The Insufferable Gaucho by Roberto Bolano

I have just completed my third reading foray into the world of Roberto Bolano and as much as I enjoyed his latest book of essays Between Parentheses this book flat knocked me out. Except for Police Rat , and Two Catholic Tales , all the rest of the stories and essays were nothing short of fantastic. It is a sad day when you find somebody as gifted as Roberto Bolano was and he seems to up and die on you. Trouble is I just found him, and little did I know he died a good seven or eight years ago from a long-suffering obviously fatal liver disease. If still alive today he would be exactly my age and maybe my friend if he'd let me.

Bolano is dark, and I found him thanks to an article I read in the New Yorker magazine about Laszlo Krasznahorkai and his remarkable new novel WAR AND WAR which I also just finished reading today and also plan on reviewing real soon. In the article, Roberto Bolano was listed as a writer similar in taste to Krasznahorkai as well as David Foster Wallace, Kafka, Camus, Beckett maybe, and others. Of course, Bolano complains of Wallace's verbosity in Between Parentheses when giving his opinion of him, and Bolano himself does not suffer from that disease of the pen to the extent our dead friend David did. However, Bolano is just as bleak as any Beckett or Camus.

My favorite pieces from THE INSUFFERABLE GAUCHO in order of rank are:
1. Literature + Illness = Illness
2. The Insufferable Gaucho
3. The Myths of Cthulhu
4. Alvaro Rousselot's Journey
5. Jim

I could not bear at all the short pieces titled the Police Rat or the one titled Two Catholic Tales . I did not want to ruin a very good thing I had going with the other work chosen for this book, which the piece Jim , I believe, was included in the last Bolano New Direction book titled Between Parentheses.

Bolano writes as if he is dying because he is, and that is a good way to approach the page in my opinion. He holds no punches for later. Why should he? He does not sugar coat. His composition is perhaps perfect. He is as honest a writer as I have ever read. He is important, and thus important for all of us to read what it is he has to say, and granted, it isn't always what we want to hear. But be a good boy or girl and take it like you do your medicine, daily and in the spirit of having a good time.