Roberto Bolano spent the majority of his too short life as a poet, therefore poor and rarely published. When the poet fell in love and started a family, Bolano found himself writing fiction for a living.
Roberto Bolano's Love Letter to Poets and Poetry
Anyone who's read Roberto Bolano's The Savage Detectives or 2666, knows the late Chilean author to be amazingly skilled and immensely intelligent; those readers also know that to read a Roberto Bolano novel, is to sacrifice weeks, even months so that they may enjoy the rich, labyrinth magic that only his novels can provide.
The Savage Detectives, Roberto Bolano's most famous novel, is in many ways a love letter to poets and poetry; divulging many of the poet's trade secrets in his staccato prose; telling a panoramic story in a manner that mirrors in thousands of words, what many poets attempt to express in only a few.
Roberto Bolano not only found his fiction to be a good source of income; the poet also discovered a new found demand for his poetry, where previously there was scant.
The result was Bolano's first collection of poetry, The Romantic Dogs (translated into English by Laura Healy), a small but potent compilation of work created between 1980, when Bolano began his literary journey, and 1998, the year he published his earth-shattering first novel, The Savage Detectives.
Godzilla in Mexico
Godzilla in Mexico tells an apocalyptic tale, as experienced by a father and son:
Listen carefully, my son: bombs were falling
over Mexico City...
Some modern readers may find the poem reminiscent of Cormac McCarthy's novel The Road (or vice versa), but, uniquely crafted in Bolaño's voice and tone; and not nearly as bleak. Bolaño writes with a human touch, a child's oblivion:
You'd just finished eating and were watching
cartoons on TV.
After the bombs had fallen and spread poison throughout the city, the father seeks to comfort the son, knowing death is imminent:
...but instead that we were going on a journey,
one more, together, and that you shouldn't be afraid.
In a brilliant turn, the poet takes the reader to an unexpected and surreal place, bordering on science fiction; as the son opens his eyes, to an uncertain and unspecified future, and asks:
What are we?
...in the big rotten soup of chance?
The novelistic style of storytelling used in Godzilla in Mexico calls into question the theory that Roberto Bolano's novels were essentially his poetry converted into prose. But, actually, it seems very possible that Mr. Bolano had a natural inclination toward fiction writing, even when he was writing exclusively poetry.
Paperback: 128 pages
Publisher: New Directions; Reprint edition (November 17, 2008)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 0811218015
ISBN-13: 978-0811218016
Martin G. Wood - M.G. Wood is a writer of screenplays, film and literary reviews, and poetry. M.G. Wood can often be found ...
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