A deathbed confession revolving around Opus Dei and Pinochet, By Night in Chile pours out the self-justifying dark memories of the Jesuit priest Father Urrutia.As through a crack in the wall, By Night in Chile's single night-long rant provides a terrifying, clandestine view of the strange bedfellows of church and state in Chile. This wild, eerily compact novel-Roberto Bolano's first work available in English-recounts the tale of a poor boy who wanted to be a poet but ends up a half-hearted Jesuit priest and conservative ...
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A deathbed confession revolving around Opus Dei and Pinochet, By Night in Chile pours out the self-justifying dark memories of the Jesuit priest Father Urrutia.As through a crack in the wall, By Night in Chile's single night-long rant provides a terrifying, clandestine view of the strange bedfellows of church and state in Chile. This wild, eerily compact novel-Roberto Bolano's first work available in English-recounts the tale of a poor boy who wanted to be a poet but ends up a half-hearted Jesuit priest and conservative literary critic, a sort of lapdog to the rich and powerful cultural elite, in whose villas he encounters Pablo Neruda and Ernst Junger. Father Urrutia is offered a tour of Europe by agents of Opus Dei to study "the disintegration of the churches"-a journey into realms of the surreal-and, ensnared by this plum, he is next assigned, after the destruction of Allende, the secret never-to-be-disclosed job of teaching Pinochet, at night, all about Marxism, so the junta generals can know their enemy. Soon, searingly, his memories go from bad to worse.Heart-stopping and hypnotic, By Night in Chile marked the American debut of an astonishing writer.
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Add this copy of By Night in Chile to cart. $41.95, good condition, Sold by Bonita rated 4.0 out of 5 stars, ships from Newport Coast, CA, UNITED STATES, published 2017 by Blackstone Audiobooks.
Night in Chile by Robert Bolano is a spare and tightly written story that simultaneously explores the incestuous world of literary criticism in mid-20th Century South America and exposes the endemic acquiescence to facist terror that characterized many South American societies during that era. While the book is written in the first person as a priest's confession, it is really a confession of an entire society who let injustice and torture happen and pretended that every thing was alright as long as order reigned and private property was sacred. It is also a story about how people make compromises in their values in order to live the lives they choose. Bolano's writing reminded me of Saramago; so if you like Saramago, you will probably enjoy this book. Also, Bolano is particularly skilled in effectively using subtle suggestion rather than graphic exposition to create images that are at the same time clear yet shrouded, much like a pair of striking, emotional eyes peering out from behind a veil. It may be a trite message, which we all learned from our mothers, but at the end of this book one cannot help but be reminded that the person with whom you must live everyday of your life and who will judge your every act is, afterall, yourself.
