So I just finished this outstanding book. I was kind of surprised because this is the first time I've actually managed to finish, let alone enjoy, a piece of literature from Latin America.
Anyway, if you know me well, you probably know that I'm not always a real "serious" reader. I read a lot of fantasy or pop culture ready-made mystery/thrillers. However, I routinely peruse the "What Are You Reading" thread on one of my message boards, looking for new ideas on books or authors to check out. Lately the folks on that thread have been speaking very highly of the Chilean writer Roberto Bolano. Bolano died of liver failure in 2003, and many of his works are only now being made available in english. I decided to give him a shot, that it was time for some "serious reading," and I'm glad I did.
This novel, "By Night in Chile" is the death bed rant of Father Urrutia, a Jesuit Priest and notalbe literary critic. It's interesting, because the entire book (130 pages in this version) is one long paragraph, a single rant. It gives the book a very authentic feel, as if you're actually sitting listening to the dying priest recount his memories.
Anyway, Urrutia didn't always want to be a critic. He wanted to be a poet. However, not really succeeding at that, the newly minted priest turns to literary criticism. Through this lense, Bolano writes his own critique of the Chilean intellecual movement during a time of great unrest in the country, chiefly through the reign of the Socialist Allende and the military junta of Pinochet.
Father Urrutia claims to be a man "on the side of history" which seems to be his excuse for looking the other way and continuing in his "intellectualism," ignoring what goes on around him. This comes into play in three seperate instances in the book. In the first instance, two strange men, Mr. Raef and Mr. Etah, meet with him and offer Urrutia a chance to travel Europe for Opus Dei, and study the "disintegration of churches." What Urrutia ends up studying is the use of falcons to kill the pigeons that shit on the facades of the churches, literally causing them to disintegrate over time. Urrutia wathes these Falcons on several occasions, watches them violently kill the pigeons. Finally, near the end of his journey, he visits an aging priest who has decided that pigeons and doves are part of God's creation too, and refuses to release his falcon to kill them. After all, Pigeons and doves are symbols of the holy spirit. As Urrutia arrives at this priest's church, the old priest dies and Urrutia relases his Falcon, and in a very powerful and moving scene, watches the falcon butcher several pigeons and deposit them at his feet. Urrutia basically shrugs his shoulders, sends his final report to Opus Dei, and moves on.
However, Mr. Raef and Mr. Etah have other plans. Having witnessed Urrutia's reluctance to confront the violent (and often surreal) killing of the pigeons by the falcons, they push him to instructing General Pinochet and his cronies in Marxism and political theory. At first, Urrutia is worried about this coming to light, as the dictatorship of Pinochet is a harsh one, however, soon he realizes that nobody cares, and then once again justifies himself by saying he was just doing his duty. Again, he shrugs his shoulders and moves on.
In the final and perhaps most moving part of the book, Father Urrutia finds himself frequenting a gathering of Chile's literary and artistic elites at the house of a new, supposedly up and coming, novelist and her husband. Urrutia is always "uneasy" at these gatherings, but continues to go to them. Later an artist gets lost in the house trying to find the bathroom and stumbles upon a naked man, bound to a bed in a dark basement room. Despite the fact that the man has obviously been tortured, the artist "quietly closes the door" and proceeds about his business. It turns out that the novelist's husband is an agent of the DINA, Pinochet's secret police, and that he had been torturing and killing people in the basement of the house, write under the nose of Urrutia and the other intellectuals. Urrutia claims he did not know of this, however, after the novelist's husband has been captured in the USA, Urrutia returns to visit the woman, but refuses to go down to the basement and see where the torture and murders took place. In this way he refuses to acknowledge that it happened under his nose. He turns to leave after refusing to see the basement, and the woman novelist tells him "that is how literature is made in Chile." He replies to her that "that is how literature is made everywhere." He defends himself one final time by saying he didn't know that the torture was happening until it was too late, that he was not afraid to speak up, but was once again a man on the side of history.
At the end, Urrutia's dreams are haunted by the ghosts of the dead priest and his falcon, the one Urrutia had himself released, and The Judas Tree. Interesting symbols as Urrutia tries to reconcile his life with the events that he observed.
All in all, after you get used to the style, the book is hugely rewarding. A big contrast to the Magical Realism of "One Hundred Years of Solitude" and other Latin American writings. If you're in the mood for some serious reading. Check this one out.
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