Paul Klee - Angelus Novus

>When these stars cast their light, we didn’t exist, life on Earth didn’t exist, even Earth didn’t exist. This light was cast a long time ago. It’s the past, we’re surrounded by the past, everything that no longer exists or exists only in memory or guesswork is there now, above us, shining on the mountains and the snow and we can’t do anything to stop it.

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Summary

We get the birth of Benno von Archimboldi the persona and the writer in this final section. We also see the evolution of his relationship with Ingeborg and their travels until her mysterious death from drowning (?) in a remote village.

Reiter, now Archimboldi for the rest of the section, begins publishing his books with a Mr Bubis, who also happens to be married to Baroness von Zumpe. So that's tidy. Archimboldi has an affair with the Baroness and confesses to spying on her.

We end the section on little sister Lotte, who turns out to be the mother of Klaus Haas the giant and possible killer from the Crimes. She travels back and forth between Germany and Mexico to visit Klaus in prison, and during one flight reads a book by Benno von Archimboldi and recognizes him as her lost brother Hans. We end with Archimboldi on his way to Mexico to "take care of it all" for Lotte.

Some of the details this week:

• How to survive a carpet bombing
• A long digression about Sisyphus
• Le Musee des erreurs
• Archimboldi and Ingeborg stay with a man who killed his wife and got away with it
• More weird sex stuff, notably reminiscing about Entrescu's dick and the soldier who jerks off under a pile of corpses and smells good afterward
• Fürst Pückler's ice cream in three flavors: chocolate, vanilla, and strawberry

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Prompts

Some ideas for discussion (suggestions only, post about whatever you want and feel free to post your own prompts):

Some general end of book questions:

• So did you like this part? Did you like the book overall? Will you be reading more of Bolaño or are you set?
• Please indulge me and rank the sections in your order of preference, given this was so controversial at the outset.
• In the beginning, there was a comment about secret stories, what do you think the secret story or stories of 2666 is? What do you think the thesis of the book is if you had to come up with one?
• If you were reading the FSG version, three different artworks are used for the covers: Gustave Moreau - Jupiter and Semele (the painting most associated with 2666) for parts 1-3, Cy Twombly - Academy for Part 4, and Albertus Seba - Cabinet of Natural Curiosities, Sea Sponge plate for part 5. Now that we've read the book, what do you make of the usage of these artworks, especially Jupiter and Semele?

Some more specific questions about this part:

• Do you think Archimboldi killed Ingeborg? And if so, to spare her from her health problems? something more sinister? something else?
• It's confirmed that Reiter killed Sammer in this section and spurs his name change. What do you think Bolaño is saying about self erasure or reinvention with Archimboldi's evolution?
• In the Part about the Critics, Norton knows Archimboldi has blue eyes through his novels. In this part, Lotte recognizes Archimboldi as her brother. What do you think Bolaño is saying about self expression through fiction?
• Speaking of critics, a critic in this section hedges on Archimboldi's quality to Bubis even when pressed, clearly not liking him. Do you think this is a swipe at critics or something deeper? What does it mean that he cycles through nationalities before arriving at Malaysian?
• Greek figures show up again, notably with Bubis reflecting on Sisyphus at length when visiting Junge. Why? Why do you think they've shown up again and again throughout the book?
• What did you make of Lotte's section and Klaus being Archimboldi's nephew? What did you make of Lotte's biographical section altogether?
• What was up with the ice cream ending?

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Congratulations to everyone who finished! Historically something like <10% make it from the beginning of a read-along to the end, so you're in a highly selective group if you're still around.

Thanks for reading along with me! Next up will be The Magic Mountain hosted by u/Sweet-Bodybuilder250

If you're interested in hosting a read-along, long or short, post an interest-fishing thread or reach out to the mods.

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Previous Discussions

August 3 - Introduction Thread

August 10: Pages 1-80, through "they probably would have killed him." / es: "el taxista se hubiera materializado ante ellos, seguramente lo habrían matado."

August 17: Pages 80-163, through the end of "The Part about the Critics."

August 24: Pages 163-231, the entirety of "The Part about Amalfitano."

August 31: Pages 231-353, the entirety of "The Part about Fate."

September 7: Pages 353-449, The Part about the Crimes begins, through "coming down the hallway." / es: "que avanzaban por el pasillo."

September 14: Pages 449-545, through "according to witnesses, was indescribable." / es: "fue, según los testigos, indescriptible."

September 21: Pages 545-637, through the end of "The Part about the Crimes."

September 28: Pages 637-770, through "Then he remembered who she was." / es: / "rostro dormido. Entonces la recordó."

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       .--.                   .---.
   .---|__|           .-.     |~~~|
.--|===|--|_          |_|     |~~~|--.
|  |===|  |'\     .---!~|  .--|   |--|
|%%|   |  |.'\    |===| |--|%%|   |  |
|%%|   |  |\.'\   |   | |__|  |   |  |
|  |   |  | \  \  |===| |==|  |   |  |
|  |   |__|  \.'\ |   |_|__|  |~~~|__|
|  |===|--|   \.'\|===|~|--|%%|~~~|--|
^--^---'--^    `-'`---^-^--^--^---'--'

Sophie Ristelhueber - Eleven Blowups #1

>It’s fucked up, that’s the only explanation, said Marquez.

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Summary

200 pages into this section and we're still getting new characters introduced.

Haas holds another press conference and pins the blame on the cousins Uribes, rich kids he met once briefly in a loud bar. His source is prison gossip. Nothing comes of it.

An American FBI agent, Albert Kessler, arrives to investigate the murders. He visits various sites around the city like the El Chile dump, gives lectures to the Mexican police force, and buys his wife a souvenir. Nothing comes of it.

A congresswoman, Azucena Esquivel Plata, hired a now deceased private investigator (died of cancer, nothing nefarious) to track down an old friend, Kelly Rivera Parker, who had gone missing, only to be told she's "more or less" dead. She relays all the information she knows to Sergio González. Nothing comes of it.

A reporter, Mary Sue Bravo, follows up on the Uribes accusation as well as another reporter on the case who goes missing. But she cracks the case wide open and discovers exactly what happened. No, I'm kidding. Nothing comes of it.

More bodies are found throughout. Cases are shelved.

So that's that. No resolution (probably not a surprise to anyone at this point), no real forward movement, just an oasis of horror in a desert of boredom, as promised.

Some of the tangents this week:

• Lalo's genealogy is explained over what's mostly a series of rapes. Two students who sound a lot like savage detectives are hinted as potential fathers.
• More dreams, notably Kessler dreams of a man walking around a crater and Mary Sue dreams of a woman sitting on her bed.
• There's a pages long set piece of misogynistic jokes
• The female unemployment rate of Santa Teresa is the lowest in the country.
• A television host decides not to kill himself

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Prompts

Some ideas for discussion (suggestions only, post about whatever you want and feel free to post your own prompts):

• Once again, did any death stand out to you? And why did you find that one significant? Did any detail stand out to you?
• Lots of detail work in this section again. Any one that stood out to you? I liked the mirrors that don't reflect each other.
• How did you feel about this section now that it's over? Was it harder or more brutal than you expected or less so?
• What did you make of the complete lack of resolution to basically anything and everything?
• For those of you who have read the Savage Detectives, how did you like (or not) the easter egg about Lalo Cura?
• The critics section belonged to our fearsome foursome and Amalfitano and Fate belonged to the title characters. Who does this section belong to you, do you think?
• Similar to Norton's letter in the first section, Bolaño cuts up the press conference and Esquivel Plata's testimony across different passages. Why do you think he does this and what did it achieve for you?
• Kelly Rivera Parker gets the most detailed backstory of any "more or less" corpse so far, and through the voice of someone who cared about her. Likewise maquiladoras came up again and again in the scant backstories of the working class women. Do you think Bolaño is making a point here with the contrast?
• Now that we're through the bulk of the novel, how do you think all the threads are coming together, if at all?
• What did you make of this line: "Naturally, you won’t be alone. I’ll be with you always, though you can’t see me, helping you every step of the way"?

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For those who have read the book before or have read ahead, please keep the comments focused on up through this week's reading and use spoiler tags when in doubt. We're concerned more about major, purposeful spoilers than minor slip ups.

We're finally through the crimes, thank god. I see the upcoming Archimboldi section frequently cited as people's favorite, so fingers crossed. These two upcoming readings will be slightly longer than our typical pace.

Thanks for reading along with me.

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Remaining Schedule

Special thanks to rarelybeagle for providing the Spanish sentences.

September 28: Pages 637-770, through "Then he remembered who she was." / es: / "rostro dormido. Entonces la recordó."

🏜️🏜️🏜️

October 5: Pages 770-898, through the end of "The Part about Archimboldi" and the end of the book.

🏜️🏜️🏜️

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Previous Discussions

August 3 - Introduction Thread

August 10: Pages 1-80, through "they probably would have killed him." / es: "el taxista se hubiera materializado ante ellos, seguramente lo habrían matado."

August 17: Pages 80-163, through the end of "The Part about the Critics."

August 24: Pages 163-231, the entirety of "The Part about Amalfitano."

August 31: Pages 231-353, the entirety of "The Part about Fate."

September 7: Pages 353-449, The Part about the Crimes begins, through "coming down the hallway." / es: "que avanzaban por el pasillo."

September 14: Pages 449-545, through "according to witnesses, was indescribable." / es: "fue, según los testigos, indescriptible."

I'm seeing how much interest there would be in doing this. If it's a complete failure, that's ok. I'll accept it.

The Booker Shortlist gets announced on September 22nd. I want to see if there's enough people interested in reading at least one (1) book and writing a casual review (short summary + your opinion + maybe some quotes) to inform the rest of RSBC what it's like and if it's any good.

The hope is to get at least one thread dedicated to each book before the winner announcement on November 9th. I'm hoping we can up the discussion of contemporary books and give the sub an educated opinion on which books to root for without having to read all six.

Please let me know which book(s) you'd be interested in reading if they make it through or if you've read any books already you wouldn't mind making a thread about. Negative reviews welcomed and encouraged.

This is purely for gauging interest in the project and across the books, I will not be holding you to any of this.

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Here's the longlist:

The Shadow of the Object by Chloe Aridjis, 240 pages

Switzy by Emma Cline, 352 pages

Helen of Nowhere by Makenna Goodman, 168 pages

The End of Everything by M. John Harrison, 224 pages

The Disappearers by Marlon James, 640 pages

Black Bag by Luke Kennard, 400 pages

The Renovation by Kenan Orhan, 256 pages

May We Feed the King by Rebecca Perry, 272 pages

The Palm House by Gwendoline Riley, 224 pages

The Things We Never Say by Elizabeth Strout, 208 pages

John of John by Douglas Stuart, 416 pages

All Them Dogs by Djamel White, 240 pages

The Vivisectors by Missouri Williams, 304 pages

Ana Mendieta - Silueta Series

>Nobody noticed.

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Summary

So we're finally into the infamous section about the crimes. Based on the way people talk about it, I thought it was going to be straight facts about murders and investigations, so I was surprised by how much narrative there is. There's a lot going on so far and I'm not sure what will prove to be important or what will fall by the wayside, so here's a few characters we've met so far (who aren't dead):

The Pentient is a double murderer and sacraphobe.

Juan de Dios Martínez is an inspector working on The Pentient case, and dating the head of the local asylum **Elvira Campos (**sort of, it's complicated).

Pedro Negrete is the police chief whose purpose I'm not fully sure yet, so far he seems to have just been an instrument to get Lalo into the story. A Pablo Negrete was briefly mentioned in Amalfitano section as a university rector who hosted the critics. Pedro Negrete is mentioned as having a twin. Hmmm. I don't know if any of this matters.

Epifanio Galindo is a cop who we see use violence against another cop.

Lalo Cura is a teenaged boy recruited by Pedro Negrete into being a bodyguard and begins taking his work seriously and reading investigation textbooks no one else has bothered to read. He seems to be something of a moral center so far.

Sergio González is an arts critic (!) who, much like Fate before him, gets assigned a story off his usual beat: The Pentient. He hears about the murders, but forgets about them.

Harry Magaña is an American sheriff who crosses the border to investigate the murders after another American, Lucy Anne Sanders, is found dead. He is particularly fixated on Miguel Montes, who has ties to Chucho.

And I know there's irony in me spotlighting the living men while brushing past the dead women, but we're up to around 2 dozen and I can't possibly recount them all here. Here's a few I think are notable:

Esperanza Gómez Saldaña is the first victim mentioned.

Penélope Méndez Becerra is the youngest at 11 and given the longest detail about her mother and brother searching for her after she doesn't return home from school.

Elsa Luz Pintado (?) is a woman found bearing this id card, but her body was too short to match descriptions of Elsa Luz Pintado. Juan de Dios Martínez pushes for further investigation on this detail.

Once again, there's tons of seeming detours and asides:

• Lalo's fellow bodyguards run off before an attempted assassination on the women they are guarding and Lalo shoots them after dispatching the would-be killers.
• More dreams again
• Florita Almada is a "seer" who has a vision of women being killed in Santa Teresa.
• A knife sharpener demands a dying woman being taken by ambulance despite no one being able to pay.
• Epifanio kills a wolf coyote.
• The very creepy El Chile section

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Prompts

Some ideas for discussion (suggestions only, post about whatever you want and feel free to post your own prompts):

• Probably a weird thing to ask about this section, but do you like it? Is it tougher than you thought it would be? Easier than you thought it would be? How are you reading it? Chunks at a time or are you pacing it out?
• Did any death stand out to you? And why did you find that one significant? Did any detail stand out to you?
• We see some of the investigators and cops using violence, sometimes against their own, during the course of their duties. What did you think of this? Were any justified? Or is it all just more violence upon violence?
• Why did Epifanio make up so many excuses about killing the coyote? What was that about?
• Was there any specific thing that perplexed you? I was perplexed by the gila monster mention.
• What did you make of the seer section?
• We were talking about the black Peregrino last week during the Part about Fate. Did you notice it re-appearing here?

Keeping these short this week. A lot happened and I doubt many people will be searching for something to talk about.

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Resources

Thanks to u/DryGold4 for these.

(Article) Alone Among the Ghosts - an article about the real Sergio González Rodriguez who wrote a book about the Juarez murders and his working relationship with Bolaño. (There is some stuff in here we haven't reached yet)

(Appendix) From Chris Andrews' Roberto Bolaño's Fiction: An Expanding Universe, there is an appendix laying out the 2666 murders side by side with Sergio González Rodriguez's book, Huesos en el Desierto. Look in the comments for the link.

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Playlist Recommendations

By request, I put together a spotify playlist of the music linked last week. All submissions so far by u/Dengru

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For those who have read the book before or have read ahead, please keep the comments focused on up through this first third and use spoiler tags when in doubt. We're concerned more about major, purposeful spoilers than minor slip ups.

We're now at the halfway mark. Two more weeks of crimes (phew) and then we return to Archimboldi, which is the section I typically see cited as the favorite.

Thanks for reading along with me.

__________________________________________________

Remaining Schedule

Special thanks to rarelybeagle for providing the Spanish sentences.

September 14: Pages 449-545, through "according to witnesses, was indescribable." / es: "fue, según los testigos, indescriptible."

September 21: Pages 545-637, through the end of "The Part about the Crimes."

September 28: Pages 637-770, through "Then he remembered who she was." / es: / "rostro dormido. Entonces la recordó."

🏜️🏜️🏜️

October 5: Pages 770-898, through the end of "The Part about Archimboldi" and the end of the book.

🏜️🏜️🏜️

__________________________________________________

Previous Discussions

August 3 - Introduction Thread

August 10: Pages 1-80, through "they probably would have killed him." / es: "el taxista se hubiera materializado ante ellos, seguramente lo habrían matado."

August 17: Pages 80-163, through the end of "The Part about the Critics."

August 24: Pages 163-231, the entirety of "The Part about Amalfitano."

August 31: Pages 231-353, the entirety of "The Part about Fate."

I did this a while back and wasn't planning on making another again so soon, but the sub needs to be cleansed of all this nerd shit you guys have been going on about.

I haven't seen productions of any of these, so no notes on that. Also I will spoil things:

Caryl Churchill, A Number - I talked a bit about stage directions in my last post, and this one has absolutely zero, which gave it kind of an alien, disconnected air for some reason, on top of it being about cloning (written around the time of Dolly the Sheep so it was timely then and dated now) and having several (cloned) characters played by one guy. It didn't make much of an impression on me, and it felt like a formal exercise exploring a hot-at-the-time topic.

Anne Washburn, Mr Burns - People in a post apocalyptic world sit around trying to remember details of a Simpsons episode, then it shifts to the second act of them putting on stage plays of said Simpsons episode (and paying for lines people remember to make their productions more accurate), and then shifts to an absolutely batshit third act set 75 years in the future of the already futuristic play that's just a corruption of the Simpsons episode as if it's gone through decades of the game telephone during a dangerous and nightmarish time. This is simultaneously the one I'd most and least want to see performed because I just can't imagine anyone actually pulling it off.

Gina Gionfriddo, After Ashley - I really love this playwright, I've talked about her being very "RS" before and this one was similar. A man hires a mentally ill man to do his yard work and his mentally ill employee rapes and murders his wife. His son finds her body and they both become famous trauma victims. The son broods and lashes out against the world while the dad writes a book and goes around on TV doing interviews. Keiran Culkin originated the role of the son and it very much reads like a smartass Kieran Culkin Igby/Roman role.

Gina Gionfriddo, Rapture, Blister, Burn - Well I didn't like this one AS MUCH, the central conceit is two women: one settled for being a housewife and the other becomes a famous, traveling academic. They both regret their choices and want what the other has....so the housewife gives the academic her husband (who the academic also dated when younger) on a trial basis. I just couldn't get past the sitcom setup, though I appreciate that she was willing to question (with nuance) the standard talking points of women prioritizing career over family.

Edward Albee, The Goat - A man breaks it to his wife that he's been having an affair on her...with a goat. They also have a gay son they're supportive of. I really don't know what to think of this one, it would definitely make me squirm if I saw it live as the entire point of the play seems to be forcing you to confront your own moral boundaries and why you hold them. The wife character seems like a particularly good role and keeps it from becoming too silly. It's supposed to be some kind of send up of ancient tragedy but I don't know enough to be able to place it as such.

Harold Pinter, Ashes to Ashes - I just read this one, so I'm still thinking it over and rereading through parts. A man and woman discuss her past, and there's questions of what right do you have to another's pain, another's memories, etc. At first I was pretty irritated by the Holocaust twist, but then read some interpretations that she's not a Holocaust survivor but appropriating someone else's story or going crazy. So now I'm struggling with what to think.

Up next:
Krapp's Last Tape by Beckett (still have this one to read from last time)
Stereophonics by Adjmi (this one too)
Other Desert Cities by Jon Robin Baitz (hoping to see this on Broadway with Julia Louis-Dreyfus)
Gloria & Octaroon by Jacob-Jenkins
Would also really like to read more by David Hare and Annie Baker from last time
Also really want to check out David Cale

Todd Hido - Series: 7 - Intimate Distance

>"No one pays attention to these killings, but the secret of the world is hidden in them."

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Summary

This part opens with journalist Quincy Williams, aka Oscar Fate, losing his mother in New York and interviewing a Black Panther co-founder in Detroit, Barry Seaman.

Because the sports reporter was murdered in Chicago, he's assigned a boxing story south of the border in Santa Teresa. Although we'll never see him write a word of it, he travels down south where he gets enmeshed with fellow reporter Chucho Flores and his girlfriend Rosa Amalfitano and hears about the murders, which he pitches as a story and gets denied.

He rescues Rosa, who has been hanging out with some pretty seedy characters we learn, and takes her across the border, but not before traveling with her and a female reporter, Guadalupe Roncal, to a prison to meet the suspected murderer.

As we've seen, there's lots of detours in this, here's a few:

• DANGER. MONEY. FOOD. STARS. USEFULNESS.
• The plane passengers talking about ghosts and the story of a man whose boat capsized but was coincidentally saved when a plane crashed in his vicinity
• A lot of references to film, Robert Rodriguez, David Lynch, apparent movement, etc.
• Fate overhears a man observing that mass death such as during the slave trade or the Paris Commune gets ignored whereas tragic but ultimately minor murders like a man killing his wife make the paper.

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Prompts

• This section was a bit more straightforward and cinematic than our previous sections. Did you like it? Did you find it difficult at any point? I struggled a bit with the timeline jumping at the end. Which has been your favorite section so far?
• Oscar Fate is Quincy Williams whenever his mom is around (alive or dead), why do you think Bolaño double named the protagonist of this part? The Black Panthers are given new names as well: Barry Seaman is (presumably) Bobby Seale and Marius Newell is (presumably) Huey Newton. Do you think this means anything? And what do you think the significance is of weaving in the Black Panthers story?
• And what do you think is the significance of the boxing? And the sports guy being murdered? The constant background hum of violence, or something more?
• What did you make of Barry's sermon?
• Oscar vomits repeatedly throughout this section. Did you think this was meaningful?
• What did you make of the film references? Especially the apparent movement with the examples of zoetropes and thaumatropes (thaumatropes are called magic disks in the book).
• Rosa seems to be something of a parallel to Rebeca in The Part about the Critics. How do you think she and her relationship with Oscar differed from Espinoza and Rebeca?
• Guadalupe describes the prison as looking like a woman "who’s been hacked to pieces. Who’s been hacked to pieces but is still alive. And the prisoners are living inside this woman." What the hell?
• Why do you think Guadalupe didn't know what to ask when finally coming face to face with the suspected killer? And he's described as a giant who sings in German (hmmm). What's up with that?
• It's suggested that legend has it only one or two people are responsible for the murders. Why do you think people want it to be a singular person? Just a matter of fewer monsters out there or something else?
• What was up with that erection? Why there? Why then?

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For those who have read the book before or have read ahead, please keep the comments focused on The Part about the Critics, The Part about Amalfitano, and The Part about Fate and use spoiler tags when in doubt. We're concerned more about major, purposeful spoilers than minor slip ups.

Thanks for reading along with me.

We'll be starting The Part about the Crimes this week. Can't believe I'm including a trigger warning, but this section goes into the murders in relentless detail and many of the victims, I'm told, are young girls.

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Remaining Schedule

Special thanks to rarelybeagle for providing the Spanish sentences.

September 7: Pages 353-449, The Part about the Crimes begins, through "coming down the hallway." / es: "que avanzaban por el pasillo."

September 14: Pages 449-545, through "according to witnesses, was indescribable." / es: "fue, según los testigos, indescriptible."

September 21: Pages 545-637, through the end of "The Part about the Crimes."

September 28: Pages 637-770, through "Then he remembered who she was." / es: / "rostro dormido. Entonces la recordó."

🏜️🏜️🏜️

October 5: Pages 770-898, through the end of "The Part about Archimboldi" and the end of the book.

🏜️🏜️🏜️

__________________________________________________

Playlist Recommendations

By request, I put together a spotify playlist of the music linked last week. All submissions so far by u/Dengru

__________________________________________________

Previous Discussions

August 3 - Introduction Thread

August 10: Pages 1-80, through "they probably would have killed him." / es: "el taxista se hubiera materializado ante ellos, seguramente lo habrían matado."

August 17: Pages 80-163, through the end of "The Part about the Critics."

August 24: Pages 163-231, the entirety of "The Part about Amalfitano."

Night Lights - Felix de Boeck

>Everything is fine, said the voice. It’s all a question of getting used to it.

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Summary

From The Critics, we pivot to their academic guide, Amalfitano in this section. The Chilean guy who had a geometry book mysteriously hanging from a clothesline in the last section, which we find out here is aping a Marcel Duchamp readymade.

The first third of The Part about Amalfitano takes place in Europe and focuses on Amalfitano's wife, Lola, a free spirit who abandons him and their two year old daughter, Rosa, to go in search of a poet she claims to have slept with before though Amalfitano says he is the one who introduced his work to her. He sporadically gets detailed letters from her. She returns 7 years after leaving them, now dying of AIDS, to visit her daughter one last time before hitchhiking back. We never hear what happens to her.

Then we shift to Mexico, where Amalfitano now teaches in the Sonora desert at the University of Santa Teresa, where his neighbors use broken glass to fortify their houses and dead teenaged girls are found half buried in vacant lots.

He has a burgeoning romance with another professor and worries about his own (now teenaged) daughter.

He begins hearing a voice that claims to be his grandfather, his father, accuses him of being homosexual, suggests he does housework, etc.

He spends time with his boss's son, Marco Antonio Guerra, who is a troubled and seemingly dangerous youth that believes Mexico is falling apart around them.

And we get an odd digression into a book called O'Higgins Is Araucanian (this is a real book!), complete with endnote markings but without actual endnotes, where O'Higgins's mother shares an official name with Amalfitano's mother.

We end on another dream sequence with a crater (we've been told to watch out for pits by u/kickit) and, uh, Boris Yeltsin saying magic is needed to keep humanity from collapsing.

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Prompts

Some ideas for discussion (suggestions only, post about whatever you want and feel free to post your own prompts):

• So the same broad question up front: did you like this section? Did you find it difficult? Did you like it more or less than The Part about the Critics?
• This section leans heavily into documents: books, letters, dedication pages, notes and marginalia, and even includes some diagrams Amalfitano jots down. Was there any that you wanted to spotlight? Did you like the reveal about the Duchamp readymade experiment?
• Unlike our bumbling, sex crazed critics, Amalfitano's mind is constantly at work observing, constructing, deducting, making connections. Do you think this contrast is meaningful?
• Lola's search for her favored poet mirrors The Critics looking for Archimboldi. What function do you think this serves?
• Lola is painted as having some wild ways about her: making up (at least per Amalfitano/narrator) an affair with the gay poet, having sex with strange men in graveyards and in front of people at parties, hitchhiking. As far as we know, unlike the Santa Teresa victims, she never "goes missing" except on her own accord, though she does have a documented case of AIDS. What did you make of this? Why do you think Amalfitano never confronted her about the poet story?
• Like the ominous hum Norton hears in the first part, there are several mentions of the Santa Teresa murders buzzing along in the background throughout the section. Anything jump out to you?
• What did you make of The Voice? A ghost? A descent into madness? Something meta? Do you think it's meaningful that it seemed beneficial rather than harmful? What was up with the fixation on being gay?
• The Araucanian section - wtf? (There is a lot of real world history behind this I'm still wading through if anyone wants to chime in)
• The Boris Yeltsin dream - wtfwtfwtf?

__________________________________________________

For those who have read the book before or have read ahead, please keep the comments focused on The Part about the Critics and The Part about Amalfitano and use spoiler tags when in doubt. We're concerned more about major, purposeful spoilers than minor slip ups.

From here on out we'll have longer readings each week.

Thanks for reading along with me.

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Remaining Schedule

Special thanks to rarelybeagle for providing the Spanish sentences.

August 31: Pages 231-353, the entirety of "The Part about Fate."

September 7: Pages 353-449, The Part about the Crimes begins, through "coming down the hallway." / es: "que avanzaban por el pasillo."

September 14: Pages 449-545, through "according to witnesses, was indescribable." / es: "fue, según los testigos, indescriptible."

September 21: Pages 545-637, through the end of "The Part about the Crimes."

September 28: Pages 637-770, through "Then he remembered who she was." / es: / "rostro dormido. Entonces la recordó."

🏜️🏜️🏜️

October 5: Pages 770-898, through the end of "The Part about Archimboldi" and the end of the book.

🏜️🏜️🏜️

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Playlist Recommendations

By request, I put together a spotify playlist of the music linked last week. All submissions so far by u/Dengru

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Previous Discussions

August 3 - Introduction Thread

August 10: Pages 1-80, through "they probably would have killed him." / es: "el taxista se hubiera materializado ante ellos, seguramente lo habrían matado."

August 17: Pages 80-163, through the end of "The Part about the Critics."

Edward Hopper - Western Motel (1957)

>“Archimboldi is here,” said Pelletier, “and we’re here, and this is the closest we’ll ever be to him.”

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Summary

Back with our critics. Post break-up / cab driver beating, Pelletier and Espinoza fill their sex life with prostitutes instead, with Pelletier fixating on one named Vanessa briefly. At the end of the chapter, Espinoza will similarly fixate on a teenaged Mexican girl named Rebeca.

Our four critics meet a Mexican writing student Alatorre at a conference who gives them a new lead on Archimboldi: that he's in a Mexican town called Santa Teresa (!!). And off to Mexico 3 of our 4 critics go, where they find he may be checking into hotels as Hans Reiter. Morini opts to stay behind in Turin due to his health issues.

In Santa Teresa, they meet Professor Amalfitano and are plagued by nightmares, bad hotel rooms, depleted hopes, but notably no Archimboldi. The threesome we've been waiting for comes and goes with barely time for a cigarette after, all that built up sexual tension culminating in a single sentence (a long sentence, but still) and barely mentioned again.

Norton leaves Mexico first, and the back half of our reading is threaded with a long Dear John letter to Pelletier and Espinoza, informing them she and Morini are in love. We leave our last two critics in Santa Teresa, accepting they'll never find Archimboldi, but seemingly content they are at least as close as they'll ever be to him.

As with last week there are more tangents, more puzzle pieces that don't feel like they quite fit so neatly into the main narrative. Last week u/7_Types and u/John-Kale discussed "the secret story" and how these vignettes may operate as a key to what the novel is really about. Here are a few:

• Lots of dream sequences in this one
  • Espinoza dreams about a Mexican prostitute reading graffiti on a wall in a hallway
    • There's two parallel dream sequence where all three have a nightmare. In the first, Pelletier dreams of blood and shit smears in his hotel bathroom, Espinoza dreams about his hotel room painting moving and speaking, and Norton dreams of seeing her reflection and realizing it's not her.
    • In the second, Pelletier dreams of a page he can't read, Norton dreams of a tree she's tasked with carrying around, Espinoza dreams of a girl selling rugs he can't rescue.
• After reuniting with Norton, Espinoza and Pelletier tell her about a trip the three men took to visit Edwin Johns in a Swiss sanitarium. We later learn from Norton's letter that he died in a fall at his sanitarium.
• A man known as "El Cerdo" (The Pig) is Archimboldi(?)'s host in Mexico City and describes his eyes like "a blind man's"
• Amalfitano, Pelletier, and Espinoza go to the circus because there's a German, who turns out to an American with a disappearing act

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Prompts

Some ideas for discussion (suggestions only, post about whatever you want and feel free to post your own prompts):

So the same broad question up front: did you like this section about the critics? It appears to be polarizing based on the feedback we've gotten so far. Happy to be moving on or will you miss this foursome?

• We see Pelletier and Espinoza perhaps begin to move on with other women, Vanessa and Rebeca respectively. Espinoza also briefly gets hung up on a prostitute pre-Rebeca only known as "The Mexican." Did you think the matching nationality of the mystery prostitute and Rebeca is meaningful? How did you interpret these relationships and what they say about our two male critics?
• What did you make of the anticlimactic resolution to the love ~triangle rectangle?
• We get a lot more about Norton in this back half, gaining access to more of her thoughts (which turn out to be mostly about Morini, awww), but she's still primarily filtered through a long letter to our gruesome twosome. She's also decidedly less passive this week, initiating the threesome and then leaving on her own accord. What did you think of Norton in this part? What did you think of Bolano's decision to have her be so passive until she isn't? What did you think of the James Crawford information?
• In the Edwin Johns vignette, Morini directly asks him why he cut off his hand and Johns whispers something to him. BUT, when recounting the reason to Norton, Morini says "he thinks he knows the reason" and that reason is money, indicating perhaps this doesn't align with what Johns whispered or his misrepresenting it to Norton. What's going on here, do you think? And do you think "money" being the reason is Bolano saying something about the art world? And why do you think Johns didn't shake Morini's hand?
• What did you make of the parallel between the Pakistani cab driver attack and the doormen vs cab driver warfare?
• Amalfitano gives an explanation of how intellectuals work in Mexico where they are overseen by the state, and it starts off sounding a bit like Plato's The Cave mixed with performing for an audience before dwindling further and further into nonsense and confusion. By the time it ended, I was right there with Norton saying "I didn't understand any of that" - Any thoughts on this?

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For those who have read the book before or have read ahead, please keep the comments focused on The Part about the Critics and use spoiler tags when in doubt. We're concerned more about major, purposeful spoilers than minor slip ups.

Thanks for reading along with me. Last week we had, by far, our biggest turnout ever for a read-along discussion, so I hope the momentum continues. Please share what you thought, even if it's just to say you did the reading but don't have anything to add.

We'll have a shorter reading this week with The Part about Amalfitano and then move into longer readings for the rest of the read-along.

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Remaining Schedule

Special thanks to rarelybeagle for providing the Spanish sentences.

August 17: Pages 80-163, through the end of "The Part about the Critics."

August 24: Pages 163-231, the entirety of "The Part about Amalfitano."

August 31: Pages 231-353, the entirety of "The Part about Fate."

September 7: Pages 353-449, The Part about the Crimes begins, through "coming down the hallway." / es: "que avanzaban por el pasillo."

September 14: Pages 449-545, through "according to witnesses, was indescribable." / es: "fue, según los testigos, indescriptible."

September 21: Pages 545-637, through the end of "The Part about the Crimes."

September 28: Pages 637-770, through "Then he remembered who she was." / es: / "rostro dormido. Entonces la recordó."

🏜️🏜️🏜️

October 5: Pages 770-898, through the end of "The Part about Archimboldi" and the end of the book.

🏜️🏜️🏜️

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Playlist Recommendations

These were sent to me by u/Dengru, moody dark jazz and ambient instrumentals that fit the mood so far

Bohren and club of gore - Constant Fear

Peter Brontzmann - This Word Love

Dirty Beaches - Floating Underwater Watching Waves

Mal Waldron - A Flower Is A Lovesome Thing

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Previous Discussions

August 3 - Introduction Thread

August 10: Pages 1-80, through "they probably would have killed him." / es: "el taxista se hubiera materializado ante ellos, seguramente lo habrían matado."

Artwork is Giuseppe Arcimboldo's The Librarian

>They spent the free time they had, which was ample, strolling the paltry (in Pelletier’s opinion) sites of interest in Augsburg, a city that Espinoza also found paltry, and that Morini found only moderately paltry, but still paltry in the final analysis, while Espinoza and Pelletier took turns pushing the Italian’s wheelchair since Morini wasn’t in the best of health this time, but rather in paltry health, so that his two friends and colleagues considered that a little bit of fresh air would do him no harm, and in fact might do him good.

__________________________________________________

Summary

We have met Pelletier, a refined French critic and perhaps the most intellectually confident of the four.

We have met Espinoza, an angry, resentful Spanish critic who was once an aspiring poet and writer.

We have met Morini, a wheelchair bound, depressive Italian critic with MS (and was also in a "spectacular accident" on top) who mostly seems to operate as a quiet observer and oft-forgotten bystander so far.

And we have met Norton, an English critic and inscrutable woman and divorcée.

We have notably not met Archimboldi, a German writer with an Italian pen name who our 4 critics obsess over.

So far:

There's a swirl of conferences and dead ends while investigating the mysterious Archimboldi, what he looks like and where he might have been and where he might be.

Espinoza and Pelletier are both in love and sleeping with Norton, who seems content enough to carry on this arrangement until she isn't, and breaks things off while also suggesting one last roll in the hay as a threesome. When a Pakistani cab driver insults her morals, it lights the fuse, the anger Pelletier and Espinoza have been feeling combusts, and they beat the cab driver nearly to death.

While this concludes the main, uh, thrust of our reading this week, there are lots of asides and vignettes that may (or may not) tie into the main plot or comment upon it. Based on these ~80 pages and The Savage Detectives (only stuff I've read of his so far), Bolaño seems to have a thing for peppering his novels with these anecdotal detours. A few examples:

• Morini reads an article about murdered women in Sonora, Mexico, feels sad for a beat, and then forgets it immediately, fantasizing instead about the Italian journalist.
• A woman recounts her late husband participating in a fixed (in his favor) horse race and the gaucho boy who approached her, incredibly angry about it. Archimboldi was an audience and immediately recognized the violence in the boy.
• Morini has a dream about an enormous pool that Norton disappears in. He senses an evil presence but find a younger Norton instead who warns him "There's no turning back."
• Pelletier also has a dream about Norton and a body of water and an eroded statue rising from it.
• An artist, Edwin Johns, cuts off his painting hand and works it into a self portrait.
• A homeless man in London recounts his old job, making mugs with textual jokes until he had to quit, enraged, when it became a new job: making mugs with imagic jokes.

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Prompts

Some ideas for discussion (suggestions only, post about whatever you want and feel free to post your own prompts):

• Some broad questions up front: What did you think of our critics? Do you like them? What do you think of the central throuple? Do you have an idea where this is going?
• Last week I got some pushback on suggesting the first part was boring (based on what I had heard). Did you find it difficult to get through? Or are you liking it? Or even loving it?
• There's a lot of focus on nationalities in this section and it's not subtle. We have four critics from four different countries following a German writer with an Italian pen name who has written a trilogy that's set in England, Poland, and France. What do you think Bolaño is doing here?
• What, do you think, is the significance of Archimboldi recognizing the potential for violence in the gaucho boy?
• Was there any anecdotal detour you find particularly interesting or perplexing?
• Norton's interiority is deliberately withheld from us, even stated outright at one point with "As for what passed through Liz Norton’s head, it’s better not to say." What do you think Bolaño is doing here?
• Do you think Bolaño is making some kind of comment on the art world with the Edwin Johns' self mutilation?
• Although Espinoza is shown as the rougher and angrier of the two - using slurs, marinating in resentment, more on edge around the Norton situation, his incredible reaction to the Japanese horror movie - he is the one more troubled by the attack on the cab driver and cries and confesses to a different cab driver and questions his true nature while Pelletier goes home and makes pasta and checks his email. Do you think this is meaningful? Is Bolaño saying something about sensitivity working both ways or something else? Or is it meaningful that they both detonated and attacked the cab driver, that the gentleman and the brute are really just the same thing underneath?
• Speaking of which, what did you make of the relationship between Pelletier and Espinoza? Were there other moments besides the attack you felt illustrated their similarities? Their differences?
• What do you think Morini's purpose is? He so far has been mostly cast aside. Even in his own dream, Pelletier and Espinoza forget about him.

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For those who have read the book before or have read ahead, please keep the comments focused up through the assault on the cab driver and use spoiler tags when in doubt. We're concerned more about major, purposeful spoilers than minor slip ups.

Thanks for reading along with me. We'll finish up the Part about the Critics next week and see how this love triangle resolves or dissolves.

__________________________________________________

Remaining Schedule

Special thanks to rarelybeagle for providing the Spanish sentences.

August 17: Pages 80-163, through the end of "The Part about the Critics."

August 24: Pages 163-231, the entirety of "The Part about Amalfitano."

August 31: Pages 231-353, the entirety of "The Part about Fate."

September 7: Pages 353-449, The Part about the Crimes begins, through "coming down the hallway." / es: "que avanzaban por el pasillo."

September 14: Pages 449-545, through "according to witnesses, was indescribable." / es: "fue, según los testigos, indescriptible."

September 21: Pages 545-637, through the end of "The Part about the Crimes."

September 28: Pages 637-770, through "Then he remembered who she was." / es: / "rostro dormido. Entonces la recordó."

🏜️🏜️🏜️October 5: Pages 770-898, through the end of "The Part about Archimboldi" and the end of the book.🏜️🏜️🏜️

__________________________________________________

Previous Discussions

August 3 - Introduction Thread

Posting this a little bit early since it's just the intro. Time to start reading.

>“An oasis of horror in a desert of boredom.” - Charles Baudelaire

Introduction

Welcome to the 2026 2666 Read-Along. This is just a last call to get the book if you have not already and a reminder to start reading sometime soon. The first few weeks are on the slower side so even if you haven't been able to get the book, hopefully there will be time to catch up.

A few things to know going into 2666:

It is an unfinished book. I believe how unfinished is up for debate, but Bolaño had at least hoped to revise it but died of liver failure in 2003 before he could. He was 50 years old. His friends and relatives published it posthumously and there's some inconsistencies in how the book is structured (one book, 5 parts) vs what Bolaño supposedly wanted (5 books). You'll get more from the Spanish wikipedia page on this.

Born in Chile, he spent his young adulthood between South America and Mexico before moving to Europe where he would die. He had a colorful life (though perhaps less colorful than he claimed) that included working as a journalist, left wing activism, accusations of terrorism, supposed heroin addiction, and poetry.

Bolaño hated magical realism and was known during his lifetime for attacking his fellow Latin American writers. So if you were expecting levitating women, probably(?) not.

The first part is supposedly kind of boring. I say this not to discourage anyone from reading, but to encourage you to push past it if you find yourself doubting the hype the first couple of weeks.

And speaking of slogs, The Part About the Crimes is supposed to be brutal both in terms of length and content (hundreds of pages describing murdered women). I know it's a red scare sub and we all hate trigger warnings, but given some of the hesitancy we've seen already, I feel like it needs to be said. We can trade coping mechanisms as we get closer.

No one knows what the number 2666 means. Maybe a spoiler, but let's get it out of the way. It may be a reference to his novella Amulet:

>Then we walked down the Avenida Guerrero; they weren’t stepping so lightly any more, and I wasn’t feeling too enthusiastic either. Guerrero, at that time of night, is more like a cemetery than an avenue, not a cemetery in 1974 or in 1968, or 1975, but a cemetery in the year 2666, a forgotten cemetery under the eyelid of a corpse or an unborn child, bathed in the dispassionate fluids of an eye that tried so hard to forget one particular thing that it ended up forgetting everything else.

A few things to know going into the read-along:

This is part of the RSBC Leviathan series that started with Infinite Jest and has included Anna Karenina, Moby Dick, and Gravity's Rainbow. The idea is to help posters get through long and difficult books together so we can enrich our lives, strengthen our minds, collect our bragging rights, etc.

I have never read the book before and have only read one Bolaño book (Savage Detectives), so I don't really function in these read-alongs as an expert or guide, I'm just good at posting reliably and roughly on time. If you have read the book before, even if you're not re-reading with us, please chime in. These kinds of comments from experienced readers were an immense help during the Moby Dick and Gravity's Rainbow read-alongs.

If you have read the book before or are reading ahead, please avoid spoilers. I'll provide a summary each week of what we've covered.

While lurking is fine (I'm a wallflower myself), I encourage everyone to join in the comments from week to week, even if it's just to check in. Please respond to other comments you find interesting even if it's just to say they're interesting. This is a collaborative effort and it helps even just to know you're following along, even if you feel like you don't have anything substantial to say (which is ok! half my comments for the Infinite Jest read-along were just announcing I had read the assigned pages).

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Prompts

These are just suggestions for things to talk about in the comments. Answer as many or as few as you want. You can also post your own prompts in the comments for others to answer; this holds true for the entire read-along.

• Feel free to use the comments to introduce yourself. There was some interest in video chats expressed in the announcement thread. I don't want to participate in that myself, but you can use the comments to organize discord servers or zoom meetings or whatever else people use these days.
• Have you read the book before? Have you read anything else by Bolaño?
• What draws you to 2666? What are you expecting to get out of it? Are you going into it with any preconceived notions?
• What edition are you reading? Are you reading it in English or the original Spanish or another language entirely?
• I can't post images in the main post, but if I'm able, I'll post some of the cover art in the comments. What cover art is on your edition and what does it lead you to expect about the book?
• What do you think the title 2666 evokes?

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Schedule

Note: In order to make sure the page numbers of the most common edition aligned with my own, I went to two different Barnes and Nobles that said they had 2666 in stock and neither had it on the shelf, so I'm just going by my three volume FSG edition and I'm never going to Barnes and Noble again. If you have a different edition, please make sure you find the stopping point. Everything should be on a line break, if not the end of a part.

The Part About the Critics (2 weeks)

• August 10: Pages 1-80, through "they probably would have killed him."
• August 17: Pages 80-163, through the end of "The Part About the Critics."

The Part About Amalfitano (1 week)

• August 24: Pages 163-231, the entirety of "The Part About Amalfitano."

The Part About Fate (1 week)

• August 31: Pages 231-353, the entirety of "The Part About Fate."

The Part About the Crimes (3 weeks)

• September 7: Pages 353-449, The Part About the Crimes begins, through "coming down the hallway."
• September 14: Pages 449-545, through "according to witnesses, was indescribable."
• September 21: Pages 545-637, through the end of "The Part about the Crimes."

The Part About Archimboldi (2 weeks)

• September 28: Pages 637-770, through "Then he remembered who she was."
• October 5: Pages 770-898, through the end of "The Part about Archimboldi"

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I look forward to seeing everyone for our first actual book discussion post next week.

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Talked a bit about this play in my previous post but I wanted to go into more detail now that I've seen it performed. It's a dark comedy about a mess of a man (Max) being set up on a blind date with a mess of a woman (Becky Shaw). They're both damaged and manipulative in different ways (Max was adopted in late childhood after his mother's death and father's abandonment, Becky is basically BPD) and the play touches upon the question of whether brutal honesty or a gentle touch is the best way to handle someone, without preaching any conclusions.

The opinion I keep coming across is that there aren't any likeable characters in this play, which is baffling because all of the characters are likeable, and I think people just mean there aren't obvious heroes or villains but I love that you can understand where every character is coming from, even when they take opposing stances. In her introduction, the playwright Gina Gionfriddo reflects:

>I don’t think any character in this play is bad or wrong or crazy or worthless or unlovable. I don’t think any of them are damaged beyond repair. I don’t think any one character is more to blame than the others for the emotional wreckage that piles up in the second act.

>I wish fingers didn’t have to be pointed, but – trust me – they will be. In the audience talkbacks I have taken part in after productions of Becky Shaw, the one constant I have seen is the zeal to ascribe blame. The good news is that the audiences invariably fail to reach consensus as to which character is most deserving of their contempt. These characters seem to function as screens onto which audience members project old wounds and fierce convictions about how people ought to behave. The best comment I ever got in one of these talkbacks was from a woman who shook her head wistfully at the people arguing around her and opined that the characters were all ‘just doing the best they can.’

But it's also just very funny, and with a sense of humor I think and hope most people on this sub would appreciate.

--------------------------------

Max: The day of my mother’s funeral, she bought me a suit. I’m ten years old. I’d met her, like once. She took me to the fat child department at Sears. She said, ‘Your mother is dead and your father dresses you like a gay hustler.’

Suzanna: Max, that’s awful. Why have you never told me that?

Max: It was awful at the time, but … She saved me from walking into my mother’s funeral looking like a gay hustler.

--------------------------------

Susan: Meaning your father and I allowed for pockets of mystery in our marriage and I would advise you to do the same.

Suzanna: ‘Pocket of mystery’ sounds like code for gay.

--------------------------------

Suzanna: Do you think all love is use or just romantic love?

Max: All love. Your father, for example, paid our college tuition. We, in turn, loved him very much.

Suzanna: You’re saying my father was generous with us because he couldn’t love men? Is that it?

Max: I think if your father had been more self-actualized, I’d have college loans. I do believe that.

--------------------------------

Max: She cut her arm! It’s teenager shit. You remember what I told you when you wanted to do it.

Suzanna: Yes.

Max: You’re too old for it. Cutting yourself over the age of eighteen is just embarrassing. Everyone at the ER will laugh at you.

--------------------------------

Max (to Suzanna): I’m also gonna give you some advice. Your husband is not the fucking Red Cross. The last time he started consoling a cute, suicidal chick, he married her. He hears, ‘I want to hurt myself’ like a fucking mating call.

--------------------------------

Susan: Sexuality is like intelligence. We’re all born with different endowments. Some people are retarded and they eat paint, others split atoms and write symphonies.

--------------------------------

Becky: I need to get back in school, I do.

Susan: The story about the black boyfriends and the racist parents. Write that up and re-apply to Brown. You’ll get in. (After a beat.) You may have been very victimized in your life; you may be a complete con artist. I don’t know. My sense is you fall somewhere in the middle. Truth or con … It’s unattractive. We pity Job; we do not fall in love with him.

--------------------------------

Susan (to Becky): Learn to lie. When someone with damage – as we have damage – courts a lover, we must be like the pedophile with the candy. Lure with candy no matter how frightful your nature and your intent.

In the spirit of Dengru's recent thread and because the Tonys are tonight, I thought I'd take my own advice and talk about plays I've been reading recently. I know next to nothing about theater, so nearly everything is new to me and it's pretty humbling just how much stuff is out there that I've never even heard of. I have no real strategy to my approach, just reading stuff I see is playing, what an algorithm recommends to me, or just what sounds interesting while browsing.

A thing I find interesting about reading plays is you're not reading the finished product (and there's really no "finished" product in the same sense there is with screenplays, since a play can be performed over any number of production and which production you see, which night you see it on, which seat you have in the house might wildly alter your perception of it), but the instructions for it. Stage directions play a unique role, as you'd be unaware of them when seeing a performance, but become like fingerprints in a reading. Eugene O'Neill's stage directions are so hyper specific they sometimes even mention the eye color and it essentially feels like reading a novel at times because he'll delve into the specific psychology of his characters. Shakespeare, on the other, basically just remarks on entrances and exits. This fascinates me.

Some plays I've read recently (* - also saw performed):

Tracy Letts, Bug* - A down-on-her-luck woman takes up in a motel room with an ex-soldier who is convinced he has government-controlled bugs under his skin. I both read this and saw it performed about a year after. I liked it on the page, but loved it on stage since being in a physical space really hones in on the claustrophobic feeling of being trapped in a folie a deux. Also, at one point, the lights went down for just a second and then came back up and the entire set was covered in tin foil. Neat trick.

Tracy Letts, Superior Donuts - A man owns a donut shop and hires a black kid to help him out. This read like a very special episode of What's Happening or something, and in fact was later made into a (failed) sitcom. I didn't like it at all and was kind of baffled that this hokey thing came out of the same mind as Bug. I like What's Happening though. I don't think I would want to see a stage play of What's Happening.

Gina Gionfriddo, Becky Shaw - Complete mess of a man goes on a blind date with a BPD woman. I loved this and I'm going to see it before it closes soon. "Unlikeable" characters that are perfectly likeable, imo. Very "RS." I also love the stage directions in this, especially a moment she points out what could be a gag should be subtle and not played for laughs.

David Hare, Skylight - A 50 year old man confronts his much younger ex-mistress after his wife dies. This is one of those plays where the characters are both stand ins for opposing worldviews and I think he does a deft job of not making either one look completely foolish while it still being kind of obvious which side he's taking. There's a Bill Nighy / Carey Mulligan recording that I can't find that I'd like to see.

Annie Baker, The Flick - A bunch of movie theater workers work in a movie theater. So I worked in a movie theater for a good chunk of my youth and had many of the same conversations these characters had. The scam that they pull is a scam we pulled. The issues they face were the issues we faced, etc. Apparently in performance, this has a lot of long pauses and tries people's patience, but since I was reading it, I set the pace and it wasn't an issue at all.

David Auburn, Proof* - A woman inherited her father's mathematical genius and perhaps his mental illness. I read this before seeing the Don Cheadle/Ayo Edibiri production. In both cases, it kind of just felt very middlebrow, made-for-awards (though this production was shut out of the Tonys), but I'm enough of a philistine that I still enjoyed it both reading and, even moreso, in performance.

Edward Albee, A Delicate Balance* - An old couple allows their best friends to stay with them while their daughter, going through a divorce, also comes to stay. A wacky, dysfunctional family drama? comedy? This worked as-read for me, especially the visiting couple who are inexplicably afraid of something at their house and refuse to go home that had shades of Twilight Zone that's never delved into. But in performance, it really lost me as it was completely grating. It's one thing to read about someone playing an accordion during a blow-out argument, it's another thing to sit through it.

Tom Stoppard, Arcadia - Parallel timelines in the same house, one in which a man tutors a girl on math in the past and another where present day people research Lord Byron's visit to the house. This was half annoying and half lovely. Tom Stoppard is one of those writers who just seem too eager-to-impress but the interplay between timelines is funny, interesting, and sometimes sweet.

Next planned reads:
Anne Washburn, Mr Burns - people in a post-apocalyptic dystopia try to remember details of a Simpsons episode
Edward Albee, Goat - A man is in love with a goat
Samuel Beckett, Krapp's Last Tape - A man listens to old recordings of himself.
David Adjmi, Stereophonic - A band records their second album