2666 by Roberto Belaño Review

[@AC-ez2es]

Hi Michael! You know I have a love hate relationship with your reviews. I love seeing your face and hearing your opinion about the books you have read ( especially if they are the books I have read or don't expect to pick up; but when it's a book that I have on my TBR I have to back out of the video quickly because there are some books where I don't want to know anything ( we have similar tastes in books so I have had to do this a couple of times). So the same is with 2666 but I promise to play this review after I have attempted to read the book (I am going to like the video in advance because I adore your videos). Your camera quality is flawless. Have a great weekend.

[@MichaelReads]

thank you! I'm on the same boat with you about reviews. I definitely just save them until I get around to finishing the book.

[@TheRealSlatkoReimers666]

Heroin?

[@browngirlreading]

I've heard a lot about this book and I know it's not for me. Tired of reading books about women being raped. There seems to be some underlying theme in South American male writers' books and their treatment of women that I don't like. So no not for me. I like to have my mind free of bad thoughts when I go to sleep at night. Good review though.

[@MichaelReads]

thanks. I'm about to film my Hispanic Heritage Month video wrap up and I was actually going to bring up rape. The treatment of woman, especially rape, was a common theme that I noticed in the books. It's a sensitive topic.

[@browngirlreading]

I don't like that macho thing. It gets only nerves. I've heard 2666 referred to a book for the guys.

[@thelivingmanpart2]

+Brown Girl Reading wow... you seem super open minded. And yeah, because American writers don't touch that subject at at all *couch* True Detective *cough* And it never happen in African literature at all either!

[@browngirlreading]

Why are you coughing? Do you have a cold?

[@w.aapodacal.5532]

+Brown Girl Reading The novel does touch rape. It’s a pervasive theme, however it’s not because Bolaño is being macho about it. It is because Santa Teresa is based on Ciudad Juarez in Mexico. And not talking about them would be a disservice to literature and reality. There is an epidemic of rape and crimes against women in Ciudad Juarez. Bolaño doesn’t shy away from it; he is trying to get an idea across. And he does it, I believe, by talking coldly about it as some people sometimes do. He narrates the shit out of rape and murder and feminicide as of saying “Is it finally clear, how revolting this crimes are?!” and when you finally admit we can be this fucked up … he goes on talking about more of it. I think he is satirical in the “macho-ness” of some men. There is a scene in a coffee shop, with police men. Where the very people trying to stop and apprehend the perpetrators of this hate-crimes, actually start telling sexist jokes, at first very innocuous , the reader might smirk a bit, but they get dark and sick and disgusting and it’s as if he is showing you where it all starts from. The idea of which all this injustice originates.