Bolaño's German and Russian Readings: Asymmetries and Influences
Authors
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Thomas O. Beebee
Penn State University
https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4088-4686
Abstract
Less pervasively central to Bolaño’s career than Spanish-, English-, and French-language authors, German and Russian Precursors, as Thomas O. Beebee’s essay demonstrates, are nonetheless extensive and generative, including among others Goethe (The Third Reich), Novalis (2666), Kafka (Monsieur Pain, Nazi Literature in the Americas, Distant Star, By Night in Chile) –whom Bolaño calls the “greatest writer of the twentieth century”– and Thomas Mann (2666). Among Russian writers in relation to whom Bolaño situates his late work and sense of himself as a novelist in particular, the combined influences of Dostoevsky and Tolstoy (The Savage Detectives, By Night in Chile, 2666) are considerable. The essay examines the asymmetrical exchanges between these traditions and extrapolates on their interpretative purchase on the oeuvre as a whole.Keywords:
Roberto Bolaño, Literary influence, Kafka, Russian literature, German literatureReferences
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