded figure in Spanish and Latin American letters.
In rapid succession, he published a series of critically acclaimed works, the most important of which are the novel Los detectives salvajes (The Savage Detectives), the novella Nocturno de Chile (By Night In Chile), and, posthumously, the novel 2666. His two collections of short stories Llamadas telefónicas and Putas asesinas were awarded literary prizes.
In 2009 a number of unpublished novels were discovered among the author's papers.
He continued with his poetry, before shifting to fiction in his early forties. In an interview Bolaño stated that he made this decision because he felt responsible for the future financial well-being of his family, which he knew he could never secure from the earnings of a poet. This was confirmed by Jorge Herralde, who explained that Bolaño "abandoned his parsimonious beatnik existence" because the birth of his son in 1990 made him "decide that he was responsible for his family's future and that it would be easier to earn a living by writing fiction." However, he continued to think of himself primarily as a poet, and a collection of his verse, spanning 20 years, was published in 2000 under the title The Romantic Dogs.
Regarding his native country Chile, which he visited just once after going into voluntary exile, Bolaño had conflicted feelings. He was notorious in Chile for his fierce attacks on Isabel Allende and other members of the literary establishment.
In 2003, after a long period of declining health, Bolaño passed away. Bolaño was survived by his Spanish wife and their two children, whom he once called "my only motherland."
Although deep down he always felt like a poet, his reputation ultimately rests on his novels, novellas and short story collections. Although Bolaño espoused the lifestyle of a bohemian poet and literary enfant terrible for all his adult life, he only began to produce substantial works of fiction in the 1990s. He almost immediately became a highly regarded figure in Spanish and Latin American letters.
In rapid succession, he published a series of critically acclaimed works, the most important of which are the novel Los detectives salvajes (The Savage Detectives), the novella Nocturno de Chile (By Night In Chile), and, posthumously, the novel 2666. His two collections of short stories Llamadas telefónicas and Putas asesinas were awarded literary prizes.
In 2009 a number of unpublished novels were discovered among the author's papers.
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October 5, 2018
For the love of God: don't make this your first venture into Bolaño. Here are but scraps decoupaged by eager (greedy?) editors that have canonized, rightfully so, the tragic author. But here we see him mimicking the talented Mr. Puig (the brilliant Argentinian) in his movie/zeitgeist insight, in his critical statements, all of which are incredibly beautifully put. He is also infatuated with prolonged lists (well, duh, just recall "The Women" section of "2666," itself almost 266 pages long as a grisly chamber of too true terrors in a from that rivals the Marquis de Sade's) & the art-like criticism of music, art & literature.
Herein gorgeous trains-of-thought which defy a general classification. Are they notes and sketches, or beginnings, middles and ends? The writer has established this device of nonentity, of non-resolution and an omnipresent sense of dread, which may infuriate readers, divide them; but ultimately defines the awful discovery of literary prophecy: the whole point of these snippets, their infinite value, is the fact that Bolaño was writing about his impending annihilation by coming close to his text, breathing into it and from it, then retreading devastatingly far, causing in the reader disbelief, sadness & awe.
We find here the modern day Flannery O'Connor of Latin America. Bolaño's poetics include people and God being inherently cruel, the world a dangerous place. The fear of strangers pervades; and the voices coming from neighboring rooms is by now a motif representing a discovery that, I guess, just cannot be made, cannot occur. Basically, all of it is some sad, hidden defunct but beautiful possibility.
It should be made clear that this is not a collection of short stories, much less a novel. A complete liberty (generous indeed) of publishers, editors made this seem like something its quite frankly not. Better than the title, a more befitting and less confusing "Notes of Roberto Bolaño" would have sufficed. I'd still read it with equal enthusiasm.
Herein gorgeous trains-of-thought which defy a general classification. Are they notes and sketches, or beginnings, middles and ends? The writer has established this device of nonentity, of non-resolution and an omnipresent sense of dread, which may infuriate readers, divide them; but ultimately defines the awful discovery of literary prophecy: the whole point of these snippets, their infinite value, is the fact that Bolaño was writing about his impending annihilation by coming close to his text, breathing into it and from it, then retreading devastatingly far, causing in the reader disbelief, sadness & awe.
We find here the modern day Flannery O'Connor of Latin America. Bolaño's poetics include people and God being inherently cruel, the world a dangerous place. The fear of strangers pervades; and the voices coming from neighboring rooms is by now a motif representing a discovery that, I guess, just cannot be made, cannot occur. Basically, all of it is some sad, hidden defunct but beautiful possibility.
It should be made clear that this is not a collection of short stories, much less a novel. A complete liberty (generous indeed) of publishers, editors made this seem like something its quite frankly not. Better than the title, a more befitting and less confusing "Notes of Roberto Bolaño" would have sufficed. I'd still read it with equal enthusiasm.
January 31, 2025
A veces leer Roberto Bolaño da la idea que la persona no sabe lo que está haciendo. De impulso, pero también pensando en los diferentes capítulos del libro, el sujeto se hace la idea que el escritor quiere provocar el lector.
Con "El secreto del mal" el poeta chileno vaga desinhibido con su imaginación. Como dice el mismo poeta: tal vez escribe con la misma manera que se masturba antes de ir a dormir.
En la historia del ilbro algunos capítulos son razonables, otras historias no guardan algunas relación con la realidad.
Hay cuentos biográfico que podrían estar relacionados con la realidad del escritor: tal vez con su experiencia vivida en el D.F de México, tierra donde el escritor estudió en su juventud. [...] Otras historias son detalles de pensamiento, algunas veces pensamiento imaginario. Pero son pensamientos donde el autor trae también a su hijo: estos ortos cuentos lo escribe tanto por parte del nombre real como también por parte de su alter ego.
Por fin, hay dos cosas razonables que se destacan por el seudónimo Arturo Beleno: a veces está claro que es una persona que dice u escribe simplemente historias. Mientras con la otra razon se encuentra un autor que resalta la pasión por la letteratura y en haber sido un seguidor de Jorge Luis Borges.
Con "El secreto del mal" el poeta chileno vaga desinhibido con su imaginación. Como dice el mismo poeta: tal vez escribe con la misma manera que se masturba antes de ir a dormir.
En la historia del ilbro algunos capítulos son razonables, otras historias no guardan algunas relación con la realidad.
Hay cuentos biográfico que podrían estar relacionados con la realidad del escritor: tal vez con su experiencia vivida en el D.F de México, tierra donde el escritor estudió en su juventud. [...] Otras historias son detalles de pensamiento, algunas veces pensamiento imaginario. Pero son pensamientos donde el autor trae también a su hijo: estos ortos cuentos lo escribe tanto por parte del nombre real como también por parte de su alter ego.
Por fin, hay dos cosas razonables que se destacan por el seudónimo Arturo Beleno: a veces está claro que es una persona que dice u escribe simplemente historias. Mientras con la otra razon se encuentra un autor que resalta la pasión por la letteratura y en haber sido un seguidor de Jorge Luis Borges.
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November 23, 2022“La literatura es una máquina acorazada. No se preocupa de los escritores. A veces ni siquiera se dan cuenta de que estos están vivos. Su enemigo es otro, mucho más grande, mucho más poderoso, y que a la postre la terminará venciendo, pero esa es otra historia.”
Si no patino demasiado, este es un compendio de relatos que quedaron después de la muerte de Bolaño, relatos que se publicaron por orden de fecha. Es un dato curioso, porque algunos de ellos parece que no estén del todo terminados, como si la editorial se hubiese apresurado a publicar con prisas todo lo que tenía en mano sobre el autor. A pesar de todo eso, tiene un relato que es un claro guiño a George A Romero. El mítico director de cine de zombis que tanto le debe al género, por no decir que básicamente se inventó el género con determinadas influencias cinematográficas. Pero esa es otra historia, en estos relatos se nota la influencia que tiene Bolaño de la ciencia ficción, así como de algunos elementos de la literatura de terror. Aunque él no se definía como une escritor imaginativo par ami si que lo era, manejaba con habilidad dos tramas y hasta tres, encerradas en el mismo cuento. De forma sutil, en ese sentido no tenía nada que envidiar a Carver. Porque lo hace con un estilo propio y único, no deja margen a la respiración y termina, la mayoría de sus relatos, con un knockout magistral.
Con esto doy por terminado el círculo de cuentos que pertenecen a Roberto Bolaño, ha sido todo un placer descubrir sus cuentos, su estilo brillante y su milimétrico. Como venía diciendo antes, esto es el principio de una larga amistad con los libros de Bolaño. Para bien, eso siempre.
Si no patino demasiado, este es un compendio de relatos que quedaron después de la muerte de Bolaño, relatos que se publicaron por orden de fecha. Es un dato curioso, porque algunos de ellos parece que no estén del todo terminados, como si la editorial se hubiese apresurado a publicar con prisas todo lo que tenía en mano sobre el autor. A pesar de todo eso, tiene un relato que es un claro guiño a George A Romero. El mítico director de cine de zombis que tanto le debe al género, por no decir que básicamente se inventó el género con determinadas influencias cinematográficas. Pero esa es otra historia, en estos relatos se nota la influencia que tiene Bolaño de la ciencia ficción, así como de algunos elementos de la literatura de terror. Aunque él no se definía como une escritor imaginativo par ami si que lo era, manejaba con habilidad dos tramas y hasta tres, encerradas en el mismo cuento. De forma sutil, en ese sentido no tenía nada que envidiar a Carver. Porque lo hace con un estilo propio y único, no deja margen a la respiración y termina, la mayoría de sus relatos, con un knockout magistral.
Con esto doy por terminado el círculo de cuentos que pertenecen a Roberto Bolaño, ha sido todo un placer descubrir sus cuentos, su estilo brillante y su milimétrico. Como venía diciendo antes, esto es el principio de una larga amistad con los libros de Bolaño. Para bien, eso siempre.
July 3, 2022
Most of these stories were found in two files on Bolaño's computer after he'd died and were published against what would almost certainly be his best wishes were he still alive at the time of publication. I have to say, I'm very glad that this was done (sorry, Roberto!) About half of the stories are definitely incomplete, while the other half (save for a few lectures) may or may not be incomplete. They probably are, but they end on such enigmatic notes and with such a degree of narrative perfection that it's impossible to tell. Sometimes cutting a story off in an unexpected place is legitimately the best way to end it. Bolaño was certainly no stranger to this technique. If there's one thing that would leave him satisfied with the posthumous publication of these stories, it's the fact that, one way or another, he'd still managed to keep the reader guessing.
One of the strongest stories in the book, "I Can't Read", is definitely incomplete. What at first appears to be a more or less straightforward account of a brief stretch of the author's life very quickly gives way to a minor labyrinth of recurring themes, double-meanings, ambiguities, and inexplicable coincidences. Just as the motifs are starting to blend together into a discernible pattern, the story is cut off without any mention of one of the characters it claims to be about.
The final two sentences (maybe?) of the story "Crimes" sums up the heart of the collection very well. "Yes, says the sock salesman, now I understand," followed by "No, you don't understand at all." As is so often the case with compelling writing, the lack of understanding shines a brighter light than would any sudden realization.
I'm moved to quote two sentences from the final section of the lecture "Savilla Kills Me" as well. This, in regard to Bolaño's immediate literary predecessors. "The treasure left to us by our parents, or by those we thought were our putative parents, is pitiful. In fact, we're like children trapped in the mansion of a pedophile."
"The Colonel's Son" is another favorite. Perhaps the best piece in the book. Here are the opening lines: "You're not going to believe this, but last night, at about four a.m., I saw a movie on TV that could have been my biography or my autobiography or a summary of my days on this bitch of a planet." What follows is so completely off-the-rails, and yet so perfectly Bolaño, that I could almost weep at the prospect that we would have been denied this story if somebody hadn't ransacked the authors computer and published a more or less arbitrary selection of what they'd found there.
I was going to give this book 4 stars, as about a third of the stories are just fragments and are not as memorable as the rest, but reading over what I've just written about it, I can't regard this as anything other than a 5-star book. The way in which it was put together is so impertinent, arbitrary, and inexplicably fortuitous that I could almost see Bolaño himself doing it if he'd had the chance. It's like an act of posthumous defiance carried out through the hands of a hapless intermediary, and, as with most of the pieces in the book, it's questionable whether the act itself has been carried out to completion.
One of the strongest stories in the book, "I Can't Read", is definitely incomplete. What at first appears to be a more or less straightforward account of a brief stretch of the author's life very quickly gives way to a minor labyrinth of recurring themes, double-meanings, ambiguities, and inexplicable coincidences. Just as the motifs are starting to blend together into a discernible pattern, the story is cut off without any mention of one of the characters it claims to be about.
The final two sentences (maybe?) of the story "Crimes" sums up the heart of the collection very well. "Yes, says the sock salesman, now I understand," followed by "No, you don't understand at all." As is so often the case with compelling writing, the lack of understanding shines a brighter light than would any sudden realization.
I'm moved to quote two sentences from the final section of the lecture "Savilla Kills Me" as well. This, in regard to Bolaño's immediate literary predecessors. "The treasure left to us by our parents, or by those we thought were our putative parents, is pitiful. In fact, we're like children trapped in the mansion of a pedophile."
"The Colonel's Son" is another favorite. Perhaps the best piece in the book. Here are the opening lines: "You're not going to believe this, but last night, at about four a.m., I saw a movie on TV that could have been my biography or my autobiography or a summary of my days on this bitch of a planet." What follows is so completely off-the-rails, and yet so perfectly Bolaño, that I could almost weep at the prospect that we would have been denied this story if somebody hadn't ransacked the authors computer and published a more or less arbitrary selection of what they'd found there.
I was going to give this book 4 stars, as about a third of the stories are just fragments and are not as memorable as the rest, but reading over what I've just written about it, I can't regard this as anything other than a 5-star book. The way in which it was put together is so impertinent, arbitrary, and inexplicably fortuitous that I could almost see Bolaño himself doing it if he'd had the chance. It's like an act of posthumous defiance carried out through the hands of a hapless intermediary, and, as with most of the pieces in the book, it's questionable whether the act itself has been carried out to completion.
January 29, 2018
A volte leggere Roberto Bolaño dà l'idea che la persona non sappia cosa sta facendo. D’impulso, come anche pensando ai diversi temi dei capitoli del libro, lo scrittore rende l'idea che vuole provocare il lettore: ovviamente pure con "El secreto del mal" il poeta cileno vaga disinibito con la sua immaginazione. Come dice lo stesso: forse la sua è una maniera di masturbarsi prima di andare a dormire.
Le storie di alcuni capitoli del libro sono ragionevoli, ma ci sono pure alquanti racconti che non hanno alcun rapporto con la realtà! Storie che potrebbero essere collegate alla realtà dello scrittore, magari relazionate alla sua esperienza vissuta nel DF del Messico, terra nella quale Bolaño si trasferì in giovane età per studiare e crearsi l’avvenire di scrittore. Mentre gli altri argomenti dei paragrafi potrebbero essere scorci di pensiero, tipo flashback della propria coscienza, forse sono frammenti solo immaginari, ma dove il medesimo autore porta con sé anche suo figlio: cosa che narra sia col nome di battesimo come anche con l’alter ego.
Per concludere, si possono distinguere altri due concetti, caratterizzati dallo stesso pseudonimo Arturo Beleno: a volte come persona dice, o semplicemente scrivere storie. Mentre l’altro aspetto ha un fondo che potrebbe essere paragonato alla superficie sulla quale il pittore progetterà il suo disegno: ben distinto per la passione che ha avuto per la letteratura e l’essere stato un seguace di Jorge Luis Borges.
Le storie di alcuni capitoli del libro sono ragionevoli, ma ci sono pure alquanti racconti che non hanno alcun rapporto con la realtà! Storie che potrebbero essere collegate alla realtà dello scrittore, magari relazionate alla sua esperienza vissuta nel DF del Messico, terra nella quale Bolaño si trasferì in giovane età per studiare e crearsi l’avvenire di scrittore. Mentre gli altri argomenti dei paragrafi potrebbero essere scorci di pensiero, tipo flashback della propria coscienza, forse sono frammenti solo immaginari, ma dove il medesimo autore porta con sé anche suo figlio: cosa che narra sia col nome di battesimo come anche con l’alter ego.
Per concludere, si possono distinguere altri due concetti, caratterizzati dallo stesso pseudonimo Arturo Beleno: a volte come persona dice, o semplicemente scrivere storie. Mentre l’altro aspetto ha un fondo che potrebbe essere paragonato alla superficie sulla quale il pittore progetterà il suo disegno: ben distinto per la passione che ha avuto per la letteratura e l’essere stato un seguace di Jorge Luis Borges.
January 17, 2025
Un Bolaño sólo recomendable para completistas de su obra. Claramente muchos de los relatos son el esqueleto de lo que ha de ser la obra finalizada. Sólo el relato La playa, que quizás es el que dio lugar al malentendido que Bolaño vivió una etapa de yonqui, se puede apreciar de forma corriente, sin tener que suponer una hipotética colección de giros en las frases para darle brillo o bien el arsenal de detalles que enriquecen las imágenes.
Lo que sí es de alabar es el esfuerzo por buscarle nuevos giros y ángulos a los cuentos, mezclando capítulos autobiográficos con ensayos y conferencias, más allá del habitual esfuerzo de otros cuentistas, tales como ensayar otros estilos o géneros. En ese sentido, Piglia sí culminó todo lo que Bolaño aquí se propone.
November 30, 2016
He lived only fifty years, did Roberto Bolaño, but he left us with not a few mysteries, of which The Secret of Evil is only one. And what is this book? It is nothing less than a number of stories Bolaño had left on his computer when he died. And are these stories finished? Are any of them finished? I don't know.
But one thing I do know: This Chilean author who lived much of his life in exile had the gift. Even his fragments are full of excitement and, yes, mystery. One story, which I had read once before, probably in The New Yorker, is nothing but a series of suppositions about a number of literary people appearing in a captioned group photograph. Some of them, most notably Julia Kristeva, are real people, but Bolaño still has fun treating them as fictional characters, just as he does V S Naipaul in another fragment.
Hell, I'll take a fragment by Bolaño any day over most finished works by others, no matter what their reputation may be.
But one thing I do know: This Chilean author who lived much of his life in exile had the gift. Even his fragments are full of excitement and, yes, mystery. One story, which I had read once before, probably in The New Yorker, is nothing but a series of suppositions about a number of literary people appearing in a captioned group photograph. Some of them, most notably Julia Kristeva, are real people, but Bolaño still has fun treating them as fictional characters, just as he does V S Naipaul in another fragment.
Hell, I'll take a fragment by Bolaño any day over most finished works by others, no matter what their reputation may be.
January 22, 2020
Published posthumously, this collection comes from story files on Bolaño's computer found after his death. As such, these are beginnings and scraps and a few semi-polished pieces, some only 2 pages long.
For the Bolaño lovers out there, like myself, it's great to hear that voice again. If, however, you are new to his work, you won't find much here to enjoy - instead, seek out his short stories and novels which were published during his lifetime.
For the Bolaño lovers out there, like myself, it's great to hear that voice again. If, however, you are new to his work, you won't find much here to enjoy - instead, seek out his short stories and novels which were published during his lifetime.
January 23, 2024
This is the first time I have given a Bolano work a lower rating than usual. This hodgepodge of ideas, disjointed snippets of fiction and what seems to be fragments of stories and novels gives us glimpses of greatness and artistry, but I ask the question: does everything have to be published?
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March 2, 2017Finished this book in the train, from Lloret de Mar back to Barcelona. The day’s last train. The train was empty. It was Sunday. (As Bolaño would have put it: “Then he sees himself – and it’s as if he’s watching a movie, a movie so sad he’d never go to see it.”).
All the while, there was an incessant buzzing in my head. Perhaps it was because of too much alcohol. But I choose to interpret it as the sound of Roberto Bolaño spinning in his grave, at 180 rpm. Not sure he would have wanted these “stories” published.
Anyway, a nice post-drinking read for a completist.
All the while, there was an incessant buzzing in my head. Perhaps it was because of too much alcohol. But I choose to interpret it as the sound of Roberto Bolaño spinning in his grave, at 180 rpm. Not sure he would have wanted these “stories” published.
Anyway, a nice post-drinking read for a completist.
February 14, 2012
as the pool of roberto bolaño's as yet untranslated (or unpublished) work draws ever shallower, fans of the late chilean novelist and poet are left hungering for whatever wayward morsels still remain. while those eager to devour something as bountiful as the savage detectives or 2666 are likely to be left unsated, bolaño's residual writings nonetheless offer a complementary (if not integral) glimpse into his towering and singular body of work. so it is with the secret of evil, a collection of 19 mostly unfinished pieces found amongst the files on bolaño's computer following his 2003 death.
ignacio echevarría, spanish critic and bolaño's literary executor, penned a preliminary note to the secret of evil that outlines the provenance of the book's contents. despite the undated nature of these orphaned pieces, it appears that bolaño was working on them in the months preceding his death. echevarría offers insight into the often problematic charge of determining which of bolaño's stories or items had, in fact, already been completed:
of the nineteen pieces that compose the secret of evil, three have appeared previously in english translation. "vagaries on the literature of doom" (a speech about the state of post-borgesian argentine literature), "sevilla kills me" (an unfinished, if somewhat similarly themed address), and "beach" (progenitor of the "bolaño was once a heroin junkie" speculations since debunked by his wife, as well as by friend and fellow author, enrique vila-matas) were all published in between parentheses. as with much of bolaño's writing, the line between fictional creation and autobiographical sketch blur easily, as is evident in "i can't read," a "story" about his son lautaro's humorous antics during bolaño's first return trip to his native chile in nearly two and a half decades. "i can't read" demonstrates a lighter, more playful (and ever self-effacing) bolaño, and is one of the book's stronger pieces, despite it remaining, sadly, forever unfinished.
three of the secret of evil's stories, "the old man of the mountain," "death of ulises," and "the days of chaos" feature recurrent bolaño character (and autobiographical alter ego) arturo belano, two of which portray him well beyond his heady, itinerant savage detectives years. daniela de montecristo (of nazi literature and 2666 fame) makes a brief appearance in her namesake story, "daniela," wherein she recalls the loss of her virginity at age thirteen. "scholars of sodom" (in two versions) imagines v.s. naipaul upon a visit to buenos aires. "labyrinth" is vaguely evocative of the first part of 2666, "the part about the critics." "muscles," echevarría surmises, is "probably the beginning of an unfinished novel, perhaps an early version of una novelita lumpen" (a 2002 novella yet to be rendered into english). the collection's title story is amongst the best (despite its brevity) of those selected for inclusion, and offers a seedy, nocturnal milieu that bolaño was so adept at creating. the most surprising of the stories is "the colonel's son," a nightmarish tale wherein the narrator recounts a chilling zombie movie he viewed on television the night before.
the secret of evil, quite obviously, will appeal most greatly to those already won over by bolaño's extraordinary body of work. neophytes may well find this a difficult collection to make sense of, as the nature of the book lends itself to those long since familiar with the style and themes that characterize the chilean's masterful fiction. this is most certainly not the place for a newcomer to start, but for the devotee, a subterranean expanse of narrative possibilities and literary what-ifs await.
*the three previously published pieces that originally appeared in between parentheses were translated from the spanish by natasha wimmer, and the sixteen new to this collection were rendered by chris andrews.
ignacio echevarría, spanish critic and bolaño's literary executor, penned a preliminary note to the secret of evil that outlines the provenance of the book's contents. despite the undated nature of these orphaned pieces, it appears that bolaño was working on them in the months preceding his death. echevarría offers insight into the often problematic charge of determining which of bolaño's stories or items had, in fact, already been completed:
...the inconclusive nature of bolaño's novels and stories makes it difficult to decide which of the unpublished narrative texts should be regarded as finished and which are simply sketches. the task is further complicated by bolaño's progressive radicalization of what i have called his poetics of inconclusiveness. and to make the distinction more difficult still, bolaño rarely began to write a story without giving it a title and immediately establishing a definite tone and atmosphere; his writing, which is always captivating, virtually never stumbles or hesitates.despite the arduousness of echevarría's attempts to clarify a particular piece's state of completion, the writing in the secret of evil never reads as if it were hastily constructed, but rather, at times, simply unfinished. some of the included stories may well have an ambiguous ending, while others leave off in a way that seemingly indicates that they were abandoned pending resumption at a later date.
of the nineteen pieces that compose the secret of evil, three have appeared previously in english translation. "vagaries on the literature of doom" (a speech about the state of post-borgesian argentine literature), "sevilla kills me" (an unfinished, if somewhat similarly themed address), and "beach" (progenitor of the "bolaño was once a heroin junkie" speculations since debunked by his wife, as well as by friend and fellow author, enrique vila-matas) were all published in between parentheses. as with much of bolaño's writing, the line between fictional creation and autobiographical sketch blur easily, as is evident in "i can't read," a "story" about his son lautaro's humorous antics during bolaño's first return trip to his native chile in nearly two and a half decades. "i can't read" demonstrates a lighter, more playful (and ever self-effacing) bolaño, and is one of the book's stronger pieces, despite it remaining, sadly, forever unfinished.
three of the secret of evil's stories, "the old man of the mountain," "death of ulises," and "the days of chaos" feature recurrent bolaño character (and autobiographical alter ego) arturo belano, two of which portray him well beyond his heady, itinerant savage detectives years. daniela de montecristo (of nazi literature and 2666 fame) makes a brief appearance in her namesake story, "daniela," wherein she recalls the loss of her virginity at age thirteen. "scholars of sodom" (in two versions) imagines v.s. naipaul upon a visit to buenos aires. "labyrinth" is vaguely evocative of the first part of 2666, "the part about the critics." "muscles," echevarría surmises, is "probably the beginning of an unfinished novel, perhaps an early version of una novelita lumpen" (a 2002 novella yet to be rendered into english). the collection's title story is amongst the best (despite its brevity) of those selected for inclusion, and offers a seedy, nocturnal milieu that bolaño was so adept at creating. the most surprising of the stories is "the colonel's son," a nightmarish tale wherein the narrator recounts a chilling zombie movie he viewed on television the night before.
the secret of evil, quite obviously, will appeal most greatly to those already won over by bolaño's extraordinary body of work. neophytes may well find this a difficult collection to make sense of, as the nature of the book lends itself to those long since familiar with the style and themes that characterize the chilean's masterful fiction. this is most certainly not the place for a newcomer to start, but for the devotee, a subterranean expanse of narrative possibilities and literary what-ifs await.
you're not going to believe this, but last night, at about four a.m., i saw a movie on tv that could have been my biography or my autobiography or a summary of my days on this bitch of a planet. it scared me so fucking shitless that i tell you i just about fell off my chair.
*the three previously published pieces that originally appeared in between parentheses were translated from the spanish by natasha wimmer, and the sixteen new to this collection were rendered by chris andrews.
August 10, 2016
Leer a Bolano es un placer y dos tristezas. El primero se explica solo. Las dos segundas necesitan unas lineas: la primera, es saber que jamas voy a poder escribir 4 lineas como el (esta es una tristeza mas bien dura, cruel); la segunda, es la pena de saber que, cuando termine que leer todo lo que ha escrito, ya no va a haber mas Bolano. Quedara releer lo leido (ya lo hice con "Los Detectives Salvajes")
Leia en la introduccion al libro que no se sabe, en la mayoria de los cuentos, si Bolano los habia terminado de escribir o no. Fueron archivos encontrados en su computadora. Es increible pensar que tal vez los cuentos no estaban terminados y sin embargo se dejan leer. Esto tiene que ver con el estilo de Bolano: sus obras son una cebolla perfecta: capa tras capa descubre uno algo nuevo (un nuevo terror, una nueva premonicion, una nueva puerta abierta a una nada perfectamente delineada, salvaje, o un conjunto de tantas posibilidades como lectores).
En algunos de los cuentos (o de los ensayos -conte dos-) todavia se encuentran un par de lineas del humor irreverente de Bolano. Un cuento, de hecho ("El Hijo del Coronel", quizas el unico cuento con final) es todo el un relato de humor, un excelente guion de una pesima pelicula de zombies. Pero hasta aqui lo hace cabalgar Bolano a uno a traves del relato (que sigue?)
La advertencia con Bolano es siempre la misma: esperar un final solo llevara a una decepcion.
Leia en la introduccion al libro que no se sabe, en la mayoria de los cuentos, si Bolano los habia terminado de escribir o no. Fueron archivos encontrados en su computadora. Es increible pensar que tal vez los cuentos no estaban terminados y sin embargo se dejan leer. Esto tiene que ver con el estilo de Bolano: sus obras son una cebolla perfecta: capa tras capa descubre uno algo nuevo (un nuevo terror, una nueva premonicion, una nueva puerta abierta a una nada perfectamente delineada, salvaje, o un conjunto de tantas posibilidades como lectores).
En algunos de los cuentos (o de los ensayos -conte dos-) todavia se encuentran un par de lineas del humor irreverente de Bolano. Un cuento, de hecho ("El Hijo del Coronel", quizas el unico cuento con final) es todo el un relato de humor, un excelente guion de una pesima pelicula de zombies. Pero hasta aqui lo hace cabalgar Bolano a uno a traves del relato (que sigue?)
La advertencia con Bolano es siempre la misma: esperar un final solo llevara a una decepcion.
April 20, 2017
It’s like when Jimi Hendrix died, or Tupac for instance, and album after posthumous album of material in various degrees of fragment and finished work was scraped together and sold: You were happy with what you could get, and The Secret of Evil has enough of Roberto Bolaño’s raw alchemy to make the ardent Bolaño admirer glad it’s here, and wish again that the author still was too.
March 29, 2015
Me resulta imposible dar una calificación inferior a Bolaño, pero solo es recomendable para los arqueólogos de los que habría podido ser después del 2003.
July 3, 2015
Slowly, I am plowing through the works of Bolaño, it’s like a journey of some sorts. Like most people, I started off with The Savage Detectives. I bought The Savage Detectives and 2666 together after scrolling around on the internet and seeing a photograph of book eye candy. In that pile was a lovely Spanish edition, the original language, of 2666. Out of curiosity, I searched up the book and read about Roberto on Wikipedia, ever since then I wanted the book. So I read The Savage Detectives and after that one I read Distant Star, The Third Reich, Last Evenings on Earth, and the latest one I finished is The Secret of Evil. I don’t know what it is about this guy, but I just love his freaking work. Am I freak? I don’t get it, but I just love his prose. Sadly, I never read his poetry, there's only so many books I can read.
The Secret of Evil is a short story collection with a few short essays in between. I like this one a lot better than Last Evenings on Earth. I think there was only one short story in this book I disliked, all of the other ones I loved.
I feel like this collection kind of has a more intimate feel to it, it’s more comfortable. The prose is more consumable, it feels more natural. I can’t explain it, but when I read these stories, I felt like I was drinking a nice cup of tea and flipping through the dairies of people’s lives. Living, reading, and doing everything the human body desires, evil or good, some secretive, some exposed, the lives of people, misfortune or fortunate, Mischievous or just being a good being, hiding behind the mask of sadness or false happiness. We humans disappear into time and then somehow come back unscathed or disappear forever. Roberto's passion for words and literature is just like the passion someone has for their wife or husband; his words are just so sweet for my mind. I will admit that I’m kind of iffy about The Third Reich and Woes of the True Policeman. There's just something about this man’s airy, poetic, minimalistic prose that makes me want to read more of his work. There’s always a bit of darkness but there’s also the ordinariness of life that makes his work feel like home when you haven’t read him for awhile.
Rating: 5/5
The Secret of Evil is a short story collection with a few short essays in between. I like this one a lot better than Last Evenings on Earth. I think there was only one short story in this book I disliked, all of the other ones I loved.
I feel like this collection kind of has a more intimate feel to it, it’s more comfortable. The prose is more consumable, it feels more natural. I can’t explain it, but when I read these stories, I felt like I was drinking a nice cup of tea and flipping through the dairies of people’s lives. Living, reading, and doing everything the human body desires, evil or good, some secretive, some exposed, the lives of people, misfortune or fortunate, Mischievous or just being a good being, hiding behind the mask of sadness or false happiness. We humans disappear into time and then somehow come back unscathed or disappear forever. Roberto's passion for words and literature is just like the passion someone has for their wife or husband; his words are just so sweet for my mind. I will admit that I’m kind of iffy about The Third Reich and Woes of the True Policeman. There's just something about this man’s airy, poetic, minimalistic prose that makes me want to read more of his work. There’s always a bit of darkness but there’s also the ordinariness of life that makes his work feel like home when you haven’t read him for awhile.
Rating: 5/5
August 6, 2025
The Secret of Evil finds Bolaño transparently grappling with his own mortality in pieces animated by the unrelenting urgency of what he still had to say. He wrote like someone who knew the clock was ticking but refused to give in to despair. What becomes clear in these nineteen pieces is that narrative is often less important than the feeling it evokes: disorientation, nostalgia, fear, sadness, joy, and more. Bolaño invites the reader to stand with him at the “brink of the abyss” and face these emotions directly.
Bolaño understood that fiction is not a place to hide from reality, but a way to engage with its most violent and mysterious currents. His characters move through the world only half-aware, sometimes intoxicated by poetry, sometimes paralyzed by memory, always conscious of the signs and portents around them, yet unable to interpret them. This collection also includes several essays that reveal a more intimate, personal side of Bolaño. Literature, he tells us, must make room for the doomed, the grotesque, and the visionary. It must never become a mirror for vanity.
The secret at the heart of this book is that the truest art is never truly complete. Bolaño knows that literature always outlives its makers and cares little for them. What endures, however, is their voice. And I believe Bolaño’s incredible voice is as immortal as any we have.
Bolaño understood that fiction is not a place to hide from reality, but a way to engage with its most violent and mysterious currents. His characters move through the world only half-aware, sometimes intoxicated by poetry, sometimes paralyzed by memory, always conscious of the signs and portents around them, yet unable to interpret them. This collection also includes several essays that reveal a more intimate, personal side of Bolaño. Literature, he tells us, must make room for the doomed, the grotesque, and the visionary. It must never become a mirror for vanity.
The secret at the heart of this book is that the truest art is never truly complete. Bolaño knows that literature always outlives its makers and cares little for them. What endures, however, is their voice. And I believe Bolaño’s incredible voice is as immortal as any we have.
September 26, 2016
Este libro, no lo escribió Bolaño. Escribió sus cuentos y otros textos pero murió antes de publicarles. El editor lo señala en su introducción y justifica sus elecciones. Bueno...
Conocí a Roberto Bolaño con las historias cortas de Llamadas telefónicas y quede fascinada. En algunas historias de El secreto del mal, encuentro de nuevo esta voz que tanto me gusta, como en "La colonia Lindavista" o "Playa". En otras, es un reencuentro con un Arturo Belano grande, este poeta de los Detectives salvajes, desilusionado, siempre desfasado. Y luego, hay otras voces, la de El hijo del coronel, que la podría contar Molina a Valentín Arregui (pero un Molina con referencias cinematográficas rebajadas) o como la literatura adapta el cinema (y no al revés), o la de "Bronceado" que queda para mí el cuento mas cruel del libro.
En fín, si algunos relatos me parecieron muy buenos, el libro como tal podría no dejarme mucho recuerdo. Le falta una unidad, que no de tanto la impresión de una recopilación de lo que se pudo sacar del ordenador del autor tras su muerte. Se reconoce el estilo de Bolaño, sí, pero hay obras de él más interesantes (o por lo menos más acabadas).
Conocí a Roberto Bolaño con las historias cortas de Llamadas telefónicas y quede fascinada. En algunas historias de El secreto del mal, encuentro de nuevo esta voz que tanto me gusta, como en "La colonia Lindavista" o "Playa". En otras, es un reencuentro con un Arturo Belano grande, este poeta de los Detectives salvajes, desilusionado, siempre desfasado. Y luego, hay otras voces, la de El hijo del coronel, que la podría contar Molina a Valentín Arregui (pero un Molina con referencias cinematográficas rebajadas) o como la literatura adapta el cinema (y no al revés), o la de "Bronceado" que queda para mí el cuento mas cruel del libro.
En fín, si algunos relatos me parecieron muy buenos, el libro como tal podría no dejarme mucho recuerdo. Le falta una unidad, que no de tanto la impresión de una recopilación de lo que se pudo sacar del ordenador del autor tras su muerte. Se reconoce el estilo de Bolaño, sí, pero hay obras de él más interesantes (o por lo menos más acabadas).
December 16, 2024
Mmm arriesgado el Bolañin.
Como dice muy acertadamente Ignacio Echeverria en la contratapa "son cuentos que se rigen por una poética de la inconclusión". Justamente en algunos casos la irrupción del relato potencia muchísimo el horror sugerido. Pero la verdad es que en otros, para mí, se queda a medias (porque probablemente el cuento haya quedado escrito a medias). Me gustaron sí los relatos más ensayísticos, debió tener más de esos.
En fín, medio a medio con este libro, pero se la tengo que dar porque algunos cuentos sí los releería con gusto. Sobre todo El hijo del coronel que tiene el mejor inicio de la puta historia, léanlo y cáguense de la risa.
Como dice muy acertadamente Ignacio Echeverria en la contratapa "son cuentos que se rigen por una poética de la inconclusión". Justamente en algunos casos la irrupción del relato potencia muchísimo el horror sugerido. Pero la verdad es que en otros, para mí, se queda a medias (porque probablemente el cuento haya quedado escrito a medias). Me gustaron sí los relatos más ensayísticos, debió tener más de esos.
En fín, medio a medio con este libro, pero se la tengo que dar porque algunos cuentos sí los releería con gusto. Sobre todo El hijo del coronel que tiene el mejor inicio de la puta historia, léanlo y cáguense de la risa.
January 13, 2017
Komputer Bolano diubek, dan semua tulisan yg tertinggal di dalamnya sudah pasti jadi buku. Beberapa tulisan dalam buku ini sudah banyak yg tersebar di internet, bahkan saya pernah menerjemahkan salah satunya.
January 11, 2015
Even Bolaño's ephemera is engrossing and entirely worth reading. It will be a sad, sad day in my world when I've finally run out of new things of his to read.
July 20, 2016
Also the title of Trump's forthcoming sequel to "Art of the Deal".
April 14, 2022
Si englobem (d’aquesta forma típica de les llibreries clàssiques europees, d’esperit colonialista i pretensiós) la literatura creada per autors sud-americans en “literatura hispana-americana” i no distingim entre argentins i xilens (que és el que ens ocupa ara) podria dir que, per mi, després de Borges i Cortazar, Bolaño (Xilè i no Argentí) és el tercer del pòdium. No em vull fer l’expert en aquest tipus de literatura (perquè no en soc ni molt menys) però de veritat que l’ús de l’espanyol que fan els autors de l’altre costat de l’oceà és totalment diferent del de la península (no diré millor però amb més estima potser sí).
Bolaño, dins aquest compedium (que no organitza ell sinó els editors després de la seva mort) mostra la fragmentació de la realitat, allò que no ha acabat i que es consolida en la seva manca de totalitat. Tots els textos són relats, articles i escrits inacabats, emmagatzemats en una carpeta que no havia de sortir a la llum però que ara disposem a les mans. Malgrat això, el fet que la majoria d’històries no estiguin acabades (segurament volgut així per l’autor) mostra la teatralització de la situació, del costumisme més arrelat en l’esperit i en la naturalitat de l’expressió i la decadència.
És una literatura bruta, però no d’aquella brutícia que és necessària netejar (com quan taquem el jersei que amb una trucada a la mama havíem netejat expresament per la noia que ens observa fastiguejada a l’altre cantó de la taula o quan després de saltar pels bassals del porxo de sota casa entres a correcuita empastifant la catifa i la faldilla ampla de la mare) sinó una pesta del temps, una pols xuclada pels mobles quan aquests s’impregnen dels costums i de les normes, quan aquests adopten una posició natural i ja no imposada. L’obra de Bolaño mostra aquesta brutícia que engloba els records de la infància i de la decadència de la maduresa (no és un empastifament maligne o potser sí, però d’una maldat coneguda i, per tant, dolça i tendra, domesticada però amb el record del primer impacte) i per això ens sembla tan lleugera i natural, perquè en la visió dels dos vells a la platja (un dels millors relats), de la noia que mira als dos sud-americans establerts a casa, beguda per un vi negre que li és novetat (el meu preferit) o en l’autor de novel·les que torna a casa d’un amic mort i que només en resten deixebles supeditats a la memòria i a l’èxit fugaç, observem fragments inacabats de vides i personatges esquerdats, empastifats d’un vocabulari realista, natural i d’una literatura escampada pel pis i la ciutat.
Bolaño és, doncs, un mestre. Ell mateix assegura (en un dels articles presents a l’obra, un dels millors escrits) que Borges és el pla on s’estableix la literatura argentina, però on Cortazar era el millor (en tot el que feia) i ell, que es distancia naturalment d’aquest país estranger però proper, és un espectador permanent d’aquesta literatura. A part de resoldre el debat etern de si és millor Cortazar o Borges (que anirà canviant segons l’època en què em preguntis durant la resta de la meva vida) Bolaño ha tornat a sorpendrem amb el seu gust exquisit per la realitat internacional que amaga la seva quotidianitat nacional.
Bolaño, dins aquest compedium (que no organitza ell sinó els editors després de la seva mort) mostra la fragmentació de la realitat, allò que no ha acabat i que es consolida en la seva manca de totalitat. Tots els textos són relats, articles i escrits inacabats, emmagatzemats en una carpeta que no havia de sortir a la llum però que ara disposem a les mans. Malgrat això, el fet que la majoria d’històries no estiguin acabades (segurament volgut així per l’autor) mostra la teatralització de la situació, del costumisme més arrelat en l’esperit i en la naturalitat de l’expressió i la decadència.
És una literatura bruta, però no d’aquella brutícia que és necessària netejar (com quan taquem el jersei que amb una trucada a la mama havíem netejat expresament per la noia que ens observa fastiguejada a l’altre cantó de la taula o quan després de saltar pels bassals del porxo de sota casa entres a correcuita empastifant la catifa i la faldilla ampla de la mare) sinó una pesta del temps, una pols xuclada pels mobles quan aquests s’impregnen dels costums i de les normes, quan aquests adopten una posició natural i ja no imposada. L’obra de Bolaño mostra aquesta brutícia que engloba els records de la infància i de la decadència de la maduresa (no és un empastifament maligne o potser sí, però d’una maldat coneguda i, per tant, dolça i tendra, domesticada però amb el record del primer impacte) i per això ens sembla tan lleugera i natural, perquè en la visió dels dos vells a la platja (un dels millors relats), de la noia que mira als dos sud-americans establerts a casa, beguda per un vi negre que li és novetat (el meu preferit) o en l’autor de novel·les que torna a casa d’un amic mort i que només en resten deixebles supeditats a la memòria i a l’èxit fugaç, observem fragments inacabats de vides i personatges esquerdats, empastifats d’un vocabulari realista, natural i d’una literatura escampada pel pis i la ciutat.
Bolaño és, doncs, un mestre. Ell mateix assegura (en un dels articles presents a l’obra, un dels millors escrits) que Borges és el pla on s’estableix la literatura argentina, però on Cortazar era el millor (en tot el que feia) i ell, que es distancia naturalment d’aquest país estranger però proper, és un espectador permanent d’aquesta literatura. A part de resoldre el debat etern de si és millor Cortazar o Borges (que anirà canviant segons l’època en què em preguntis durant la resta de la meva vida) Bolaño ha tornat a sorpendrem amb el seu gust exquisit per la realitat internacional que amaga la seva quotidianitat nacional.
June 14, 2021
Libro póstumo de Roberto Bolaño que contiene 17 cuentos, algunos más cortos que otros.
Cuentos de alto nivel y otros que no tanto, no se sabe si eran descartes o no. Lo que sí que se sabe es que cada página escrita por Bolaño era parte de un plan, un plan caótico y único.
Bajo mi punto de vista este libro es mejor que El Gaucho insufrible.
Cuentos de alto nivel y otros que no tanto, no se sabe si eran descartes o no. Lo que sí que se sabe es que cada página escrita por Bolaño era parte de un plan, un plan caótico y único.
Bajo mi punto de vista este libro es mejor que El Gaucho insufrible.
September 25, 2019
3* Woes of the True Policeman (Hardcover)
5* 2666
4* The Secret of Evil
TR By Night in Chile
TR The Savage Detectives
TR Antwerp
TR Estrela Distante
5* 2666
4* The Secret of Evil
TR By Night in Chile
TR The Savage Detectives
TR Antwerp
TR Estrela Distante
May 28, 2013
I wonder if Roberto Bolaño might not be the almost perfect writer—the near perfect novelist and the near perfect poet. I can’t imagine him writing substandard fiction or inferior poetry. It is not merely his stories and plotting that are engaging and gravitational but he is a master of style, too. He has extended creative language in ways we are only beginning to understand. And that creativity is evident in English translations as well as in the original Spanish where the impact can be transcendental.
I wonder about Bolaño’s talents since The Secret of Evil is only, for the most part, collected fragments, short, uncompleted pieces of writings that were left in four files on Bolaño’s computer at his death. You would expect the fragments (19 in all) to be in some stage of development in regard to the actual writing rather than polished, needing only story or plot extensions. But the fragments mesmerize as if they were polished wholes and not evolving parts. Reading The Secret of Evil is like spending an evening over drinks and dinner with a brilliant friend, finding yourself lost in stimulating and expanding ideas and visions of new worlds and possibilities.
Some of the fragments re-introduce us to old friends of Bolaño’s fiction. We meet, for example, Bolaño’s alter ego Arturo Belano and his friend Ulises Lima (from The Savage Detectives) in several of the stories/fragments, including “The Old Man of the Mountain”, “Death of Ulises” and “The Days of Chaos”. Or even Bolaño himself in “Colonia Lindavista” as a young man in Mexico or in “I Can’t Read” as a father in a return trip to his native Chile.
There are also new or almost new characters in, for example, “Muscles” and “Daniela”. In the former, the narrator is a young girl caught up in the life of her brother. In the latter, we are re-introduced to Daniela de Montecristo, “a citizen of the universe”, a person we met only briefly in Nazi Literature in the Americas. And there are several—“The Room Next Door” or “Crimes”—that are at once mysterious and unsettling.
Two of the pieces are reflections on the state of Argentinian and Latin American literature: “Vagaries of the Literature of Doom” and “Sevilla Kills Me”. Here the impact is admittedly more esoteric for an audience unfamiliar with Hispanic letters.
Nor are all the pieces fragments. “Labyrinth”, one of the longer writings and one of the few previously published, is a complete story. In the first pages Bolaño describes a photograph of eight people and then, after describing the dress and posture of the eight as they appear statically in the photo, he moves them signally and in groups out of the photograph into imagined scenes and situations. It is a breathtaking, whirlwind adventure.
“The Colonel’s Son” also appears to be a completed story. Here, Bolano emerges us in a zombie movie that he has seen on television. The movie was, writes Bolano, “bad, or the sort we call bad—poor fools that we are—because the actors aren’t much good and the director’s not much good and the cretinous special effects guys hopeless too.” But then he tells us that “it was the most democratic, the most revolutionary film I’d seen in ages.” And with that declaration, he hooks the reader for 14 pages.
These kinds of works published after an author’s death most often tend to disappoint. They seem positioned by publishers and heirs to milk money from the public—a publisher’s con game. The Secret of Evil is one of the exceptions to that tendency.
I wonder about Bolaño’s talents since The Secret of Evil is only, for the most part, collected fragments, short, uncompleted pieces of writings that were left in four files on Bolaño’s computer at his death. You would expect the fragments (19 in all) to be in some stage of development in regard to the actual writing rather than polished, needing only story or plot extensions. But the fragments mesmerize as if they were polished wholes and not evolving parts. Reading The Secret of Evil is like spending an evening over drinks and dinner with a brilliant friend, finding yourself lost in stimulating and expanding ideas and visions of new worlds and possibilities.
Some of the fragments re-introduce us to old friends of Bolaño’s fiction. We meet, for example, Bolaño’s alter ego Arturo Belano and his friend Ulises Lima (from The Savage Detectives) in several of the stories/fragments, including “The Old Man of the Mountain”, “Death of Ulises” and “The Days of Chaos”. Or even Bolaño himself in “Colonia Lindavista” as a young man in Mexico or in “I Can’t Read” as a father in a return trip to his native Chile.
There are also new or almost new characters in, for example, “Muscles” and “Daniela”. In the former, the narrator is a young girl caught up in the life of her brother. In the latter, we are re-introduced to Daniela de Montecristo, “a citizen of the universe”, a person we met only briefly in Nazi Literature in the Americas. And there are several—“The Room Next Door” or “Crimes”—that are at once mysterious and unsettling.
Two of the pieces are reflections on the state of Argentinian and Latin American literature: “Vagaries of the Literature of Doom” and “Sevilla Kills Me”. Here the impact is admittedly more esoteric for an audience unfamiliar with Hispanic letters.
Nor are all the pieces fragments. “Labyrinth”, one of the longer writings and one of the few previously published, is a complete story. In the first pages Bolaño describes a photograph of eight people and then, after describing the dress and posture of the eight as they appear statically in the photo, he moves them signally and in groups out of the photograph into imagined scenes and situations. It is a breathtaking, whirlwind adventure.
“The Colonel’s Son” also appears to be a completed story. Here, Bolano emerges us in a zombie movie that he has seen on television. The movie was, writes Bolano, “bad, or the sort we call bad—poor fools that we are—because the actors aren’t much good and the director’s not much good and the cretinous special effects guys hopeless too.” But then he tells us that “it was the most democratic, the most revolutionary film I’d seen in ages.” And with that declaration, he hooks the reader for 14 pages.
These kinds of works published after an author’s death most often tend to disappoint. They seem positioned by publishers and heirs to milk money from the public—a publisher’s con game. The Secret of Evil is one of the exceptions to that tendency.
March 19, 2025
Compilado póstumo de Bolaño, consistente de cuentos hallados en su computadora que se piensan escritos los meses previos a su muerte. Desarrolla en todos ellos lo que el editor llama “poética de la inconclusión”, presente también en títulos mayores como Los Detectives Salvajes o 2666, y que consiste básicamente en calentarle la sopa al lector al concluir abrupta y decididamente la narración en la que tan empeñado se estaba. Tiene cuentos -en realidad no todos son cuentos como tal- bien malos, y otros bien buenos. Por suerte, los bien malos son los de menos. No deja de asombrarme la capacidad de crear imágenes visualmente claras y poderosas que tenía este señor. Quizás aún más impresionante es la prolificidad con la que podía hacerlo. Un legado invaluable.
September 25, 2016
EDIT: I originally read this only a few days after my mother's death last year, and so when I bought this again, innocently enough, a few weeks back, only to realize I'd already read it, I think I can be excused.
But you don't need such elaborate excuses to read Bolańo. Reading him is like coming home. I remembered a few of the pieces, once I'd read them again, but reading them again, and the ones I couldn't remember, was to learn all over again why I love Bolańo. He's as close as I've found to a true literary patron saint.
Maybe I wouldn't even like the real man, but rather the one left in his many works, both long (2666, which really everyone ought to read) and short (The Skating Rink), which is what I like now. But he died thirteen years ago, and so this is a moot point, and all I have left is to read and reread, the latter of which I've just happily done for the first time.
Some of this isn't as inspired as other parts of it. Some of it is just kind of there, or just stuff he was working out of his system. The editors are careful to note that most of it wasn't really finished in the files they went through, but they published it anyway, and I think it's to everyone's benefit. There's such a glow of hopeful melancholy, of impending fate (or maybe it's just easy to read that into his work, since he died before I'd ever read a single Bolańo effort). The title story, for instance, is only a couple pages long (it seems the longer pieces are the meandering ones), but ends on such a note that the reader can easily interpret what happens next. Any good story will do that, unless it relies on sudden twists. A good story is a long sketch anyway, right? It's the ability to bring the story alive that's the thing, and that's what Bolańo did all the time.
He was the most alive writer I've ever read. So naturally he was, again, dead by the time I discovered him.
SKIMPY ORIGINAL THOUGHTS, FROM 3/31/15
A way to celebrate Bolano in small doses, to remember that, yes, he was just a man and that yes, he has also proven immortal. The cover to the paperback suggests that this might entice the uninitiated, but in fact it may be a perfect coda to his work.
But you don't need such elaborate excuses to read Bolańo. Reading him is like coming home. I remembered a few of the pieces, once I'd read them again, but reading them again, and the ones I couldn't remember, was to learn all over again why I love Bolańo. He's as close as I've found to a true literary patron saint.
Maybe I wouldn't even like the real man, but rather the one left in his many works, both long (2666, which really everyone ought to read) and short (The Skating Rink), which is what I like now. But he died thirteen years ago, and so this is a moot point, and all I have left is to read and reread, the latter of which I've just happily done for the first time.
Some of this isn't as inspired as other parts of it. Some of it is just kind of there, or just stuff he was working out of his system. The editors are careful to note that most of it wasn't really finished in the files they went through, but they published it anyway, and I think it's to everyone's benefit. There's such a glow of hopeful melancholy, of impending fate (or maybe it's just easy to read that into his work, since he died before I'd ever read a single Bolańo effort). The title story, for instance, is only a couple pages long (it seems the longer pieces are the meandering ones), but ends on such a note that the reader can easily interpret what happens next. Any good story will do that, unless it relies on sudden twists. A good story is a long sketch anyway, right? It's the ability to bring the story alive that's the thing, and that's what Bolańo did all the time.
He was the most alive writer I've ever read. So naturally he was, again, dead by the time I discovered him.
SKIMPY ORIGINAL THOUGHTS, FROM 3/31/15
A way to celebrate Bolano in small doses, to remember that, yes, he was just a man and that yes, he has also proven immortal. The cover to the paperback suggests that this might entice the uninitiated, but in fact it may be a perfect coda to his work.
December 5, 2016
Hay varios relatos que claramente son esbozos incompletos y nada más. Pero hay un par de cuentos notables: "El hijo del coronel" y "Laberinto", que sí son historias más elaboradas y bien pulidas. Probablemente estos relatos podrían incluirse en el nuevo libro de cuentos inéditos que se prepara, dejando el relleno de lado. La conferencia "Sevilla me mata" es muy interesante, destaco esta parte:
"¿De dónde viene la nueva literatura latinoamericana? La respuesta es sencillísima. Viene del miedo. Viene del horrible (y en cierta forma bastante comprensible) miedo de trabajar en una oficina o vendiendo baratijas en el Paseo Ahumada. Viene del deseo de respetabilidad, que sólo encubre al miedo".
Y la introducción del último relato "Las jornadas del caos" para mí no deja lugar a dudas del tipo de relación que mantenía "Arturo Belano" con su viuda, a propósito de las polémicas del último tiempo.
No es un imperdible, pero quedé más que conforme con el libro.
"¿De dónde viene la nueva literatura latinoamericana? La respuesta es sencillísima. Viene del miedo. Viene del horrible (y en cierta forma bastante comprensible) miedo de trabajar en una oficina o vendiendo baratijas en el Paseo Ahumada. Viene del deseo de respetabilidad, que sólo encubre al miedo".
Y la introducción del último relato "Las jornadas del caos" para mí no deja lugar a dudas del tipo de relación que mantenía "Arturo Belano" con su viuda, a propósito de las polémicas del último tiempo.
No es un imperdible, pero quedé más que conforme con el libro.
July 24, 2012
"...We're getting famous, they say, but we're still rebels. The way of Ulises Lima, they say, Ulises Lima's tracer fire...Mexican kids staring out at him from photos or from hell, holding their electric guitars as if they were brandishing weapons or freezing to death." - Death of Ulises
an incandescent collection of scattered gems from Bolaño: the best zombie movie treatment ever written (The Colonel's Son), the exegesis of a photograph ( Labyrinth ), the Vagaries of the Literature of Doom ("One must reread Borges"), Beach, and three visits with the shades of Belano & Lima.
an incandescent collection of scattered gems from Bolaño: the best zombie movie treatment ever written (The Colonel's Son), the exegesis of a photograph ( Labyrinth ), the Vagaries of the Literature of Doom ("One must reread Borges"), Beach, and three visits with the shades of Belano & Lima.
September 25, 2013
Si me diera por pensar mal diría que se trata de un compendio de borradores que ha publicado la editorial con el fin de enriquecerse, que apenas aporta nada nuevo a la obra del chileno porque está todo a medio hacer y por tanto, no tiene la profundidad ni el hilo conductor necesario para que guste.
Si me diera por pensar mal diría que a partir de aquí la editorial tratará de publicar cualquier papel, envoltorio o conjunto de garabatos siempre que lleve el nombre de Roberto Bolaño en la portada.
Menos mal que no me da por pensar mal.
http://lahierbaroja.wordpress.com/201...
Si me diera por pensar mal diría que a partir de aquí la editorial tratará de publicar cualquier papel, envoltorio o conjunto de garabatos siempre que lleve el nombre de Roberto Bolaño en la portada.
Menos mal que no me da por pensar mal.
http://lahierbaroja.wordpress.com/201...
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