2666 - The Part about Archimboldi

5. The Part about Archimboldi

(Parts 1, 2, 3, and 4)

I don't remember for sure when I finished 2666. Close to two weeks ago. Why have I waited so long to write about it? Not sure. Maybe because this was my "January project" so it seemed appropriate to finish it at the end of the month.

Anyway, if the part about the critics was my favorite, and the part about the crimes was the "best," I would have to say that this section was the one where I was most likely to get lost in the story, where I thought the least about Bolaño and his intentions. It made the last third of the book a nice juxtaposition to the first two-thirds.

I don't want to say a lot about the section. If you're reading this, and actually ever read 2666, I want you to get to discover it on your own. But it's about Hans Reiter, an unusual youth from a German village who fights in WWII and then sets off on a different path in postwar Germany. I felt that Reiter remained a cipher; I never understood him, which is unusual when you spend so many pages with a character. But I didn't mind that I didn't know him.

I wrote about agency a while back (in relation to Oscar Fate) and think that it's a theme that deserves a lot more attention with regards to the entire novel. Reiter seems sometimes very much an actor who is creating his own destiny, and at other times entirely passive, getting swept along by other currents. (This is true for many of the other recurring characters in this section. In fact, I would read a novel just about Baroness von Zumpe.) I guess this is probably the way life really works. But I felt it particularly strongly in this novel, perhaps because we don't necessarily see it a lot in fiction.

Some - not many, but some - loose ends get tied up in this section. Enough that when the last page came around, I felt satisfied. Which is about all you can ask for.

And I was curious about this quote, by an old man who rents out his typewriter:
"Reading is pleasure and happiness to be alive or sadness to be alive and above all it's knowledge and questions. Writing, meanwhile, is almost always empty."
True? I doubt it. But intriguing all the same.

It strikes me as cowardly to not attempt some final analysis of the entire work. But I don't think I have it in me. I will simply say this: Bolaño creates an entire world, where several stories that only barely interact can co-exist. For all the strangeness and feelings of unreality I experienced while reading the book, this feels, at its heart, extraordinarily real.