From left, Sandra Delgado, Eric Lynch and Alejandra Escalante in “2666” at the Goodman Theater. Photo: Liz Lauren
Of the well-known writers who wrote in Spanish near the end of the last century, Roberto Bolaño is unique in that he put the pursuit of writing above everything else; it is one reason why The Savage Detectives is the last great novel written in Spanish in the 20th Century.
A life filled to excess with cigarettes and alcohol brought Bolaño within sight of an early death; he knew he hadn’t been good father and he wanted to make up for this failing by assuring his children a future, paid for by his writing. There lies the great flaw in the foundations of 2666: he put his children above literature, when a great artist puts his art above everything, even his own life. Bolaño understood this clearly, and even in this failed work we find echoes of this commitment in a minor character, a painter who gives own hand to be part of a painting. I’m certain that if Bolaño had been alive when his family and the Anagrama publishing house decided to go ahead with the release of 2666, he would not have permitted it.
The other great failing of this novel proceeds from the Bolaño’s ignorance of the way people live in the Mexican cities along the northern border, and his ignorance as well of life in the United States, especially among African-Americans: his character Quincy Williams, constructed out of stereotypes, fails to convince. The scene that rings most false comes on the day of the death of the Quincy’s mother. He has to make a journey of several hours to arrive at his mother’s house, in which he finds a 15-year-old girl sitting by the corpse, which a neighbor has already dressed and made up to look nice. Anyone who lives here knows that just wouldn’t happen in the United States. It is not overstating the case to say that Bolaño knew nothing of life in an African-American community. The reader doesn’t even notice that Quincy is Black until the narrator mentions it. Such blatant weaknesses make it inexplicable that 2666 won the National Book Critics Circle Award in 2008.
Nonetheless, this prize created such a stir that the Goodman Theater felt the need to put the novel on stage. Well, sometimes a bad novel can be made into an excellent movie; perhaps the same thing could happen in the theatre, I thought.
The stage play (in English, of course) manages, in its first part, a frivolous humor, which didn’t surprise me because I myself felt in this part of the novel that I was reading a work translated into Spanish! Some readers may give Bolaño a pass here, given that the four main characters are literary critics of different nationalities. I won’t do so because I have read stories by Jorge Luis Borges where the hero is American, German or Irish and it never felt that I was reading a translation; I felt and still feel that I was reading Borges. (One excellent example: El atroz redentor Lazarus Morell [The Cruel Redeemer Lazarus Morell]).
The second part of the stage play starts off with what seems like an homage to Gregory Nava (Mi Familia, Selena), due to the cuteness that fills the theatre like perfume when Amalfitano appears with his daughter or his wife; the play then morphs into an homage to Robert Rodriguez (El mariachi, Desperado) in the scenes that take place in the dive bars of Santa Teresa. In these locales the play devolves into vulgarity, the sensational and into anti-Mexican sentiments. There’s a character who argues that the Mexican race has been improved by mixing with the European, and before long there’s been a reference to how great President Fox was — a serious chronological inconsistency, considering that his presidency began in the current millennium, and the last events of the novel take place in 1999.
In the section of the play that treats the crimes and the femicides in the fictional town of Santa Teresa (based upon the actual Ciudad Juarez), two more lamentable characteristics are added to the mix: obscenity and misogyny, thanks to an infinity of jokes in bad taste… Add to that the endless list describing the deaths of hundreds of murdered women. One feels the same tedium in the novel; you must have a lot of faith in Bolaño to keep reading.
From here it’s a short step to the conclusion that all Mexican men are rapists who are only looking for a opportunity to get involved in crime. I couldn’t help but suspect that every Anglo-American carries a Donald Trump inside and I felt something like fear when I witnessed the audience rise for a standing ovation.
The final part of the play, like the book, revolves around the life of the central character: the mysterious German writer Benno von Achimboldi. This is the best part of both the novel and the stage play, but it never rises above mediocrity: it never manages to become art.
This anti-Mexican attitude is rooted deeply in the collective unconscious of United States, in both liberals and conservatives, and manifests in surprising ways in daily life. The stage play 2666 at the Goodman was a striking example of this.
Translation by Dave O’Meara and Dan Hanrahan.
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Febronio Zatarain. Author of Veinte canciones en desamor y un poema sosegado. He is the coordinator of the literary workshop of Contratiempo magazine.