Roberto Bolaño with Mario Santiago Papasquiaro in Mexico City sometime in the 1970s
The Spirit of Science Fiction - Roberto Bolaño’s recently translated 1984 novel written when the author was age thirty-one. The setting is Mexico City in the early 1970s and the tale focuses on two young penniless writers, Mexican poet Remo Morán and aspiring science fiction novelist Jan Schrella from Chile, living in their ramshackle rooftop apartment and embarking on their odyssey within the world of literature. Of course, there's plenty of friends, sex, and cool motorcycles but their poetic souls are aflame at the mere mention of the state of poetry in Mexico and throughout all of Latin America.
If a reader is looking for straightforward narrative, they will have to look elsewhere. Similar to the author’s 1998 The Savage Detectives, although on a more contained canvas: one city (Mexico City) versus many cities, two narrators (Remo and Jan) versus many narrators, 200-pages of large print versus 600-pages of small print, with its swirl of external events flowing into and mingling with hallucinations, dreams and stories within stories, The Spirit of Science Fiction shares much of the literary aesthetic of the author's sprawling masterpiece. Indeed, one could trace the manner in which Roberto Bolaño takes characters, topics and themes from this shorter work and later incorporates them into The Savage Detectives.
Again, if anyone is reading this review looking for a neat and tidy summation, they must be joking (or smoking some good weed). In the spirit of The Spirit, here are several snapshots of this novel-as-swirling tornado in action:
Perky Powwow: Having won a literary prize, Remo is interviewed by a lady journalist who comes across as the prototypical wide-eyed North American from a city like Los Angeles. Deep into the interview, she tells Remo now that he’s won the prize, his life will definitely take a turn for the better. Remo replies: “You poor, naïve reporter. First you mistake this room in the middle of some random forest for a crystal palace on a hill. Then you actually predict a bright future for art. You don’t realize that this is a trap. Who the hell do you think I am, Sid Vicious?”
Zealous Dispatches: As if writing with his very own blood, Jan sends off a string of letters to famous American science fiction authors such as Ursula K. Le Guin and Philip José Farmer imploring that they support and champion science fiction written by authors in Latin America. As part of his letter to Robert Silverberg, Jan writes: “The scene my dear Robert, is this: dog-colored dawn, spaceships appear over the mountains on the horizon, Chile goes down along with the rest of Latin America, we become fugitives, you become killers.” You gotta love a seventeen-year-old who has dedicated his teenage years to voraciously reading hundreds of sf novels and clamors for recognition both for himself and his Latin American brothers and sisters who likewise have taken sf to their hearts and set out to write great science fiction.
Peppy Pal: Frequently the boys are jolted awake by the roar of a motorcycle at 3AM – ah! none other than their older poet friend, Jóse Arco. Based on Mario Santiago Papasquiaro, Jóse breaths the rhythms of poetry and turns the boys on in more ways than one. Remo recounts: “Sometimes I dreamed that Jóse Arco was gliding on his black motorcycle along a frozen avenue, without a glance at the icicles that hung from the windows, shivering with cold, until suddenly, from a sky that was also white and frozen, came a blazing red lightning bolt, and houses and streets split apart, and my friend disappeared in a kind of hurricane of mud.”
Fabulous Far-Out Fiction: Jan’s imagination overfloweths to the point he must relay to Remo the story behind Silhouette, a sf novel by Gene Wolfe. Aboard a rocket ship on a voyage from Earth about to land on a newly discovered planet, protagonist Johann discovers his very own shadow has grown darker, nay, it isn’t his shadow after all but a separate being, powerful and sinister. Meanwhile, the crew tries to convince Johann that he’s one of the chosen on board destined to create something new on this planet. Oh, wow! Chosen to create something new on this planet – no wonder Jan is so taken by Gene Wolfe's novel. Sounds as if Jan has completely identified with Johann. Does this sound like a unique way to approach The Spirit of Science Fiction? You bet it does.
Hot Honeys: Angélica and Lola Torrente and Laura are among the poetesses who make their appearances at poetry workshops and also at the boys' rooftop apartment. It isn't hard to guess who falls deeply in love. You got it - both Remo and Jan. Well, actually, cupid's arrow strikes Remo deeper. Reflecting back on the time of the events reported in this tale, Remo muses over an indelible memory from those days: "A series of images of Laura naked (sitting on the bench, in my arms, under the shower, lying on the divan, thinking) until she disappears completely in a growing cloud of steam." Fortunately, Remo's love of poetry never comes close to disappearing.
Bountiful Bolaño: Heaps more encounters and discoveries to be made by a reader of The Spirit of Science Fiction. Among their number: a potato farm caretaker who believes a book on the history of Latin America is really signals in code, the caretaker's dream of being a lieutenant watching a recruit shoot a colonel in the chest, reflections on the number of Mexican literary magazines swelling in one year from 32 to 661, the appearance of an Aztec Princess both in the flesh and as a motorcycle, A Mexican Manifesto, Jan's dream of a Russian cosmonaut, a mysterious Dr. Carvajal's poetry magazines that appear to Ramo "as skeletal as prisoners of a Nazi concentration camp", Jan's letter to Ursula K. Le Guin that ends: "Who should we wake with a kiss and break the spell? Madness or Beauty? Madness and Beauty? Much love, Jan Schrella", and surprise, surprise - Jan's final letter signed: Jan Schrella alias Roberto Bolaño.
Go for it! Read The Spirit of Science Fiction. ¡Magnífico!
Roberto Bolaño, 1953-2003
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