Last Evenings on Earth

by Roberto Bolaño

Then we grew up and, looking back, our youthful adventures seemed rather contemptible. Young middle-class Mexicans are condemned to imitate Salvador Elizondo, who in turn imitated the inimitable Klossowski, or fatten slowly in business or bureaucratic suits, or flail around ineffectually in vaguely leftist, vaguely charitable organizations. Between them, Elizondo (whom I had stopped rereading) and the painter Cavernas just about sated our insatiable appetite for Culture, and each mouthful left us poorer, thinner, uglier, and more ridiculous than before. My friend went back to Irapuato and I stayed on in Mexico City and we both, in different ways, tried to distract ourselves from the gradual devastation of our lives, the ethics and aesthetics we’d professed, the Mexican nation and our damned useless dreams.