kafkaesque

- ramblings on literature, including kafka

- quotes i like

- creative writing

06/15/26

im on chapter five of satantango and am considering the possibility that i've somehow lost my ability to read. where is the satan character that the book is supposed to center around? i think i've missed something...

06/06/26

I recently finished 2666 by Roberto Bolano. The novel has certainly left an imprint on my being. The book is split into 5 parts and I feel like ranking them (1 being favorite, 5 being my least favorite.)

The Part About Amalfitano

The Part About the Crimes

The Part About the Critics

The Part About Fate

The Part about Archimboldi

They’re all very close. It’s not really a ranking of [1, 2, 3, 4, 5] but of [1, 1.25, 1.5, 1.75, 2, 2.5] or [1, 1.01, 1.25, 1.30, 1.50]. 

Here’s some of my general thoughts and reactions on each section.

–

Amalfitano

The shortest part. Deals a lot with madness, going mad, a person’s surrounding’s involvement with madness, the contagiousness of madness. Madness is contagious. I related a lot with this idea, and much of this entire part in general, which is maybe why I enjoyed it so much. 

The thought of understanding a book without reading it is intriguing. 

This part felt the most complete, and to me offered the most amount of closure, a foreign concept in a book like 2666. At the same time, it still maintained elusiveness and ambiguity, which is what makes this book, at least to me, so magical. 

–

2. Crimes.

The longest part. Not as disconnected and clinical as many make it out to be. But who cares what people make it out to be? That’s not the point. The point is that this part balances unexplained violence with narrative complexity. It is not just a multi-hundred page police report. 

Victims are given names. This is beautiful and intentional. Victims are people as much as they are unsolved acts of violence.

Florita Almada, the seer, makes this part, at least to me. Bolano allows the reader to ditch thinking about whether or not she truly is a supernatural/psychic seer. That is not relevant. That is not a point of contention. What she says is important nonetheless. 

–

3. Critics

The most meta part. I love all things meta. 

Critics search for Archimboldi harder than authorities of Santa Teresa search for an explanation of the murders of hundreds of women. 

Satire of the world of literature is always welcome. Literary critics aren’t above kicking a taxi driver to death (or nearly to death, I don’t remember) over an awkward love triangle with an uninterested woman. 

Is there really such a point to searching for Archimboldi in the first place? Questions about authorship arise.

Wandering. Heavy themes of wandering.

–

4. Fate

Some of my favorite prose is in this section. 

Certainly Fate, the character, is the most fleshed out and relatable character in all of 2666. Relatable is subjective. To me, he was relatable. It is easy to feel for Fate or to try to step into his shoes. 

Reminds me a lot of Critics. A different take on The Part about the Critics.

Very Lynchian to me.

The strong, magnetizing force of Santa Teresa, the molten core of 2666, pulls Fate into relation with the other parts of the novel. 

Contrasts with Crimes. The Part About Fate is an outside, journalistic view of what’s going on in Santa Teresa, the Part About the Crimes is inside. 

–

5. Archimboldi

This part not giving my much anticipated genius, great, all-encompasing conclusion to 2666 is actually my favorite part about it. 

I did not enjoy too much the historical angle to this part. I ached for more Santa Teresa after Crimes, and being pulled into early 20th century Prussia really disappointed me. Maybe I’m a sucker for instant gratification, and this just didn’t give me my fix after the intense Part About the Crimes. It wasn’t until the last few pages of The Part About Archimboldi, and consequently the last few pages of 2666, that Santa Teresa was brought up again.

This part makes it so 2666 sort of starts where it ends. This is quite beautiful.

—

Quote: “Enchanted by the sight, he woke up.”

First Impression Summary: A man, Joseph K, dreams about taking a walk. On his walk, he ends up in a graveyard. Two men place a black gravestone in the ground, and then an artist appears to write on the stone. Joseph K watches closely as the artist writes, and begins to realize that the name being written is his own. When the artist finishes, Joseph K is swept up into the ground and wakes up.

Themes: Death, confusion, absurdism, surrealism, alienation

Reactions: 

- The image of the artist’s pencil, which appeared to be ordinary yet drew gold letters, felt very typical of the logic one would experience in a dream. 

-Additionally, Joseph K immediately recognized the artist as an artist, for no apparent reason, which is also very dream-like. Feels similar to recognizing a person in a dream as a friend/family member, even if they look nothing like them. 

-I related to the awkward tension between the artist and Joseph K.