I have been reading quite a lot of Roberto Bolaño of late and eagerly await his last interview [Melville House]. It’s interesting how prolific Bolaño was, not only in his output as a writer, but also as a reader too. Melville’s blog ‘Moby Lives’ will be running a series of posts concerning just this: Bolaño’s reading habits.From the last interview:
“In reality the five books are more like 5,000. I’ll mention these only as the tip of the spear: Don Quixote by Cervantes, Moby Dick by Melville. The complete works of Borges, Hopscotch by Cortázar, A Confederacy of Dunces by Toole. I should also cite Nadja by Breton, the letters of Jacques Vaché. Anything Ubu by Jarry, Life: A User’s Manual by Perec. The Castle and The Trial by Kafka. Aphorisms by Lichtenberg. The Tractatus by Wittgenstein. The Invention of Morel by Bioy Casares. The Satyricon by Petronius. The History of Rome by Tito Livio. Pensées by Pascal.”
That’s some list right there. It’s interesting because it doesn’t seem to hold a centre; it is far-reaching and spans many continents and epochs. It is sheer devotion; an unconditional dedication to reading that seems to steer clear of any ideological route other than to devour more of the same. It is a thirst for knowledge, for the written word, or the reasoning within the written word, the reason for the written word: the unfathomable nonworking of our existence.
Or it could be the list of a man bored. Simply bored. Bored with the question, bored with life, bored with the finiteness of everything. A list to pass time. A list to amuse one’s self in the meantime, in the interim. A list that means absolutely nothing.
For me this is the beauty of a mind like Bolaño’s.
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