Sprawling epic.

This took me a long time read, 116 days I think. There is in no doubt that it's masterful, Bolaño's writing is stylish and throbs with imagery and erudition, a rhapsodic climax to his life (he died whilst writing/editing this).

2666 is a five part gargantuan tome, each episode orbiting in varying proximity around a North-Mexican town, riddled with murders. It also has a backdrop of a German author's mystique (and life in the last chapter) which together serve leitmotifs and themes of loss, death, absence and violence.

The part about the crimes was particularly impressive. The relentless catalogue of death was special and like nothing I've read before. It had to be that long and there had to be that many for such devastating effect.

It reminded me of a dark David Mitchell novel; effortless genre-switching, bewildering pedantry.

It's definitely worth the effort, a great, great, novel, abundant with the human condition and the weaknesses and strengths of our species. ( )

I’ve never read anything quite like this. There’s definitely a reward in reading “2666,” but it’s nothing like other expansive books of this size and hype. It’s no “Infinite Jest,” for instance, in that you don’t feel this massive cerebral payout at the end, but you feel something when you’ve finished it. All in all, there is plenty of space for the reader to chew on what they’ve read, and that’s quite enough for me. There’s a high-brow element that doubles the reader’s satisfaction (because of said element, I can use the term “satisfaction” in my review). ( )

A novel in 5 parts? 5 linked novels?

Interesting, exhausting, glad I read it but it is just too long and not as tight as it might have been.

We have academics in search of the mysterious German writer Archimboldi they all study. It's almost a club--and no one knows what happened to the author. These 3 go searching in Santa Teresa, Mexico, where rumor has it he has gone.

We have a drafted WW2 German soldier, Hans Reiter, who leaves his mother and sister and goes with his unit to Romania, Russia, and parts unnamed. He sees things, he is a bit of a loner, he manages to stay alive.

In Santa Teresa women are regularly murdered, there has to be a serial killer. (This is part 4, and it is exhausting.) Are the police incompetent? Are they afraid the cartel is involved and don't want to cross them? Or is the cartel involved and they are paying off/called off the police? They do occasionally make one-off domestic violence arrest. And then they pull in one man, a German immigrant who worked with one of the victims, and charge him with several of the murders. He holds press conferences and from jail and seems to run the place.

Back to Europe, we learn more about Reiter's life after the war. He is a survivor, and a loner, and we learn how these parts connect together.

Interesting, but I found there to be big gaps (ch 4 is exhausting and hard and even more so because what is Bolano's point?--it was inspired by murders in Juarez, but Bolano does not/did not get to make his point about murders of women vs police vs cartels vs what he is getting at?). And it's just unnecessarily long. The first two chapters are actually fairly funny knowing how some academics work, but they are still too long. ( )

Sprawling, fragmented, tedious for very long stretches, lifeless characters: '2666' is more of a relentless assault course than an education or pleasure. I can't believe I persisted to the end, but I'm glad I did, for the challenge of taking on a 'big' literary book. It may be clever, heroic and worthy as literary struggle and play, but it's not enriched or disrupted my sense of life and people, beyond marvelling at Bolano's capacity to indulge in postmodern meta-self-referential obsessions and concentric circles of storytelling within storytelling. Ho hum.

Update :

So, clearly I missed a lot in this. Many thanks to Chris Via for his excellent videos on 2666, I should have watched those before embarking on reading this. (Maybe I’ll read it again….) I would urge you to ignore my review and star rating and head straight to Chris’ YouTube channel at Leaf by Leaf https://youtube.com/@LeafbyLeaf. Mea culpa. ( )

Reads like a fake documentary. Not my cup of tea. ( )

"An Oasis of horror amidst an ocean of tedium"

There is nothing unfinished about 2666. Upon Bolaño's death, the first four parts were already finished and the last was only being reviewed. Furthermore, the parts are much better read as a single piece.

2666 is a book that challenges definitions due to its radical approach to the genre. The bulk of its narrative does not contain any of the traditional elements of familiarity inherent to romances prior to it: there is no hero's journey, no central conflict permeating all of its parts, and most of it does not seem to lead to any sort of catharsis. This book abandons any sort of pathos in favor of the display of several disparate ethos that can be interpreted in more than one way. For instance, the part on the crimes is deeply political, having been based on real occurrences on the real Ciudad Juárez - it is a display of violence that invites the reader to think of the capitalist relationships between first and third-world countries, the communist purge and a passion for horror, all of which are ingrained in the current latin america.

It is this very characteristic that makes readers who do not immediately realize what the book is about disappointed when not finding sufficient answers at the end. 2666 is not about answers. It is not even about questions, in a sense. It simply is. It is a post-modern monument that twists the idea of a romance and delivers answers only where they are pertinent. We can draw a parallel with a human life where one is confined to one's own perspective of the world, filtering information through a peculiar ethos built upon one's culture, given each part of the book happens on a different place with different people. We are shown that seeing the same period through the lenses of individuals from three different continents does not suffice to build a complete picture of the world as experienced by the author. Some parts are clarified, others wait on the future for a resolution. A resolution on the year 2666 where all of the involved parties are already dead?

But six centuries from now, not only would it not matter, but it would not be possible to come to a complete panorama of the story. Because one could also interpret 2666 as an attempt to communicate the human condition of never truly knowing the world we live in. But a world in which one can still find meaning - again, it is about the path, not the ending. Not walking in a particular path, but simply being in a path at all. That's how the book should be read. Every path is filled with coincidences and seemingly random encounters, ruled by the logic of chances, filled with human values from which one can apprehend - morals, culture, values. It is a path filled with meditations and emblematic moments, and also with the most prosaic of daily life.

It is hard to see at first how Bolaño would write so many descriptions of seemingly banal activities while considering himself a poet first and foremost, but when the reader is accustomed to his style, it all flows very mellifluously. The dry style gives way to the possibility of either searching for a real meaning or accepting it how it is. Just like how the story itself is left open at various ends, waiting for a closure that never happens. And so the final stroke of genius lies on the last part, that elucidates part of the earlier Sonora narratives while still keeping the sense of incompleteness that permeates the rest of the book.

"No one pays attention to these murders, but within them hides the secret to the world." ( )

Extremely graphic descriptions of brutality towards women for 300 pages of this 800 page book, serving absolutely no purpose. The author is a skilled writer, but even forgetting the violence towards women, I'm still left wondering what the point of this story was. ( )

"play and delusion are the blindfold and spur of minor writers"

Intelligence: above average
Character: cryptodidactic
Scholarship: ossified
Storytelling ability: epistolary
Prosody: reportage
German usage: chaotic.

On Cryptodidactic Character:

I continue to draw inspiration from the clarity of Martin Paul Eve’s review of the text: “2666, being composed of several, anachronistic, practically autonomous sub-books and without a clear arc of narrative progress, can be seen as a novel that instead seeks to effect change through subjectification processes [...] an ‘experience book’ as Timothy O'Leary might term it." Martin's evaluation of the character of the work is also on target: “Such a conjunction of process and subjectification has an internalizing pedagogical function one might term ‘cryptodidacticism’ in the sense that "the reader believes himself or herself to be an autodidact, even though, in fact, the text presupposed its particular teachings in advance." The term, 'cryptodidactic' is not meant in the pejorative sense. The constituting premise of the so-called “modern epic” genre (and most literature) is the promise of a ‘remuneration’ after fording the “river of voices” (Bolaño's phrase). Put another way, within Martin Paul Eve’s framework of “investing intellectual capital,” one must investigate whether 2666 produces returns. Though limited by (intentional?) weak scholarship and (intentional?) numbing prose, 2666 is rescued from complete loss by the rare moment of humor.

On Ossified Scholarship:

Bolaño's European pastoral is competent, though derives its internal movement from an exterior source of catastrophe. There are two senses of “scholarship” worth investigating in 2666, the first kind being that employed in the construction of the text, and the second in the portrayal of “scholarship” within it. Both are ossified. On the spectrum from Flannery O’Connor, “I simply make it up,” to David Foster Wallace’s “technical writing,” Bolaño's loose descriptions and hagiography have greater affinity with the former. Compared to “The Part About the Crimes,” other ‘sub-books’ are as light as air; they appear as framing device in elliptic rotation around the center of mass of the novel. These sections are more fairy tale than facticity, as if, from the perspective of probationary existence, there is no point in learning any more from the particularity of a lived experience. Contrast this scholarship with that of Sebald, whose fictionalized accounts at least appear to have the weight of fact as ballast. Likewise, Bolaño's critique of the modern critic’s bone-headedness produces the most vociferous condemnations in the text. 2666’s university establishment (whose chancellor is literal twin of the police force) practices a fruitless scholarship, as if one were trying to milk the stone(/bone). That collection of unnamed, stupid young critics who turn up to the so-called literary gatherings already full of their own bad ideas is Bolaño's hateful vision of the future-present. Moreover, the older Critics’ adoration of Archimboldi is almost entirely without content, and functions as narrative scaffold and launching pad for a series of entanglements of human relations. No comment on what is particularly unprecedented/impressive in Archimboldi’s novels (probably a wise omission in retrospect). When a text has nothing left to give, one has to meet the author. A similar empty-skulled impulse drives the Critics’ pursuit of the author Archimboldi, the only possible result of which is another article in a literary journal. Travel to Mexico for a tryst. The use-value of scholarship is seduction (in both senses). This is an ossified view of scholarship, which perhaps explains why 2666 cannot escape this same quality in its construction (Contrast with Martin’s interpretation: “keep writing”).

On Epistolary Storytelling:

The narrative form of the ‘sub-books’ is a series of exposition (usually well-done) and rising action (competent), as one might expect from reading a series of exchanged letters (one is lucky to have discovered anything at all). The narrative itself includes, with surprising frequency, multifarious ‘found letters’. New characters are constantly being introduced, and we always appears to be in the ‘middle’. As if real life is circulating behind the scenes, and the narrative entirely reconstructed from epistolary objects (whose writers necessarily must have lived to complete the composition – explains why a person can never be killed in the first person in the text for then how would they write about it). At moments of intrusions of incommensurable violence into the epistolary novel (Archimboldi’s strangulation of the war-criminal, the Critics beating of the cab driver), so-called “real-life” adumbrates behind the paper-thin narrative.

On Reportage as a quality of Prose:

The prose in “The Part About the Crimes,” is remarkable for occupying an unusual middle space. In Bolaño's account of the series of murders, the prose lies somewhere between medical examiner report, police note, and newspaper article. Bolaño includes a certain amount of specific information: the location of body, clothing worn, cause of death, violence/sexual acts committed upon the body, likely perpetrator, and often less than all this. The curious quality of these descriptions is they are far less detailed than a technical medical examination, contain none of the personal details or narrative of events of a newspaper article, and none of the extensive inventories of a police note. This low level of technical detail occurs only in a VERBAL or distantly-recalled account of someone who has just learned the details of the case but has forgotten all of the specific information. (Bolaño is doing a good impression of someone who knows nothing at all and is merely writing some prose (coincidental having the exact same effect of utter ineptness (has anyone tried writing badly intentionally?)). In reportage, which is already the third-hand account of an event (victim --> examiner --> reportage) the experience of violence is categorically excluded. Other reviewers remark the constant refrain of “both vaginally and anally raped” which produces simultaneously a numbing effect (because it is repeated so frequently in absence of more detailed descriptions of events) and ‘shakes one awake’ from the narrative to consider the experience of the individual subjected to this mistreatment. Though it would appear equally likely that one might come out the other side of it thinking that none of these events are real. Sometimes the perpetrators are captured , usually they are the ones we first suspect, sometimes there are no leads and the investigation dries up. There does not appear to be a conspiracy. The officers do not appear to be particularly incompetent or corrupt in the individual case. (the tension between the Narcos and the police establishment however… or the tension between the university and the police … or the tension with Europe and the “new world” … or the tension between the blond Klaus Haas and the eponymous Austerlitz of Sebald’s novel …)

On Chaotic German Usage:

“Supremely Ignoring” "...in the slightest." "friends of friends of friends get around and do you favors"
To his infinite benefit, Bolaño is occasionally funny.

drying the tears that ran down his cheeks with his coat sleeve, and then the doctor was moved and he stepped forward and put a hand on Reiter's shoulder and said that he too had a leather coat like this, like Reiter's, except that his was from Mason & Cooper and Reiter's was from Hahn & Forster,

He meets a jazz musician who tells him about chickens that talk and probably think.
"The worst of it," the musician says to him, "is that the governments of the planet know it and that's why so many people raise chickens."
The boy objects that the chickens are raised to be eaten. The musician says that's what the chickens want.

  ( )

2.1

2.4

Never before 2666 had I been so happy to live with a book, like companions sharing a bedroom. The experience of reading it was immensely engaging, rewarding, and satisfying. Roberto Bolaño’s ability to twist just past my expectations, not only in broad elements of structure and themes but also in small metaphors and sentence-to-sentence language, is unmatched.

To me this novel is like the best album Bob Dylan never made: mystifying language, challenging my conceptions of people and life, with each moment propelled by the artist’s voice (even if the content occasionally ran dry).

Unfortunately there are few people to whom I can recommend a novel nearly 900 pages in length, but those who I think can stand it will certainly hear about it from me. ( )

Brilliant. Bigger than life. Depressing and horrid at times. Unresolved. Lacking closure for almost everything it presents. So many questions and so few answers. Bolaño at its best, but not for the easily bored nor the faint of heart. I just finished and I want to start it all over again. ( )

i've been reading this book for a long time. since last june. it is beautiful and i love it. but i got to the chapter about the maquiladora murders and i can't get past it. i keep trying, and i keep putting it down. i guess i just need to wait for a time when i am feeling more callous, when my heart does not feel like it is right underneath my skin.
sigh.

Interwoven stories set in Mexico with deterioration of society as the feature. ( )

Olyan most írni ezt az értékelést, mintha tojásokkal zsonglőrködnék – óvatosan kell hát csinálni. Ennek a könyvnek ugyanis olyan sok síkja van, hogy az ember bármerre indul el, a végtelenbe tart, és nem tudni, eljut-e valahová: beszélhet női (meg úgy általában: emberi) kiszolgáltatottságról, Mexikó szociográfiájáról, irodalom és élet egymásban tükröződéséről, ésatöbbi – az értelmezési lehetőségek számtalanok, olyannyira számtalanok, hogy az már arra csábít néhány olvasót, hogy az „értelmetlen” szóval írja majd körül. Szerintem amúgy ennek az olvasónak nem lesz igaza, mindenesetre ez is jelzi, hogy egy könyv értelme vagy értelmetlensége legalább annyira az olvasó kvalitásainak (szebben: szándékainak) függvénye, mint az író képességeinek.

A 2666 öt darab önállóan is felfogható regény párbeszéde, a központban látszólag egy német író, Benno von Archimboldi figurájával, ám ő csak a gumicsont, a zsákutca, mert az igazi főszereplő Santa Teresa, a démoni mexikói város*, ami felfal mindent és mindenkit, kit így, kit úgy. Bolaño szövege maga a tökéletesen megkonstruált nyugtalanság**, mesteri álombéli tereivel, zseniális kitérőivel, életteli szereplőivel és pontos leírásaival úgy építi fel önmagát, mint egy félelmetes, mégis szép szörnyeteg. És hogy ne ragadjunk bele a szövegbe, az író a zsánerektől kölcsönöz dinamikát (ahogy Bolaño más könyveiben is tapasztalhatjuk), pont annyi információval kecsegtetve az olvasót, hogy az elhiggye, létezik megfejtés. De Bolaño tud valamit, amit a legtöbb krimiszerző nem tud: hogy a megfejtett titok lezárt építmény, ami a megfejtéssel megszűnik titoknak lenni, és lomtárba kerül – a megfejtetlen titok viszont velünk marad. És tudja azt is, amit a legtöbb kortárs szépíró nem tud: hogy a kilátástalanság puszta ábrázolásában nincs elég erő, az pusztán mocsár, amibe beleragadunk, amiben leszűkül a tér dimenziója, mert nem lehetséges a mozgás. Arra van szükség, hogy az író érzékeltesse: létezik boldogság, létezik harmónia, és a szereplők képesek (lennének) birtokolni azt, lehetnek barátaik, szerelmeik például – ám ez a harmónia törékeny, így az olvasó érzi, hogy van mit elveszíteniük/elveszítenie. És az ettől (az elveszítéstől) való félelem sokkal erősebb hatást kelt, mint a puszta nyomor. És ettől, ezektől érzi magát úgy, mintha egy láthatatlan kéz taszigálná egy bizonytalan végkifejlet felé – egy olyan helyre, ahová fél odaérni, de ugyanakkor mégis: minél hamarabb ott akar lenni.

Pont olyan könyv ez, amilyen akar lenni. És pont olyan, amilyennek lennie kell. Nincs benne hiba.

* A minap olvastam egy lakonikus értékelést a Mester és Margarita-ról, miszerint ez a „Twin Peaks Moszkvában” – nos, Santa Teresa meg olyan város, ami mellett Twin Peaks szemüveges, introvertált kisöcsinek tűnik.
** Nyugtalanság – a negyedik könyv fényében ez a szó kifejezetten eufemizmusnak tűnik. A gyilkosságok könyve ugyanis a legdeprimálóbb szövegek egyike, amit valaha olvastam: a gonosz mantraként ismétlődő tárgyszerű gyilkosságleírások olyan fájdalmasan monoton sormintaként kísérik végig cselekményt (illetőleg a cselekmény szilánkjait), amitől az ember törvényszerűen érzi úgy magát, mint (Bolaño találó szóképével) az időhurokba került katona, aki újra és újra elindul, hogy megvívja ugyanazt a vesztes csatát***.
*** De hogy valami jót is mondjak: a negyedik könyvet az ötödik követi (Archimboldi könyve), ami a maga sokkal hagyományosabb, sokkal epikusabb eszköztárával úgy hat az olvasó idegeire (minden benne foglalt fájdalom ellenére), akár a gyógybalzsam. ( )

This seems to be one of those books that no one is neutral about--people either love it or hate it. However, regardless of your ultimate reaction to the book, it is a remarkable read. I loved it, and I think that even if you are one of those who may ultimately end up hating it, the journey it takes you on, the rollercoaster ride, makes it well worth the time invested, even if you don't know or like where you ultimately arrive.

The novel consists of 5 books, and the introduction to the novel states that Bolano originally intended each as a stand-alone book to be published separately. I would not have been satisfied if I had to read each book separately, and wait a while for the next book to appear. I would have felt that each book in and of itself was in some way 'unfinished.' However, after I read the entire novel, I thought that it would have been possible, though not necessarily better, to present the books in a different order. That's one game I've been playing with myself since I finished the novel--what if it started with Book 4 instead of Book 1, etc. etc.

Book 1, The Part About the Critics, is about 4 European academics, friends and lovers, who specialize in an obscure and reclusive German novelist, Archemboldi. When they hear that Archemboldi has been sighted in Santa Teresa, Mexico, they go there to track him down.

In Book 2, The Part About Amalfitano, an Argentinian exile literature professor at Santa Teresa University ponders his life, and worries about the safety of his daughter, as the number of women missing or murdered in Santa Teresa increases.

In Book 3, The Part About Fate, an American reporter sent to Santa Teresa to report on a boxing match finds himself involved with the drug and criminal underside of Santa Teresa.

In Book 4, The Part About the Crimes, Bolano makes us feel the enormity of the deaths of more than 200 women in Santa Teresa. Some have described this chapter as gruesome. The litany of deaths is certainly appalling, but the description of the murders is more clinical than gruesome, which makes the deaths and the victims all the more real.

Book 5 is supposed to tie this all together, but suddenly you're in Prussia between the World Wars with a one-legged veteran of World War I and his one-eyed wife, and their young son, who is most at home underwater among the seaweed.

By the end of Book 5, the mysteries are somewhat cleared up, but there is still much to reflect on, and that's what a good book is for, isn't it? ( )

Took me a while to finish this monument but it was totally worth it. Bolano generates a very special world that is sometimes very cruel but very often full of love to literacy. I would lie if I wouldn´t say that I wished after a hundred pages describing rape and homicide that I can skip some of these murders but maybe it´s the school of hard knocks that you need to totally understand it (I guess I had the same feeling at American Psycho).
In the end i totally felt rewarded and i can totally recommend this book to every book lover that is also up for a little bit of mystery. If you like Murakami you will also like this one.
It´s a bit sad that Bolano died shortly afterwards. ( )

This is a fantastic book. It's amazing in its depth, breadth, dazzling storyline(s) and style. At almost a thousand pages, it's very demanding, but completely worth the effort. A masterpiece, and certainly one of my favorites. ( )

"And after all, literature doesn't exist anymore, only the example of it."
- Roberto Bolaño, "Words and Deeds"

Video reviews
1. The Part about the Critics: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4-2YkCzuVkU
2. The Part about Amalfitano: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dy3FhoTSJ4k
3. The Part about Fate: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sbUC4UbA0to
4. The Part about the Crimes: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xHGXOAq9rxs
5. The Part about Archimboldi: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=881WjI4fvS4 ( )

This book was written in 5 parts. The fourth was the longest part and it was extremely hard to get through. Graphic murder after graphic murder. I enjoyed the other parts though and can see with its sweeping scope why it is included as one of the 1001 books to read. ( )

credo che questo sia uno dei libri che influenzerà maggiormente la mia vita a venire. Uno di quei libri che avrò sempre presente come chiave per interpretare il mondo. Potrebbe sembrare esagerato, ma ritengo che Roberto Bolaño abbia scritto una di quelle rare opere che possono essere definite "iperromanzo" (http://it.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iperromanzo), anche se a me piace un altro termine che molti hanno usato per descrivere i film di Terrence Malick: quello di galassia... 2666 è un romanzo galassia.
L'opera è composta da 5 libri: 5 storie diverse collegate l'una all'altra da qualche sparuto elemento narrativo, qualche personaggio, qualche ambientazione, ma non è importante; l'importante è l'insieme dell'enigmatico disegno che questi 5 libri delineano. Si tratta di un disegno grandioso, che si percepisce per intero solo in brevi lampi di consapevolezza durante la lettura. ( )

woah ( )

La definición y muestra de la interconexión entre nihilismo y post-modernismo.

Es probable que esta sea la obra más colosal y completa que lea en mucho tiempo.

El contenido de 2666 no lleva a nada, literalmente, ¡pero es que Bolaño te lleva tan bien a esa nada! Cuando llegas a conocer a Entrescu ya apenas recuerdas quién era Morini, pero Morini existe en este descomunal universo sin limites, y todas las personas a las que has conocido, con las que has convivido y con las que has muerto, todas las mujeres que han sido asesinadas están ahí, y existen o han existido en algún momento en la cabeza de Bolaño, y por supuesto, en la tuya.

El claro toque cíclico (o más bien ilimitado) me ha llevado a necesitar releer esta obra maestra de inmediato, cosa que no voy a hacer (al menos no en un tiempo) porque además de hacer disfrutar, hace sufrir (y hay muchas cosas que leer). La parte de los crímenes es el tramo más duro de lectura que me he obligado a leer jamás, y no por su forma sino por su contenido. Bolaño debió esforzarse mucho y alejarse mucho de su obra para lograr 400 páginas de asesinatos y pura confusión.

Aquí nada parece alcanzar nunca un final, una meta o un simple punto de mínima trascendencia en la historia, pero cuando de repente aparece uno de estos puntos lo hace de forma espléndida. Y el final, es el más ridículo y perfecto que he leído nunca. Sí, esos adjetivos son los adecuados. Comprobadlo vosotros mismos. Vale la pena el goce y el sufrimiento.

( )

My biggest accomplishment of 2018, to be exact the latter months of 2018 with a bit of 2019 attached, is that I have read 2666 by Roberto Bolaño. I recommend that you give this book a try and allow the vicissitudes of many lives unfold in your mind.

Any words to describe what the book is about or what makes it so great would do no justice. To be honest, I dare not try.

But I am tempted to describe what reading 2666 has done to me. I am a better person now that I have read the novel than I was before. By better I mean there rests in me the added richness of human creativity, which is to say there lies an added range, a vast range, of possibility of human life that spans from the most destitute and destructive and despicable to the most fulfilling and wholesome and beautiful, from elusive to tangible, from the most mundane to the most extraordinary, and everything in between. How do I embrace all of this? I don’t. Much of it will soon flee from my mind as it has already. But while I was reading, I was for sure moved and stirred in all sorts of ways by the mastery of the author. This book I'm sure will do the same to you should you give it the time and attention it well deserves.

It is one of the most ambitious works I have come across, although, my exposure to any kind of literary works is only beginning to expand, and because I have seen the possibility of what one can accomplish in one's lifetime and in the characters of the novel within which live and die, it only leaves me to look for more, to consume more, and to pour more richness to my already privileged yet indigent life.

Reading 2666 was an experience worth the investment of time and mental gymnastics. 2666 was good, terrible, grand, and granular, and it was all of these things and more. It was magnificent and as a result, paradoxically, I am both content and unfulfilled. ( )

loved book 1, book 2 and book 5. Book 4 was just too much for me. ( )