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17th out of 49 books
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11 voters
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The Skating Rink
Set in the seaside town of Z, on the Costa Brava, north of Barcelona, The Skating Rink oscillates between two poles: a camp ground and a ruined mansion, the Palacio Benvingut. The story, told by three male narrators, revolves around a beautiful figure skating champion, Nuria Marti. When she is suddenly dropped from the Olympic team, a pompous but besotted civil servant sec...more
Hardcover, 182 pages
Published
August 28th 2008
by New Directions Publishing Corporation
(first published 1993)
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So once again I find myself pulled into the world of novellas and short fictions, knowing I can finish these books in a day or two, feeding my book addiction with quicker and thicker thrills, piling up the novels until somehow the outside world subsumes itself into the fictional realm, leaving me free to write my own lurid and oblivious end.
I wanted Monsieur Pain, but some lightning snarfler got in there first, leaving me with this charming whodunit narrated by three quite samey-soun...more
I wanted Monsieur Pain, but some lightning snarfler got in there first, leaving me with this charming whodunit narrated by three quite samey-soun...more
Tenía ganas de leer a Bolaño desde hace tiempo. Lo lógico hubiera sido empezar por su novela más famosa “Los Detectives Salvajes”, pero quería acercarme a él desde algo más modesto, para así conocerlo un poco cuando llegara a Los Detectives (que estoy segura, ahora mucho más, de que me gustará).
Pista de hielo no es pretenciosa, no tiene aires de grandeza, y puede que por eso me haya gustado tanto. Intentaré hacer la reseña sin hacer spoilers (como siempre), pero la voy a hacer de man...more
Pista de hielo no es pretenciosa, no tiene aires de grandeza, y puede que por eso me haya gustado tanto. Intentaré hacer la reseña sin hacer spoilers (como siempre), pero la voy a hacer de man...more
This was an amazing little book. I spotted it in the library and, knowing that Bolano was famous for some huge unfinished opus, I decided to try a smaller taste. The book reminded me at times of Steinbeck and Hemingway. Short sentences that somehow evoked a whole mood to me..."The name of the campground was Stella Maris." Right there I know I'm in for some Steinbeckian broke-ass characters living at a campground--only instead of 1930s California, it's present-day Spain. The night ...more
That's Right. It's five star time! If this rating were a rap song it would be telling you to Pop Champagne and fill your cup with Patron. Then the Auto-Tune would begin. But since it is a review on an internet book site, it is coming at you in five little orange stars, which, according to Good Reads mean "It was amazing."
I have to admit I feel a little bad giving this short near-perfect work the five star treatment when I did not grace Bolano's masterwork 2666 with such a ful...more
I have to admit I feel a little bad giving this short near-perfect work the five star treatment when I did not grace Bolano's masterwork 2666 with such a ful...more
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While I liked this one a little bit less than Monsieur Pain which was truly mesmerizing, once it got going and I became used with the POV switch between the 3 narrators, The Skating Rink has a lot going for it, not least Bolano's magical prose, but also the little touches that add so much by simply dropping this or that tidbit in the middle of the page.
The blurb describes reasonably well the storyline and for once we have a novel with a definite ending from the author, but the main...more
The blurb describes reasonably well the storyline and for once we have a novel with a definite ending from the author, but the main...more
this being the first novel that bolaño wrote, it would be too easy to disregard it as an amateurish effort. while it certainly is not the most accomplished work in his acclaimed oeuvre, it is, nonetheless, an important minor contribution. the skating rink presages many of the stylistic and thematic elements that bolaño would later employ in almost all of his other works. poets, crime, violence, bureaucracy, youth, love, sex, jealousy; the components that made his later works so successful are...more
About halfway through The Skating Rink, I was already quite sure that this was my favorite out of all Bolano's short novels (the others being Distant Star, By Night in Chile, and Amulet; I didn't count Nazi Literature in the Americas because I wouldn't classify it as a novel, really, but I still enjoyed TSR more). I spent the rest of the text trying to figure out just why this was (and, of course, just enjoying it).
I think the reason I liked this book so much is that it reminded me, ...more
I think the reason I liked this book so much is that it reminded me, ...more
I love Bolano--2666 is my favourite novel of the last decade--but I struggled to finish this short book. There are a few nice things about the book: the skating rink itself is a wonderful idea, and the character of Caridad is nice, and there's a great description of an imaginary avant-garde novel in the book. Many of Bolano's preoccupations reappear in this book: the caravan park from Antwerp, the interest in seaside vacation towns (The Third Reich, "Last Evenings on Earth"), and a fli...more
Told from the points of view of three men, an amazing short novel. Each chapter is very short, a cliff hanger: Bolaño knows how to hook his reader. This is the second Bolaño novel I've read that deals with corruption in government and greed as a central theme, not surprising from a Chilean author. This novel centers around two main plots: one man's obsession with an Olympic ice skater, banned from the Spanish team. He builds a rink for her in an abandoned mansion, yet they are not the only ones ...more
There's an effortlessness in Bolaño's writing that I don't think anyone else in the world can pull off, and I say that confidently not having read every book in the world. I can't ever tell where he's going with all his weird tangents and metaphors, but I always have faith that it's going somewhere good, and if the sentence I'm reading doesn't have any effect on the overall plot, his fascination with small details gives a lot to the overall mood.
The Skating Rink was his first novel, an...more
The Skating Rink was his first novel, an...more
The Skating Rink is immediately accessible. The prose is lean and hard-boiled. This reads like a no-frills version of his later works: the voice is the same, but there are no dreamlike sequences like those in 2666 or encyclopedic cast of characters like that of The Savage Detectives. I enjoyed it a lot, but in a different way than those longer pieces.
Bolaño didn't seem to have a middle ground between his short novels and his epics. They're completely different experiences. I'm drawn ...more
Bolaño didn't seem to have a middle ground between his short novels and his epics. They're completely different experiences. I'm drawn ...more
a li'l excerpt i enjoyed:
"Ask her to dance, said Pilar in a peremptory tone, clearly a ploy to get them out of the way. Nuria accepted without hesitation, and I watched them from my seat, as she led the way to the dancefloor, and entwined arms with the overly adroit Enric. I could feel a burning lump in my stomach. It wasn't the moment to be feeling jealous, but I was. My imagination spun out of control: I saw Nuria and the mayor's husband naked, caressing each other; I saw everyb...more
"Ask her to dance, said Pilar in a peremptory tone, clearly a ploy to get them out of the way. Nuria accepted without hesitation, and I watched them from my seat, as she led the way to the dancefloor, and entwined arms with the overly adroit Enric. I could feel a burning lump in my stomach. It wasn't the moment to be feeling jealous, but I was. My imagination spun out of control: I saw Nuria and the mayor's husband naked, caressing each other; I saw everyb...more
Bolano has proved to be a critical and commercial success in English speaking countries. His translators and publisher will continue to mine his legacy. This completes the picture of Bolano the writer, yet is must be said that not all of his work is of equally high quality. The Skating Rink displays many of his signature rhythms, concerns, and structures: a knack for the surrealist image; the linking of art with crime; the peopling of his books with marginalized, failed poets and exiles; a backg...more
Originally published in 1993, The Skating Rink isn’t Roberto Bolaño’s first novel—an earlier unpublished novel was discovered in 2008—but for a Bolaño newbie like myself, this novel, newly translated from the Spanish, seems like a great opportunity to dip a tentative toe into the Bolaño waters. The book isn’t much of a commitment, absolutely the tiniest of novels, and reportedly it has some elements in common with Bolaño’s later novels, in particular, the author's use of multiple first person na...more
One of the New Directions series that came out this year, The Skating Rink is a brief, intense, and very memorable novel from Bolano. It could have been one of the many branching stories that populate 2666, it even shares some themes, and even scenes, with that monster of a book. It is a story of murder, obsession, small-time political corruption, the immigrant experience in Spain, and (because it is Bolano), madness, sex, violence, ghosts, poets who are detectives, society's dropouts, nightma...more
This is the third Bolano book that I have read, and I have to say that I enjoyed it a lot. Of the three books of his that I have read (besides 2666 & The Savage Detectives) I found this one to be the most accessible and one that I will probably recommend to people.
It was a very entertaining and interesting read. Murder, ice skating, socialists, embezzlement, etc. in the small Catalan town Z told in varying accounts by the different parties involved.
It was a very entertaining and interesting read. Murder, ice skating, socialists, embezzlement, etc. in the small Catalan town Z told in varying accounts by the different parties involved.
I can't get enough Bolano! I was trying to explain to my friend Greg, who had this one on hand when I showed up at his house, that my draw to Bolano's world is the warmth and texture of it: the strolling siesta pace and the cinnamon in the air. This one had these marks, without the iconic violence of some of the others. There's some richly described pools of blood, of course, but not to the same degree as 2666. Ending this little novel leaves me in the mood for more. The Bolano condition...
"whe...more
"whe...more
Read this on a plane which either enhances or detracts from enjoyment in my experience. On this occassion it has rendered the book less memorable unfortunately. I didn't enjoy the book for quite a while and thinking about it it's probably my patchy memory that's the problem - narration rotates around the various characters and each time I was thinking - who's this one again? By the final third though I'd finally locked into it and this I can rate this as "liked". Yet more evidence of t...more
This is his first work and not my favorite, it just didn’t carry me away the way his others have. Again it is a book that you have to dedicate a bit of time to and read; otherwise I think the POV might get confusing.
It rotates among three men; all telling their side of the story after things have happened. I am not sure I liked any of them as I was reading but looking back I have to say I liked them all, even with their shortcomings. Basically it takes place over the course of one...more
It rotates among three men; all telling their side of the story after things have happened. I am not sure I liked any of them as I was reading but looking back I have to say I liked them all, even with their shortcomings. Basically it takes place over the course of one...more
Featherbooks
marked it as to-read
"The Skating Rink by Roberto Bolaño (Picador) The Chilean’s huge novels The Savage Detectives and 2666 speak for themselves, while his prolific oeuvre, bequeathed by a doomed man in a hurry, will continue to fuel conferences, yet don’t overlook this entertainingly eccentric debut – first published in Spain in 1993 but published in English for the first time this year – which is worthy of the Coen brothers and somehow made plausible by the colourful characterisation." Eileen Battersby ...more
My first Roberto Bolaño book! I can easily say the man is a poet and a literary genius. Without having read any of his other works, it's impossible for me to say how this stands in his oeuvre, but I can say it was a fantastic book to read. In case anyone reading this review has not yet read Bolaño, I can say this novella is an excellent entry for the curious. It is light enough and accessible enough that no one need be intimidated (like I was).
On the surface, The Skating Rink is a st...more
On the surface, The Skating Rink is a st...more
Not his best, despite glowing reviews in the press. The tri-partite narrative voice doesn't work for me, as Bolano's narrative voice is usually singularly compulsive... and there just wasn't enough of a believable separation between the characters.
What I usually like about Bolano's work is the intertextuality, and also the sense that it's literature about literature. Neither of these factors come into much play with The Skating Rink.
Nevertheless, it's a fun read, passes the ...more
What I usually like about Bolano's work is the intertextuality, and also the sense that it's literature about literature. Neither of these factors come into much play with The Skating Rink.
Nevertheless, it's a fun read, passes the ...more
This book had me puzzled, it reminded me of another book, and at first I thought it was Lawrence Durrell’s “ The Alexandria Quartet” which as a tetralogy offers us four perspectives via four novels on the same series of events. But that wasn’t it. It was then I realised that it was a tale I’d read last year in Ryunosuke Akutagawa’s Rashomon and 17 other stories, this tale "In the bamboo grove" concerns the murder of a traveller & the alleged rape of his wife, and is told through the d...more
As expectativas em torno do nome de Roberto Bolaño prejudicaram minha leitura de seu primeiro romance, A pista de gelo.
A história cruza as narrativas de três homens sobre os eventos relacionados às suas mulheres e uma pista de patinação secretamente construída em uma mansão abandonada no balneário fictício de Z, litoral da Catalunha, contando com a boa tradução de Eduardo Brandão, que não cotejei com o original, mas que deixa o texto fluir como se fosse escrito já em português.
...more
A história cruza as narrativas de três homens sobre os eventos relacionados às suas mulheres e uma pista de patinação secretamente construída em uma mansão abandonada no balneário fictício de Z, litoral da Catalunha, contando com a boa tradução de Eduardo Brandão, que não cotejei com o original, mas que deixa o texto fluir como se fosse escrito já em português.
...more
Bolaño + noir = pulpy and literate goodness.
This book ain't great, and it's a minor lead up to the over-the-top brilliance of The Savage Detectives, but I like noir, I like murder mysteries, and I liked the fat government employee who fell for an anti-femme-fetale. The femme-fetale is just a pretty woman, not a femme-fetale at all - she is created by the three men who are our protagonists - she does nothing to destroy them other than let them hang their fantasies and dreams over her....more
This book ain't great, and it's a minor lead up to the over-the-top brilliance of The Savage Detectives, but I like noir, I like murder mysteries, and I liked the fat government employee who fell for an anti-femme-fetale. The femme-fetale is just a pretty woman, not a femme-fetale at all - she is created by the three men who are our protagonists - she does nothing to destroy them other than let them hang their fantasies and dreams over her....more
I wanted to read 2666, but it was not available so instead I read Bolanos first book. I hear that they just get better and better and so I am eager to start the next one. I think I will read them now chronologically. I understand why my friend said that the past winter was the winter he only read Bolano.
I gave it 4 stars, despite the fact that it was very mesmerizing and I had to finish it once I started. I think it is because I had my expectations set very high.
I gave it 4 stars, despite the fact that it was very mesmerizing and I had to finish it once I started. I think it is because I had my expectations set very high.
I technically didn't finish this book, I gave up on it. This is one of those books which actually very well written but really isn't what the blurb on the backcover promises it to be. I picked it up, thinking it was yer average crime novel but it's actually an atmospheric tale about immigrants in Spain. The style was flowing and lyrical but the characters left me a bit cold as well as the structure of the story-telling. It simply wasn't for me.
Don’t start with The Skating Rink, but once you become a fan of Bolaño go back to his first novel. The crime novel influence stands out here, and like the best crime novels it toys with the conventions of the genre. His sentences are already fantastic, though more constrained than in later works. The revolving narrators provide a study in perspective, and it’s worth the read for that. He gets invested in the plot at the end of the story, which that deflates the momentum.
This is really annoying, and I don't think I can blame a bad translation.
(view spoiler)
(view spoiler)
An early book of Bolano, it is a foreshadowing of his later works. Three male narrators interweave stories about a town near Barcelona, named Z. Two of the narrators are in love with a second tier Olympic figure-skater. One of them, a town official, builds her an ice rink in an abandoned mansion with embezzled town money, the scene of a murder of a homeless woman.
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“We all have to die a bit every now and then and usually it's so gradual that we end up more alive than ever. Infinitely old and infinitely alive.”
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