Jerry > Recent Status Updates

The end of part four blew me away. It all comes together in the story the congresswoman tells to Gonzalez. It’s not one killer, but many. The black Pereginos are a symbol. The women are expendable. The circumstances, some frequent, some strange, some inexplicable, some singular, point to one big group: the rich and powerful. But then again, who knows, the killings likely aren’t confined to them.

The section where we’re introduced to Florita Almada (and hopefully not the last we hear of/from her) is one of the best in the entire novel thus far. A handful of pages that are simply perfect.

Ok ok, so, the black car, described as looking like a Peregrino, that multiple girls/women were seen entering before disappearing and subsequently being found dead and brutalized, that HAS to be the same black Peregrino that Amalfitano was talking to the driver of at the end of Part 3, right?! And if so, why???? Amalfitano was so worried about the murders (obv) in Part 2…. oh Bolaño you’ve got my head spinning!

The Part About the Crimes is really synthesizing, for me, a lot of the themes and ideas put forth in the previous portions of the novel. Madness as a contagion, modernity and industrialism as both a blessing and a blight (more the latter, especially with the benefit of hindsight and the privilege of not having, as Bolaño puts it, “less than nothing” and therefore having to work in a maquiladora. And the total

The giant in the prison, with his pale skin and blonde hair, that must be Archimbaldi, right?

The plot thickens, and just as it seems to provide us answers, Bolaño withdrawals, seemingly intent on sending us back, blind, wandering into the void once more.

Didn’t have as much time as I’d hoped to read today, so another small bite it is…

Love the direct David Lynch reference on p. 339.

This section is getting very good. Hated putting this down but I’m exhausted. Might have to try and carve out a good few hours of uninterrupted reading time tomorrow because things are really picking up.

Also, along with madness and the abyss, and the magneticism of Santa Teresa, I’m just now noticing the motif of mirrors playing a key role in both Parts 1 and now 3 (perhaps 2 as well? can’t recall…)

The first major connection aside from some small things and details here and there has arisen! Rosa Amalfitano appears out of nowhere in The Part About Fate.

My only issue is: when do parts 1 and 2’s majorities take place (what hear do the critics go to Santa Teresa, and when does most of Amalfitano’s story [his descent into madness, after all the exposition and such, pretty much from when he hangs the book on]

Fantastic 20 pages I just read. I love how Santa Teresa acts as almost a vacuum, an abyss of both an archaic and modernized darkness that sucks in whoever chances to pass through it.

Part 3 is starting off very well. Loving Fate’s story so far, and the “sermon” from the ex-Panther was really good, especially the last part about Usefullness.

The Part About Amalfitano, admittedly, went a bit over my head, but the last leg of it really resonated and, in an odd way—since, again, there were no near tye-ups, perhaps leaving even more unanswered and cliffhung than in Part 1—I felt an incredible sense of resolution as I read those last chimeric words and a true satisfaction, not bittersweet like before, but this time purely enigmatic, profoundly resonant.