Roberto Bolaño - The Consummate Exile
By its very nature, the life of an exile — and Bolaño may be remembered as the consummate exile — is fraught with jarring shifts that play havoc with memory. What’s interesting is that he embraced his sense of displacement as if it were the ultimate source of strength. He seemed less interested in his (and his characters’) past, in verifiable dates and events aired out for analysis, than he was in the experiential portfolio derived from mental and physical peregrination.
Probably all of us, writers and readers alike, set out into exile, or at least into a certain kind of exile, when we leave childhood behind. Which would lead to the conclusion that the exiled person or the category of exile doesn’t exist, especially in regards to literature. The immigrant, the nomad, the traveler, the sleepwalker all exist, but not the exile, since every writer becomes an exile simply by venturing into literature, and every reader becomes an exile simply by opening a book.
Mikel Dunham - The Apocalyptic Tradition (Los Angeles Review of Books)
(Source: lareviewofbooks.org)
Roberto Bolaño - The Consummate Exile
By its very nature, the life of an exile — and Bolaño may be remembered as the consummate exile — is fraught with jarring shifts that play havoc with memory. What’s interesting is that he embraced his sense of displacement as if it were the ultimate source of strength. He seemed less interested in his (and his characters’) past, in verifiable dates and events aired out for analysis, than he was in the experiential portfolio derived from mental and physical peregrination.
Probably all of us, writers and readers alike, set out into exile, or at least into a certain kind of exile, when we leave childhood behind. Which would lead to the conclusion that the exiled person or the category of exile doesn’t exist, especially in regards to literature. The immigrant, the nomad, the traveler, the sleepwalker all exist, but not the exile, since every writer becomes an exile simply by venturing into literature, and every reader becomes an exile simply by opening a book.
Mikel Dunham - The Apocalyptic Tradition (Los Angeles Review of Books)
(Source: lareviewofbooks.org)
Posted 4 weeks ago & Filed under Mikel Dunham, Roberto Bolaño, The Apocalyptic Tradition, exile, lit, literature, Los Angeles Review of Books, 3 notes
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