The Endless Rose

by Carlos Maleno, Eric Kurtzke (Translator)

A disquieting, haunting work, The Endless Rose begins when a one-legged woman’s manuscript is accepted by a small publishing house consisting of two friends. Stunned and excited by her writing, they invite her to visit them in the south of Spain. The hypnotic, gut-wrenching events that follow―revolving around a brutal murder mentioned in the book’s first pages―are plunged into an atmosphere of dreams, violence, and bizarre coincidence. Maleno has managed to distill a mash of Michel Houellebecq (who figures as a character here), Roberto Bolaño ( The Endless Rose takes its title from a fictional novel mentioned in the Chilean’s posthumous masterpiece), and Enrique Vila-Matas (whose technique of textured allusion Maleno has mastered) into a strange brew that is all his own.

Genres: Fiction

125 pages, Paperback

Published December 13, 2022

Reviews

[jeremy · Rating 4 out of 5]

it is possible to love only that which stands above us.

a violent and heady nightmare, a metafictional homage, an entangling tale cerebral and visceral, carlos maleno's the endless rose (la rosa ilimitada) is a seductively dark work of fiction. the spanish author's second book in translation, the endless rose is slim yet striking, amalgamating literary influences (most notably bolaño and houellebecq [the latter himself a character in the story]) and confronting the nature of cruelty and evil. while containing some unforgettably brutal imagery, maleno's novel startles but also manages to stimulate; at once both horrible and beautiful.

"we fool ourselves, we need the lie to declare false victory over what is real. the entire edifice of culture is a farce, a necessary lie we weave to escape, to prolong the agony. art, literature, they're just the negation of the truth."

*translated from the spanish by eric kurtzke (maleno's the irish sea)

[Mave Goren · Rating 1 out of 5]

We have Bolaño at home

[bogner · Rating 1 out of 5]

I don't care about odious fuckers who own a publishing house. It's advertised as a blend of Bolaño, Houellebecq, and Cartarescu when it's really a shitty ripoff-love letter lovechild of them and Borges. It says nothing and isn't interesting. It's so cool when a book about two bibliophiles opens with murdering hookers and whiskey, because a stay in clichéville’s as close as I get to kicking mascots in the ass at Disneyworld. I also loved the shoehorned surrealism and the completely irrelevant part about the guy getting his dick sucked by a homeless person. Or the other homeless person cursing Nietzsche. That was so deep and meaningful. Especially when he straight up ripped shit from other writers and tacked on pseudo-profundities at the end of every other paragraph.

This book is a perfect summation of what’s marring contemporary literature. It’s beyond parody. The best part of this book is the cover art. Stick to fruit sales, you stupid asshole.

[Translator Monkey · Rating 4 out of 5]

Part Möbius strip, part Roberto Bolaño at his most compelling. I'm still trying to process this dark little novel and the Jekyll-Hyde/Hyde-Jekyll publishing partners who nonchalantly take on a manuscript for publication by an equally mysterious and inauspicious one-legged author. This is quite the nightmarish carnival ride that creeps up and, rather than seize you, it opts to walk through you and leaves behind the smells and tastes of the burnt embers of its life. Lots going on in this short work. Deftly written with alarming aplomb.