The city center was old, with three- or four-story buildings and arcaded plazas in a state of neglect and young office workers in shirt-sleeves and Indian women with bundles on their backs hurrying down cobblestoned streets, and they saw streetwalkers and young thugs loitering on the corners. Mexican types straight out of a black-and-white movie. Toward the east were the middle- and upper-class neighbourhoods. There they saw streets with carefully pruned trees and public playgrounds and shopping centers. The university was there, too. To the north were abandoned factories and sheds and a street of bars and souvenir shops and small hotels, where it was said no one ever slept, and further out there were more poor neighbourhoods, though they were less crowded, and vacant lots out of which every so often there rose a school. To the south they discovered rail lines and slum soccer fields surrounded by shacks, and they even watched a match, without getting out of the car, between a team of the terminally ill and a team of starving to death, and there were two highways that led out of the city, and a gully that had become a garbage dump, and neighbourhoods that had grown up lame or mutilated or blind, and sometimes, in the distance, the sillhouettes of industrial warehouses, the horizon of the maquiladoras.

The city, like all cities, was endless. If you continued east, say, there came a moment when the middle-class neighbourhoods ended and the slums began, like a reflection of what happened in the west but jumbled up, with a rougher orography: hills, valleys, the remains of old ranches, dry riverbeds, all of which went some way toward preventing overcrowding. To the north they saw a fence that separated the United States from Mexico and they gazed past it at the Arizona desert, this time getting out of the car. In the west they circled a couple of industrial parks that were in their turn being surrounded by slums.

They were convinced the city was growing by the second. On the far edge of Santa Teresa, they saw flocks of black vultures, watchful, walking through barren fields, birds that here were called turkey vultures, and also turkey buzzards. Where there were vultures, they noted, there were no other birds. They drank tequila and beer and ate tacos at a motel on the Santa Teresa-Caborca highway, at outdoor tables with a view. The sky, at sunset, looked like a carnivorous flower.

This is a remarkable book by any standards, and I’m so glad I wasn’t put off by its 900 pages, and took the time to read it.

Bolaño actually presents us with five separate novels and, with the exception of the last one, they can all be read without reference to the others.

2666 opens with a novel about four European literary critics, academics, who specialize in the work of a fictional German novelist, Benno von Archimboldi. Archimboldi, rumoured to be a future recipient of the Nobel Prize, is an evasive and reclusive writer who stays well away from the public eye. In fact, none of the critics who pursue him in this novel manage to track him down in person, though they seek him in several different countries, even traveling to a boom town in Mexico in their quest.

Bolaño’s subjects are writers and violence, and staying in the border town of Santa Teresa, we are introduced to Amalfitano, a professor of philosophy and literature at the local university. This text is quite different to the opening novel of the quintet, with an overt feeling of magical realism about it; Amalfitano leaves a book of geometry hanging on a clothesline in his back yard, and we slowly become aware that he is slipping into insanity. We also learn something about Amalfitano’s first wife, who ran off after a mad Spanish poet.

The third part of 2666 is entitled, The Part About Fate, and follows an American reporter, Oscar Fate, who is sent to cover a boxing match in Santa Teresa. There have been clues in the two preceding books, but in this one we are very aware that there are lots of cases of sexually-violated and murdered young women, their bodies found regularly in deserted parking lots, isolated ravines, abandoned buildings and the surrounding desert. The narrative throughout is that of hardboiled noir.

The Part About the Crimes, the fourth part of 2666, is a tour-de-force, one inexhaustible list of the hundreds of women and girls who are butchered in and around Santa Teresa. One of the characters in this section introduces us to the concept of gynophobia, which is fear of women. Bolaño describes the discovery of each body in forensic, even clinical terms, in some cases drifting over to the more hard-edged tone of the crime-novelist. As the body-count builds, and with no solution or hint of closure in sight, we begin to glimpse the extent of the deep misogyny which pervades our society and culture. Though a handful of these horrific crimes are ’solved’, most are shelved with little or no investigation taking place.

The final section, The Part About Archimboldi, ties everything together. We finally meet the German writer, follow him through his childhood and his time as a soldier in the second world war, witness the surrealistic horror of the twentieth century through his eyes as well as taking in his relationship to beauty and solitude. And we finally understand how all the other sections of 2666 relate to each other.

It is, of course, impossible to describe this novel; to understand it and what it is about there is no substitute for reading the book. So much of its greatness is in the language and in the bravado of the telling. Bolaño is a poet and his prose is always drifting, like the smoke from a cigarette; it weaves patterns in your mind and carries on working in the same way whether the book is in your hand or not. I believe it is going to stay with me for a long, long time.

Roberto Bolaño was born 28 April 1953 in Santiago, Chile and he died 15 July 2003 in Blanes, Spain. 2666 was his final statement.

Derived from and inspired by the 14th-century Chinese play Circle of Chalk, Brecht changes the ending so that the child lives, not with his birth mother but with the mother who cares for him most. Echoes of the Judgement of Solomon here.

I was more than a little thrown by the perceived need for a new translation. The original translation into English was by by Brecht’s close friend and admirer, Eric Bentley, who also went on to direct the first professional production of the play. This new version has been translated by Alistair Beaton, and I suppose in a way it’s brought the Caucasian Chalk Circle up to date as far as language is concerned. But I thought it added little and detracted more than once from the historical perspective of the play.

Grusha, the servant-girl, played by Matti Houghton, is excellent; as is Azdak, the judge, played nonchalantly by James Clyde.

Nancy Meckler directs a tale of justice, corruption and morality, not entiely flawlessly. The first act seems too linear and is one-paced, and by the time of the interval I was looking for something to happen.

In the second act the linearity of the piece falls apart and out of the ruins of that something very special begins to happen. The audience is engaged in a way that seemed impossible during the first hour and, in spite of Brechts stated aim that a play should not cause the spectator to identify emotionally with the characters or action, but should instead provoke self-reflection and a critical view, I was definitely moved here, and touched deeply by the experiences of these characters. Not least when the child, Michael, previously only seen as a bunch of swaddling, miraculously morphs into a toddling and wholly engaging puppet.

During the course of the play one is reminded, inevitably, of other theatrical experiences and references. In the case of this performance I was haunted by the spectres of Chaplin and Beckett, an actor and director who was perhaps a contemporary, and a playright who would follow and extend the work of the early modernists.

After Leeds the play tours to:
Richmond Theatre, Richmond 20-24 Oct 2009;
Nottingham Playhouse, Nottingham 4-21 Nov 2009; and the Unicorn Theatre, London 24 – 29 Nov 2009

*

The optimist says, This is the best of all possible worlds. The pessimist says, You’re right. Anon.

*

Yes we can. Yes we can elect another Republican president. Un.fortun.ately.

*

The Iraqi people were well on their way to freedom. The scenes of free Iraqis celebrating in the streets, riding American tanks, tearing down the statues of Saddam Hussein in the center of Baghdad were breathtaking. Watching them, one could not help but think of the fall of the Berlin Wall and the collapse of the Iron Curtain. . .
It was entirely possible that in Iraq you had the most pro-American population that could be found anywhere in the Arab world. If you were looking for a historical analogy, it was probably closer to post-liberation France. We had the overwhelming support of the Iraqi people. Once we won, we got great support from everywhere. . .
The U.S. devoted unprecedented attention to humanitarian relief and the prevention of excessive damage to infrastructure and to unnecessary casualties.
The United States approached its postwar work with a two-part resolve: a commitment to stay and a commitment to leave. The United States had no intention of determining the precise form of Iraq’s new government. That choice belonged to the Iraqi people. We have never been a colonial power. We do not leave behind occupying armies. We leave behind constitutions and parliaments. We don’t take our force and go around the world and try to take other people’s real estate or other people’s resources, their oil. We never have and we never will.

From Sam Smith at Undernews.

In 1958, (Dave) Brubeck visited 12 countries, including Poland, Turkey, East and West Pakistan, Afghanistan, India, Iran and Iraq. As Brubeck explained it, “We were out 120 days without a day off, and it was rough travel. The water wasn’t fit to drink, but you got so thirsty, you drank it. The State Department didn’t want us to come home. They wanted us to stay out. They cancelled our concerts here at home.”

In an interview with National Endowment for the Arts chair Dana Gioia several years ago, Brubeck told how the Voice of America had been his warm-up band: “Most of the people, when they spoke to you in English, sounded like Willis Conover from the Voice of America. His show came on every night worldwide. . . To this day . . . you can hear his voice. In Russia, people sound like Willis. If you listened to my recordings in the Soviet Union during the darkest days of the Cold War, you could be sent to Siberia or worse. They listened to my records, and they called it ‘Jazz in Bones.’ Using X-ray plates, they could record Willis Conover and get a fairly good recording. If you were caught with that, you were dead. But the doctors and the nurses and the students would very carefully listen to these recordings, and they had underground jazz meetings all the time.”

A personal message from 91 writers in solidarity with the people of Iraq.

In Sum
In the middle of the nineteenth century, the murder of China deserved to be called The Opium War. Victoria, the drug trafficking queen, forced dope on the country in the name of the freedom to trade.
At the beginning of the twenty-first century, the murder of Iraq deserved to be called The Oil War. George W. Bush, more pipeline than president, crushed the country in the name of the freedom to lie.

Eduardo Galeano
Uruguayan writer and historian
translated by Mark Fried

*

“Today we daily see the infighting between the candidates for the Presidency of the US. All of them are talking about how fast they will try to End the war in Iraq, as well as bringing “the boys home”. We have heard that before.
Not least way back when the US was destroying Vietnam. I do not see any reason why we should believe them today.
They will continue to fight for the Oil, not for Peace and Stability and Democracy. And we will be forced to continue to give the US credits so they can fight this war.
I believe it is more important than ever to take part in the Protests against this unjust war. It is a threat to all of us. Stop financing this war by giving US the financial support!”

Henning Mankell
Swedish writer who gained bestseller stardom with his series of crime novels featuring inspector Kurt Wallander.

*

“The invasion of Iraq was a criminal act.
The occupation of Iraq remains a criminal act.
The British government under Blair and the United States administration are war criminals.
It’s as simple as that.”

Harold Pinter
author, Nobel Prize in Literature 2005

*

Maybe we can detect America’s dislike for war in another metric, say military spending. Oops. Turns out that’s going to be a bit problematic, too. I guess it won’t be a huge surprise to anybody that the United States spends more on “defense” than any other country in the world. But here’s the truly scary part: The United States not only outspends every other country in the world on military goodies, it outspends ALL other countries of the world. Combined. That’s right. Take all 190-plus countries out there and add together their defense budgets and you still won’t equal America’s alone. What’s more, that doesn’t even include the $100 billion or so that we’re dropping each year in Iraq and Afghanistan, nor the additional costs in veterans’ (so-called) care, munitions replacement and economic losses we have been hemorrhaging for those wars, which will continue, for decades to come, estimated to run up toward 2 trillion bucks total. (Oh, and did I mention that one-sixth of our population doesn’t have healthcare coverage? Never mind. I’m sure those are completely unrelated facts.) Anyhow, does that sound like a peace-loving country to you? And think about this for a second: How absolutely disastrous does your diplomacy have to get so that you need to be able to fight off every other country of the world, all at once?!

In the months that have gone by since we met in June 1942 many of our comrades were killed, giving their lives for Germany and the Fuhrer. In the first rank – and I ask you to rise in his honour and in honour of all our dead SS men, soldiers, men, and women – in the first rank our old comrade and friend from our ranks, SS Lieutenant General Eicke. [The SS Gruppenfiihrers have risen from their seats.] Please be seated.

One basic principle must be the absolute rule for the SS men – we must be honest, decent, loyal, and comradely to members of our own blood and to nobody else. What happens to a Russian or to a Czech does not interest me in the slightest. What the nations can offer in the way of good blood of our type we will take, if necessary by kidnapping their children and raising them here with us. Whether nations live in prosperity or starve to death interests me only so far as we need them as slaves for our culture; otherwise, it is of no interest to me. Whether ten thousand Russian females fall down from exhaustion while digging an antitank ditch interests me only so far as the antitank ditch for Germany is finished. We shall never be rough and heartless when it is not necessary, that is clear. We Germans, who are the only people in the world who have a decent attitude toward animals, will also assume a decent attitude toward these human animals.

I also want to talk to you, quite frankly, on a very grave matter. Among ourselves it should be mentioned quite frankly, and we will never speak of it publicly. Just as we did not hesitate on 30 June 1934 to do the duty we were bidden and stand comrades who had lapsed up against the wall and shoot them, so we have never spoken about it and will never speak of it. It was that tact which is a matter of course and which I am glad to say, is inherent in us, that made us never discuss it among ourselves, nor speak of it. It appalled everyone, and yet everyone was certain that he would do it the next time if such orders are issued and if it is necessary.

I mean the evacuation of the Jews, the extermination of the Jewish race. It’s one of those things it is easy to talk about, “The Jewish race is being exterminated,” says one party member, “that’s quite clear, it’s in our program-elimination of the Jews and we’re doing it, exterminating them” And then they come to me, eighty million worthy Germans, and each one has his decent Jew. Of course the others are vermin, but this one is an A-1 Jew. Not one of all those who talk this way has watched it, not one of them has gone through it. Most of you must know what it means when one hundred corpses are lying side by side, or five hundred, or one thousand. To have stuck it out and at the same time – apart from exceptions caused by human weakness – to have remained decent fellows, that is what has made us hard. This is a page of glory in our history which has never been written and is never to be written, for we know how difficult we should have made it for ourselves, if with the bombing raids, the burdens and the deprivations of war we still had Jews today in every town as secret saboteurs, agitators, and troublemakers. We would now probably have reached the 1916-1917 stage when the Jews were still in the German national body.