A Night in Chile / Roberto Bolano

For me, “A Night in Chile” is extremely resonant with Azuela’s “The Underdogs” in its overt and complex statements about a particular historical situation and its participants, real and fictional (though certainly, Borges’ “Deutsches Requiem” and Carpentier’s “The Chase” must be included).

In some sense a hero—any hero—is, by definition to his or her enemy, a villain, and vice versa. That individual (or group) may have particular characteristics, such as being more or less formidable for various reasons of, say, intellect or charisma, but they are essentially the “other” solely by contrast—whether that is defined by ideology, physiology, or which side of the street one lives on, and independent of whether those differences are perceived as real or known to be imagined.

“A Night in Chile” is especially compelling in the directness with which it addresses not so much (though neither so little) who is a hero or villain, but how the world goes so utterly and quickly astray. To pick only one small yet vital piece from the story, the section on Fr Antonio and falconry seems a perfect example. Problem solving, devoid of the time-consuming and difficult consideration of context (in its broadest, ever-changing, yet simplest implications), is inherently amoral, for it suggests an obscene equality among all possible responses and all possible situations. (An editorial in the N Y Times on Friday, 7 May 2010, about a young man who ran onto the field during a major-league baseball game and was stopped—instantly—by the police with a stun gun/Taser, asks the same questions about the relation of force and action.) The possible next step into immorality can be so transparent as to be invisible, and inevitable, and to appear, as the narrator at one point says of his own action, necessary—justifiable.

To kill all the pigeons and doves in the world if they threaten the physical well-being of the architectural structures of the Church (historic and aesthetic considerations included, as well as the recollection that “the Church” is, in its own definition, its adherents, not its buildings), is to vacate any understanding of the sacred aspect of life, and, if one so believes, in God’s creation. Fr Antonio’s doubt, fear, and pain at this expedient measure rings through the whole book, as does recognition of the value of the creation of art, of which the churches mentioned and the novel itself are exquisite examples.

The narrator has tried to avoid any real or meaningful probing of his own life and actions not so much by residing in a realm of culture apart, or because he too is a limited and flawed individual, but by being ever willing and ready to look no further than a solution to the next “problem.” He cannot even recognize that Mr Raef and Mr Etah are Fear and Hate in their most banal modern guise, at once backward and efficiently all business.