“I became weirdly obsessed with this novel years ago...”

January 27, 2016 3:46 PM

‘2666,’ a Most Difficult Novel, Takes the Stage [The New York Times]

“2666,” the Chilean writer Roberto Bolaño’s darkly enigmatic, wildly digressive, sometimes densely philosophical and above all extremely long final novel, has awed, mesmerized, baffled and exasperated readers around the world since its posthumous publication in 2004. “It would take 45 minutes just to explain what the novel is about,” Mr. Falls, the longtime artistic director of the Goodman Theater here, said on a recent afternoon. But that hasn’t stopped him from turning it into a five-hour stage adaptation that begins performances on Saturday, Feb. 6, the culmination of what he describes as a nearly decade-long effort to wrestle Mr. Bolaño’s baggy monster to the theatrical ground.

Previously.
posted by Fizz (33 comments total)

I'm going to see this at the Goodman in Chicago sometime in February. I'm very excited and have no idea how anything except maybe The Part About Fate could possibly be translated to the stage. I'm very excited. I am excited.
posted by shakespeherian at 4:10 PM on January 27, 2016 [6 favorites]

I have a hard-cover edition of the novel and have been doing push-ups and various hand strengthening exercises, but am still too feeble to lift the tome to eye level.
posted by nikoniko at 4:23 PM on January 27, 2016 [4 favorites]

I became weirdly obsessed with this novel just a couple months ago, after reading it for the first time. Fuck ... I strongly want to fly to Chicago just to see this.
posted by mannequito at 4:49 PM on January 27, 2016 [2 favorites]

Mr. Freedom has been listening to this as a book on tape for, like, months now. I mean, I know books on tape take a long time, but this is massive.

He says it's really good though! I sent him the link to the play information.
posted by chainsofreedom at 4:52 PM on January 27, 2016

Great book, don't want to see this anyway.
posted by Joseph Gurl at 4:52 PM on January 27, 2016 [1 favorite]

I'm still waiting for Infinite Jest as interpreted by mimes.
posted by grumpybear69 at 4:56 PM on January 27, 2016 [7 favorites]

I guess I better buy my ticket before this new publicity sells it out.... I just can't settle on when to go cuz I'm also trying to fit in a weekend trip to my Dad's during the same time period...
posted by dnash at 5:05 PM on January 27, 2016

I'm still waiting for Infinite Jest as interpreted by mimes.

I'm listening to that on tape right now!
posted by This is Why We Can't Have Nice Things at 5:06 PM on January 27, 2016 [13 favorites]

Quiet, isn't it?
posted by Devonian at 5:11 PM on January 27, 2016 [5 favorites]

Yeah, but the suspense is killing me.
posted by This is Why We Can't Have Nice Things at 5:23 PM on January 27, 2016 [10 favorites]

I love that the show was funded by an ex-Episcopal monk who won Powerball. What a great way to spend your winnings!
posted by Neely O'Hara at 5:24 PM on January 27, 2016 [10 favorites]

I should point out that the reason the Goodman has the money to adapt something so audacious is because of Roy Cockrum, perhaps the most idiosyncratic Powerball winner in the history of the lottery: Cockrum is a former actor, and later an Episcopal monk who took a *vow of poverty*.
posted by IcarusFloats at 5:26 PM on January 27, 2016 [13 favorites]

My bookmark glares accusingly at me from where I left it on page 58. Time to give this thing another try.
posted by theodolite at 5:46 PM on January 27, 2016 [2 favorites]

Werner Klemperer as Benno von Archimboldi.
posted by clavdivs at 5:57 PM on January 27, 2016

2666 might be my favorite novel, the only competition would be infinite jest. my best friend and i have talked for years about how perfect 2666 would be as an HBO or Netflix drama - it's already broken up into five sections (though our version combine the parts about fate and amalfatino into one season, so four total). there is something endlessly cinematic about the book - the critics beating the taxi driver, the women, archimboldi's wonderful life. the idea of a theatrical adaptation makes my brain tingle in the same way.
posted by JimBennett at 6:36 PM on January 27, 2016 [3 favorites]

I don't know if this has been discussed elsewhere, but:

The singular memory I have of reading 2666 is of encountering the grueling murder section, full of endless, matter-of-fact depictions of grisly murder scenes, which was like getting punched in the face, again, and then again, and then again, and then again, and then again, and then again, and then again, and then again,

and then again, until I started skimming over those paragraphs with a kind of tired apathy, let me guess, another rape-murder-torture of a woman and her daughter?

And then suddenly realized that perhaps this was what Bolano intended all along, the urgent need to make this horrifically overwhelming number of (very real) murders public and visible -- as well as the shield of apathy one inevitably ends up creating, to stay sane in the process.
posted by suedehead at 7:15 PM on January 27, 2016 [23 favorites]

I hope it's better than the version I saw in Berlin last year, though you'd be hard pressed to do worse. In that production, also around 5 hours long, there was constant monologuing of text taken almost verbatim from the book. Like, it was almost like listening to an audiobook with on-stage pantomime. I loved the novel, but I left at the second intermission of that play, and wished I had left during the first intermission.
posted by tkfu at 7:27 PM on January 27, 2016 [2 favorites]

Ok. I just bought tickets. Every detail about this is perfect.

I've been meaning to read 2666 for YEARS, maybe I finally will. I'm pretty much always working on some 800 page book or another, I just hadn't gotten around to it yet. (I just started SPQR. Maybe after that.)
posted by jeweled accumulation at 8:30 PM on January 27, 2016

I'm still waiting for Infinite Jest as interpreted by mimes.

Well, no mimes, but it has been done.
posted by CheeseDigestsAll at 8:35 PM on January 27, 2016

I've been meaning to read 2666 for YEARS

All you have to do is keep going and have faith that eventually some kind of sense will be revealed. It's basically like being on the crew of a ship sailing to the New World, a direction of travel that is echoed in the book, come to think of it.
posted by thelonius at 8:35 PM on January 27, 2016 [3 favorites]

2666 is an incredible novel. This seems like an amazing tribute, but not something I'd actually want to watch. I feel that 2666 is secretly very influential in a lot of other books/films/etc. but I tend to feel that way about a lot of books that I love!
posted by cell divide at 8:41 PM on January 27, 2016

2666 has the distinction of being the only novel that gave me a nightmare so vivid I sat up in bed. In general, that was the experience of reading anything by Bolaño for me. Any notion of plot or characterization is subordinated to his ability to get into your head and create the emotions he wants to create. He's more like a composer than an author at times. It's unbelievable how effectively he could do this, over and over, in translation.

Um, in short, really really interesting idea making it into a play but I would not want to watch it. If it's done poorly it could be a travesty and if it's done well it could be devastating and either way I don't need the nightmares.
posted by town of cats at 10:31 PM on January 27, 2016 [4 favorites]

Over 1100 pages long in its Spanish edition, and almost 900 in its English translation, it is divided into five parts.

Oh, so it's shorter than your standard fantasy novel, nowadays. Cool.
posted by shmegegge at 12:54 AM on January 28, 2016 [2 favorites]

I bought and attempted to read 2666 a few years back, but whatever its magic is it doesn't work on me at all. It felt like going out on a date with someone with whom there is absolutely no rapport or mutual interest, and with whom one cannot see the slightest flicker of a chance any such will develop. Meanwhile, the rest of the unread bookshelf is flaunting itself shamelessly...

Which is a shame, as I don't like missing out, and Pynchon (for example) delivers on the wild ride to a strange destination, but in this case - not for me.
posted by Devonian at 3:35 AM on January 28, 2016 [1 favorite]

45 minutes to explain what it is about? Oh... so like the length of time of a thought provoking Metafilter comment takes to process...
posted by Nanukthedog at 5:17 AM on January 28, 2016 [1 favorite]

I required support from AskMe to make it through 2666. Glad I read it, but five years on I have absolutely no recollection of what 80% of the book was about.
posted by Shepherd at 5:43 AM on January 28, 2016 [1 favorite]

So that means only 1 of the 5 parts resonated with you?
posted by Nanukthedog at 5:58 AM on January 28, 2016 [1 favorite]

The lack of resonance with, really, anything in the book is one reason I gave up on The Savage Detectives, and I almost NEVER bail on a book.
posted by uberchet at 8:19 AM on January 28, 2016

I hope it's better than the version I saw in Berlin last year, though you'd be hard pressed to do worse. In that production, also around 5 hours long, there was constant monologuing of text taken almost verbatim from the book. Like, it was almost like listening to an audiobook with on-stage pantomime.

While I could see how frustrating that 'audiobook' feeling might be, I think there may be another reason for its popularity in Germany.

In Germany, audiobooks are insanely popular. [CBC, Spark with Nora Young]

Each year, Germans buy more audiobooks than e-books, and the voice actors are as big as rock stars. This past summer, 20,000 Germans filled a Berlin stadium just to listen to the most popular audiobook series. Tomas Urbina gets inside the audiobook craze.

posted by Fizz at 12:08 PM on January 28, 2016

The lack of resonance with, really, anything in the book is one reason I gave up on The Savage Detectives, and I almost NEVER bail on a book.

What, you don't read books and make notes in the margins while showering?
posted by mannequito at 12:13 PM on January 28, 2016

Savage Detectives could be an amazing play
posted by shothotbot at 1:29 PM on January 28, 2016 [1 favorite]

I tried to read 2666 in Spanish. Mind you, I had only ever read one novel in Spanish before and it was a decidedly simpler novel. Couldn't get through it. One of my Facebook friends posted a status about having trouble getting through 2666, so I told him about my attempt to read it in Spanish. He explained how it was pretty hard to get through even in English, so then I didn't feel quite as bad. It sounds like an incredible novel though, so perhaps I'll try again, but in English this time.
posted by A Bad Catholic at 4:04 PM on January 28, 2016

SO I just got out of the theater where I saw 2666. Holy Christ was that good. Part 5 in particular is some of the best staged narrative I've ever seen.
posted by shakespeherian at 10:08 PM on February 19, 2016 [2 favorites]