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Original Essays | December 12, 2009

The Courage of Others

0 comments By Alexander McCall Smith

I have recently written a novel about life in England during the Second World War. I felt some concern before I tackled this theme — the War... Continue »

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1. 
   $16.76 Sale Hardcover add to wish list

   La's Orchestra Saves the World

   Alexander McCall Smith

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Eleanor Wynn, January 10, 2009

I would have liked to read this in Spanish and probably will. The translation is good but there were places where I was left wondering what he really said. Bolano has to be the ultimate postmodern writer or maybe more post than that. There is certainly a hint of Cortazar, and a literature student will pick up many echoes from Bolano's extensive literary background.

He reflects the condition of a world divided between hypercivilization in the form of the literature professors and their interpersonal indulgences and intensive self-characterization, and the cultural degradation of nearshore border capitalism. The final book takes a look back at perhaps where things began to fall apart, in WWII; and everything loops together to wind up in the maquiladora town of Santa Teresa, south of Juarez.

The section on the murders of women in that town is based in fact, and the he meticulously describes the known but scant details of each case as from a police blotter, interweaving several other plotlines. First the accounts are morbidly fascinating, then overwhelming; then a dullness sets in, similar to the desensitization of the casually evil powers in that town, a mixture of narcos, politicians and academics on the edge of nowhere.

This is a truly cutting social commentary pulled along by a narrative pace that keeps you turning pages despite the density of detail and ideas that almost seem like brush to be cleared before you can solve the puzzle, yet are in fact themselves the substance. It is truly a shame that we lost Bolano.

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