Cambridge University Press 978-1-108-49825-8 — Framing Roberto Bolaño Jonathan Beck Monroe Frontmatter More Information FRAMING ROBERTO BOLAÑO Poetry, fiction, literary history, and politics. These four cornerstone concerns of Roberto Bolaño’s work have established him as a representative, generational figure in not only Chile, Mexico, and Spain, the three principal locations of his life and work, but through- out Europe and the Americas, increasingly on a global scale. At the heart of Bolaño’s “poemas-novela,” his poet- and poetry-centered novels, is the history and legacy of the prose poem. Challenging the policing of boundaries between verse and prose, poetry and fiction, the literary and the non-literary, the aesthetic and the political, his prose poem novels offer a sustained literary history by other means, a pivotal intervention that restores poetry and literature to full capa- city. Framing Roberto Bolaño is one of the first books to trace the full arc and development of Bolaño’s work from the beginning to the end of his career. jonathan beck monroe is a former DAAD and ACLS Fellow and member of the IIEE’s national Fulbright selection committee. He is the author of A Poverty of Objects: The Prose Poem and the Politics of Genre (1987) and Demosthenes’ Legacy (2009), a book of prose poems and short fiction. Co-author and editor of Writing and Revising the Disciplines (2002), Local Knowledges, Local Practices: Writing in the Disciplines at Cornell (2006), Poetry, Community, Movement (1996), and Poetics of Avant-Garde Poetries (2000), he has published widely on questions of genre, writing and disciplinary practices, innovative poetries of the past two centuries, and avant-garde movements and their contemporary legacies. © in this web service Cambridge University Press www.cambridge.org Cambridge University Press 978-1-108-49825-8 — Framing Roberto Bolaño Jonathan Beck Monroe Frontmatter More Information © in this web service Cambridge University Press www.cambridge.org Cambridge University Press 978-1-108-49825-8 — Framing Roberto Bolaño Jonathan Beck Monroe Frontmatter More Information FRAMING ROBERTO BOLAÑO Poetry, Fiction, Literary History, Politics JONATHAN BECK MONROE Cornell University © in this web service Cambridge University Press www.cambridge.org Cambridge University Press 978-1-108-49825-8 — Framing Roberto Bolaño Jonathan Beck Monroe Frontmatter More Information University Printing House, Cambridge cb28bs,UnitedKingdom One Liberty Plaza, 20th Floor, New York, ny 10006,USA 477 Williamstown Road, Port Melbourne, vic 3207,Australia 314–321, 3rd Floor, Plot 3, Splendor Forum, Jasola District Centre, New Delhi – 110025,India 79 Anson Road, #06–04/06, Singapore 079906 Cambridge University Press is part of the University of Cambridge. It furthers the University’s mission by disseminating knowledge in the pursuit of education, learning, and research at the highest international levels of excellence. www.cambridge.org Information on this title: www.cambridge.org/9781108498258 doi: 10.1017/9781108633475 © Cambridge University Press 2019 This publication is in copyright. Subject to statutory exception and to the provisions of relevant collective licensing agreements, no reproduction of any part may take place without the written permission of Cambridge University Press. First published 2019 Printed and bound in Great Britain by Clays Ltd, Elcograf S.p.A. A catalogue record for this publication is available from the British Library. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data names: Monroe, Jonathan, 1954– author. title: Framing Roberto Bolano: poetry, fiction, literary history, politics / Jonathan Beck Monroe. description:Cambridge;NewYork,ny: Cambridge University Press, 2020.|Includes bibliographical references and index. identifiers: lccn 2019016370 | isbn 9781108498258 (Hardback: alk. paper) | isbn 9781108735568 (Paperback: alk. paper) subjects: lcsh: Bolano, Roberto, 1953–2003 – Criticism and interpretation. classification: lcc pq8098.12.o38 z76 2020 | ddc 863/.64–dc23 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2019016370 isbn 978-1-108-49825-8 Hardback isbn 978-1-108-73556-8 Paperback Cambridge University Press has no responsibility for the persistence or accuracy of URLs for external or third-party internet websites referred to in this publication and does not guarantee that any content on such websites is, or will remain, accurate or appropriate. © in this web service Cambridge University Press www.cambridge.org Cambridge University Press 978-1-108-49825-8 — Framing Roberto Bolaño Jonathan Beck Monroe Frontmatter More Information For my wife, Alfie, For all that was missing Piu’ di ieri, meno di domani © in this web service Cambridge University Press www.cambridge.org Cambridge University Press 978-1-108-49825-8 — Framing Roberto Bolaño Jonathan Beck Monroe Frontmatter More Information © in this web service Cambridge University Press www.cambridge.org Cambridge University Press 978-1-108-49825-8 — Framing Roberto Bolaño Jonathan Beck Monroe Frontmatter More Information Contents Acknowledgments page ix List of Abbreviations xi Introduction: Unpacking Bolaño’s Library 1 part one 21 1 “Undisciplined Writing” 23 Antwerp (Amberes) 2 Poetry as Symptom and Cure 36 Monsieur Pain 3 The Novel’s Regimes Made Visible 50 The Third Reich (El Tercer Reich) part two 63 4 Poetry at the Ends of Its Lines 65 The Unknown University (La Universidad Desconocida) Nazi Literature in the Americas (La literatura nazi en América) 5 Post-Avant Histories 86 Distant Star (Estrella distante) part three 103 6 Dismantling Narrative Drive 105 The Savage Detectives (Los detectives salvajes) 7 Making Visible the “Non-Power” of Poetry 130 Amulet (Amuleto) vii © in this web service Cambridge University Press www.cambridge.org Cambridge University Press 978-1-108-49825-8 — Framing Roberto Bolaño Jonathan Beck Monroe Frontmatter More Information viii Contents 8 Poetry, Politics, Critique 142 By Night in Chile (Nocturno de Chile) part four 153 9 Literary Taxonomies after the Wall 155 Woes of the True Policeman (Los sinsabores del verdadero policía) 10 “What a Relief to Give Up Literature” 173 2666 Conclusion: From the Known to the Unknown University 198 Notes 208 Index 247 © in this web service Cambridge University Press www.cambridge.org Cambridge University Press 978-1-108-49825-8 — Framing Roberto Bolaño Jonathan Beck Monroe Frontmatter More Information Acknowledgments This book owes everything to my beautiful, brilliant, accomplished, resourceful, sagacious wife, Alfonsina (Alfie) Rechichi, whose love, coun- sel, and support for the past seven years have sustained me at every turn. The joy your way of being in the world makes possible in our life together inspires me every day. Your passion, loyalty, and friendship, your resilience and commitment, challenge me to be better than I could ever be without you. For all that, and more than I can say, I am eternally grateful. To my mother, Josephine (Jodie) Beck Monroe, whose long life, good health, and example in all things continue to be such a blessing, and father, the Rev. Paul Eugene Monroe, Jr., deeply missed and gone these many years, thanks too for the strong foundation you have both given us, for all your love, support, and wisdom, your moral courage, intelligence, and integrity, your kindness and understanding, care and goodwill. To Gabriel and Holly, my wonderful children, and their spouses Shelley and Marshall, to my precious grandson Dylan, this one’s for you too, as always, with all my heart. I love you all and am so proud of who you are and all you do. To my sisters Lynn, Marcia, and Paula, their husbands Art, Luther, and Mac, to all the family’s nephews and nieces, children, grand- children, and great-children, my thanks go beyond words. To Rosa and in memoriam Giovanni (Gianni) Rechichi, to Alfie’s sons Mark and John Sabbas, to George and Grazia Svokos and their daughters Erin and husband Aaron, Elizabeth, and Alexandra, to Joseph and Suzanne Rechichi, sons John Joseph and Justin, thank you for welcoming me with such warmth and generosity into your awesome family as one of your own. To all the incredibly bright, inspiring students in my seminars on “Poetry’s Image,”“Poetry and Poetics of the Americas,”“Contemporary Poetry and Poetics,” and “Postcolonial Poetry and the Poetics of Relation,” thank you for your engagement and commitment to learning, for all I have learned from all of you on our shared voyage to the Unknown University. ix © in this web service Cambridge University Press www.cambridge.org Cambridge University Press 978-1-108-49825-8 — Framing Roberto Bolaño Jonathan Beck Monroe Frontmatter More Information x Acknowledgments Heartfelt thanks in particular, among my colleagues, to Edmundo Paz- Soldán, whose shared passion for Bolaño’s work, encouragement, friend- ship, and support throughout the writing of this book are much appre- ciated, and to Edmundo and his co-editor, Gustavo Faverón Patriau, for publishing in the second edition of their edited volume Bolaño salvaje,in Spanish and under a different title, an earlier version of parts of what has since become this book’s third chapter. Special thanks, finally, to my editor, Ray Ryan, for his belief in the project and continuing professionalism and support, to Héctor Hoyos and Ignacio López-Calvo, for their extraordinarily generous, insightful, thor- ough contributions in reading the manuscript, to Edgar Mendez, for his always responsive, congenial role in moving the manuscript into produc- tion, and to Cambridge University