false http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1170614499m/63030.jpg 63030 8 <B>A chilling novel about the nightmare of a corrupt and brutal dictatorship.</B> <P>The star of Roberto Bolaño's hair-raising novel <I>Distant Star</I> is Alberto Ruiz-Tagle, an air force pilot who exploits the 1973 coup to launch his own version of the New Chilean Poetry, a multi-media enterprise involving sky-writing, poetry, torture, and photo exhibitions. <P>For our unnamed narrator, who first encounters this "star" in a college poetry workshop, Ruiz-Tagle becomes the silent hand behind every evil act in the darkness of Pinochet's regime. The narrator, unable to stop himself, tries to track Ruiz-Tagle down, and sees signs of his activity over and over again. A corrosive, mocking humor sparkles within Bolaño's darkest visions of Chile under Pinochet. In Bolaño's world there's a big graveyard and there's a big graveyard laugh. (He once described his novel <I>By Night in Chile</I> as "a tale of terror, a situation comedy, and a combination pastoral-gothic novel.") <P>Many Chilean authors have written about the "bloody events of the early Pinochet years, the abductions and murders," Richard Eder commented in the <I>The New York Times</I>: "None has done it in so dark and glittering a fashion as Roberto Bolaño." 659820 book 1999 Distant Star total:444|5:142|4:200|3:75|2:25|1:2| 444 1787 675 87 5 2 false false Tue Apr 15 11:25:38 -0700 2008 Wed Jun 25 10:47:59 -0700 2008
This book is for anybody who has...more...]]> 5 2 false false Tue Nov 25 00:00:00 -0800 2008 Thu Nov 20 08:29:48 -0800 2008 Tue Nov 25 08:58:31 -0800 2008 1 more...]]> 5 1 false false Fri Jun 06 00:00:00 -0700 2008 Sun May 11 23:09:58 -0700 2008 Fri Jun 06 15:46:29 -0700 2008 more...]]> 5 1 false false Sun Jul 01 00:00:00 -0700 2007 Sat Aug 11 02:06:34 -0700 2007 Sat Aug 11 02:14:48 -0700 2007 He was a wonderful writer, sort of like Bruno Schulz mixed ...more...]]> 5 0 false false Sat Dec 27 13:18:34 -0800 2008 Sat Dec 27 13:30:30 -0800 2008 This is a great short novel. Bolaño writes with a kind of casual elegance that is both accessible and highly layered. The protagonist, a far-right-wing Air Force officer / poet named Carlos Wieder, is Bolaño's emblem of the violent contradictions of post-coup Chile of the 1970s, twisting qua...more...]]> 5 0 false false Mon Dec 29 00:00:00 -0800 2008 Mon Dec 29 02:59:56 -0800 2008 Mon Dec 29 03:19:56 -0800 2008 more...]]> 5 0 false false Fri May 01 00:00:00 -0700 2009 Fri May 08 13:41:54 -0700 2009 Sat Jun 13 10:50:49 -0700 2009 Distant Star the idea that artists with their art present a serious challenge to oppressive authority is dismissed as a myth; those that would purify their life by living as a creative might pause a moment to absorb this lesson. Much of the humor on the show 30 Rock is derived from the comedic fr...more...]]> 5 2 false false Mon Jul 06 00:00:00 -0700 2009 Sat May 16 11:38:47 -0700 2009 Mon Jul 06 13:32:01 -0700 2009 more...]]> 5 0 false false Sun May 03 00:00:00 -0700 2009 Thu Mar 05 03:56:56 -0800 2009 Sun May 03 15:56:53 -0700 2009 more...]]> 0 0 false false Mon Jul 21 00:00:00 -0700 2008 Thu Jul 03 07:13:40 -0700 2008 Thu Jul 24 10:19:33 -0700 2008 The Savage Detectives, his massive slab of a novel. He finds ways to be concise without slighting his thematic concerns which tend to be fairly weighty. The Savage Detectives has its own pleasures though, and so many characters and themes rec...more...]]> 0 0 false false Thu Jun 19 08:18:42 -0700 2008 Thu Jun 19 08:19:30 -0700 2008 more...]]> 5 0 false false Fri Feb 22 17:56:59 -0800 2008 Sat Feb 23 19:47:26 -0800 2008 more...]]> 4 0 false false Tue Jan 01 00:00:00 -0800 2008 Fri Nov 30 06:00:00 -0800 2007 Fri Jan 11 11:57:41 -0800 2008 more...]]> 3 0 false false Wed Aug 01 00:00:00 -0700 2007 Fri Sep 14 18:37:56 -0700 2007 Sat Sep 15 13:05:56 -0700 2007 Last Evenings on Earth.)

I read this in conjunction with Last Evenings on Earth, and, of the two, I preferred Distant Star. Part of this is purely personal; I tend to enjoy novels more than short stories. But I think this is a better book. Bolaño lea...more...]]> 5 0 false false Wed Apr 23 00:00:00 -0700 2008 Mon May 05 10:51:54 -0700 2008 Mon May 05 10:51:54 -0700 2008 more...]]> 4 0 false false Thu Jan 08 00:00:00 -0800 2009 Sat Jan 03 08:29:11 -0800 2009 Thu Jan 08 16:47:28 -0800 2009 more...]]> 4 0 false false Mon Apr 28 00:00:00 -0700 2008 Tue May 13 17:01:05 -0700 2008 Tue May 13 17:12:45 -0700 2008 more...]]> 5 0 false false Tue Sep 01 00:00:00 -0700 2009 Tue Sep 08 14:44:12 -0700 2009 Tue Sep 15 18:34:54 -0700 2009 more...]]> 4 0 false false Thu Nov 06 17:26:57 -0800 2008 Tue Nov 11 15:51:28 -0800 2008 more...]]> 4 0 false false Thu Jan 01 00:00:00 -0800 2009 Thu Oct 29 07:04:29 -0700 2009 Fri Nov 13 10:09:17 -0800 2009
Bolaño is famous for leaving you hanging at the end, but this book wraps up relatively neatly. The implications of the book are not clear. Bolaño is obviously opposed...more...]]> http://www.goodreads.com/book_link/follow/8?book_id=63030