biblioklept

From the entry “All Subjects with Fresán,” in Bolaño’s collection Between Parentheses, a list of stuff the late writer talked about with his good friend, which includes (as usual) plenty of references to writers, poets, directors—and some funny jokes as well. Read part of Fresán’s essay “The Savage Detective” – it was the piece that first got me to go pick up a Bolaño. Here’s the list—

1) The Latin American hell that, especially on weekends, is concentrated around some Kentucky Fried Chicken or McDonald’s.

2) The doings of Buenos Aires photographer Alfredo Garofano, childhood friend of Rodrigo and how a friend of mine and of anyone with the least bit of discernment.

3) Bad translations.

4) Serial killers and mass murders.

5) Prospective leisure as the antidote to prospective poetry.

6) The vast number of writers who should retire after writing their first book or their second or their third or their fourth or their fifth.

7) The superiority of the work of Basquiat to that of Haring, or vice versa.

8 ) The works of Borges and the works of Bioy.

9) The advisability of retiring to a ranch in Mexico near a volcano to finish writing The Turkey Buzzard Trilogy.

10) Wrinkles in the space time continuum.

11) The kind of majestic women you’ve never met who come up to you in a bar and whisper in your ear that they have AIDS (or that they don’t).

12) Gombrowicz and his conception of immaturity.

13) Philip K. Dick, whom we both unreservedly admire.

14) The likelihood of a war between Chile and Argentina and its possible and impossible consequences.

15) The life of Proust and the life of Stendhal.

16) The activities of some professors in the United States.

17) The sexual practices of titi monkeys and ants and great cetaceans.

18) Colleagues who must be avoided like limpet mines.

19) Ignacio Echevarria, whom both of us love and admire.

20) Some Mexican writers liked by me and not by him, and some Argentine writers like by me and not by him.

21) Barcelonan manners.

22) David Lynch and the prolixity of David Foster Wallace.

23) Chabon and Palahniuk, whom he likes and I don’t.

24) Wittgenstein and his plumbing and carpentry skills.

25) Some twilit dinners, which actually, to the surprise of the diner, become theater pieces in five acts.

26) Trashy TV game shows.

27) The end of the world.

28) Kubrick’s films, which Fresán loves so much that I’m beginning to hate them.

29) The incredible war between the planet of the novel-creatures and the planet of the story beings.

30) The possibility that when the novel awakes from its iron dreams, the story will be there.