THE LAST INTERVIEW

INTERVIEW BY MONICA MARISTAIN

PLAYBOY, MEXICO EDITION, JULY 2003

In the blurry panorama of Spanish-language literature, a place where young writers each day seem more preoccupied with obtaining scholarships and plum posts at various consulates than contributing to artistic expression, the figure of a lean man stands out, blue backpack at the ready, enormously framed eyeglasses, a never-ending cigarette between his fingers and, whenever there is a shortage, sharp, blunt wit.

Roberto Bolano, born in Chile in 1953, is the best thing to happen to the writing profession in a long time. Since becoming famous and pocketing the Herralde (1998) and Rómulo Gallegos (1999) prizes for his monumental The Savage Detectives, perhaps the great Mexican novel of our time, his influence and stature have grown steadily: Everything he says, with his pointed sense of humor, his exquisite intelligence, and everything he writes, with a sure pen, great poetic risk and profound creative commitment, is worthy of the attention of those who admire and, of course, those who detest him. 

The author, who turns up as a character in the novel Soldiers of Salamis by Javier Cercas and is paid homage in Jorge Volpi's last novel, An End to Madness, is a divider of opinions, like all brilliant men, and a generator of bitter antipathy, despite his tender good nature. His voice is somewhere between high-pitched and hoarse, and like any good Chilean, the one with which he responds is always courteous. He will not write one story more until finishing his next novel, which will be about the murder of countless women in Ciudad Juarez. He is already at 900 pages and not finished yet.

Bolano lives in Blanes, Spain, and he's very sick.

He hopes that a liver transplant will give him the strength to live with the same intensity worshipped by those fortunate 'enough to address him in private. His friends say he sometimes forgets about his doctor's visits because he's writing.

At fifty years old, Bolano has crisscrossed Latin America as a backpacker, escaped the clutches of Pinochet because one of his jailers was a classmate in school, lived in Mexico (a section of Bucareli Street will someday bear his name), got to know Farabundo Marti's militants before they assassinated the poet Roque Dalton in EI Salvador, kept watch over a CataaIonian campground and sold costume jewelry in Euurope. Also, he always stole good books because readding is not just a matter of posturing. He has transformed the course of Latin American literature. And he has done it without warning and without asking permission, the way Juan Garda Madero, adolescent antihero of his glorious The Savage Detectives, would have done: ''I'm in my first semester of law school. I wanted to study literature, not law, but my aunt insisted and in the end I gave in. I'm an orphan and someday I'll be a lawyer. That's what I told my aunt and uncle, then I shut myself in my room and cried all night.” The rest-the remaining pages of the novel- has been compared to Julio Cortazar's Hopscotch and even Gabriel Garcia Marquez's One Hundred Years of Solitude. In the face of such hyperbole, he might have said, "No way”. Thus, on this occasion, let's get to what's important: the interview.

MÓNICA MARISTAIN: Were you blessed with a kind of courage in life by being born dyslexic?

ROBERTO BOLANO: Not at all. There were problems when I played soccer, I'm left-handed; problems when I masturbated, I'm left-handed; problems when I wrote, I'm right-handed. So, as you can see, no significant problems.

M M: Did Enrique Vila-Matas remain a friend after the fight you had with the organizers of the Rómulo Gallegos prize?

R B: My fight with the jury and the organizers of the prize was due basically to their expectation that I blindly endorse, from Blanes; their choice without having participated. Their methods, transmitted to me by phone by a Chavista pseudo-poet, too closely resembled the deterrent arguments of the Casa de las Americas (Cuba). It seemed to me that eliminating Daniel Sada or Jorge Volpi in the first round was an enormous mistake, for example. They said what I wanted was to travel with my wife and kids-something that was completely false. I suppose that from my indignation over this lie, a letter surfaced in which I called them neo-Stalinists, among other things. In fact, I was informed that they intended, from the beginning, to reward another author, who wasn't Vila-Matas, whose novel seemed to me to be so good, and who without a doubt was one of my candidates. 

M M: Why don't you have air-conditioning in your studio?

R B: Because my motto is "Et in Esparta ego;' not "Et in Arcadia ego:'

M M : Don't you think that had you gotten drunk with Isabel Allende and Angeles Mastretta, someone else might be your double in terms of your books?

R B: I don't believe so, first of all, because those women avoid drinking with someone like me. Secondly, because I no longer drink. Thirdly, because not even in my worst drunkenness have I ever lost the minimum lucidity, a sense of prosody and rhythm, or a certain rejection in the presence of plagiarism, mediocrity and silence.

M M: What is the difference between a writer and an author?

R B: Silvina Ocampo is one example of an author.

Marcela Serrano is one example of a writer. You can measure light-years between one and the other.

M M: What makes you believe you're a better poet than narrator?

R B: The degree to which I blush when, by mere chance, I open one of my poetry or prose books. The poetry books make me less embarrassed.

M M: Are you Chilean, Spanish, or Mexican?

R B: I am Latin American.

MM: What is your motherland?

R B: I regret having to give a pretentious response. My children, Lautaro and Alexandra, are my only motherland. And perhaps, in the background, certain moments, certain streets, certain faces or scenes or books that are inside me and that some day I will forget-that is the best one can do for a motherland.

M M: What is Chilean literature?

R B: Likely the nightmares of the most resentful and gray poet, and perhaps the most cowardly of all Chilean poets: Carlos Pezoa Veliz, dead at the beginning of the 20th century and author of only two memorable poems, but truly memorable indeed, who continues to suffer and dream of us. It's possible-isn't it?-that Pezoa Véliz is agonizing and has yet to die, and that his final minute has been rather long, and that we might all be inside of him. Or at least that all we Chileans are inside of him.

M M: Why do you always take the opposite view of things?

R B: I never take the opposite view of things.

M M: Do you have more friends than enemies?

R B: I have a sufficient amount of friends and enemies, all gratuitous.

M M: Who are your dearest friends?

R B: My best friend was the poet Mario Santiago, who died in 1998. At present, three of my best friends are Ignacio Echevarria, Rodrigo Fresán and A.G. Porta.

M M: Did Antonio Skarmeta ever invite you on his program?

R B: One of his secretaries, perhaps his maid, called me on the phone once. I told her I was too busy.

M M: Did Javier Cercas share the royalties for Soldiers of Salamis with you?

RB: No, of course not.

M M: Enrique Lihn, Jorge Teillier or Nicanor Parra?

R B: Nicanor Parra above all, including Pablo Nerruda and Vicente Huidobro and Gabriela Mistral.

M M: Eugenio Montale, T.S. Eliot, or Xavier Villlaurrutia?

R B: Montale. If it had been James Joyce instead of Eliot, then Joyce. If it had been Ezra Pound instead of Eliot, then Pound without a doubt.

M M: John Lennon, Lady Di, or Elvis Presley?

R B: The Pogues. Or Suicide. Or Bob Dylan. Well, but let's not be pretentious: Elvis forever. Elvis and his golden voice, with a sheriff's badge, driving a Mustang and stuffing himself full of pills.

M M: Who reads more, you or Rodrigo Fresan?

R B: Depends. The West is for Rodrigo. The East is for me. Then we'll count the books in our corresponding areas and it might appear that we've read them all.

M M: In your opinion, what is Pablo Neruda's greatest poem?

R B: Almost any in Residence on Earth. 

M M: If you had known Gabriela Mistral, what would you have told her?

R B: Forgive me, ma, I've been bad, but I turned good for the love of a woman.

M M: And to Salvador Allende?

R B: Little or nothing. Those who have power - even for a short time - know nothing about literature; they are solely interested in power. I can be a clown to my readers, if I damn well please, but never to the powerful. It sounds a bit melodramatic. It sounds like the statement of an honest whore. But in short, that's how it is.

MM: And to Vicente Huidobro?

R B: Huidobro bores me a little. He's excessively happy-go-lucky, too much like a descending skydiver belting songs from the Tyrol. Skydivers who descend while engulfed in flames are better, or those who fall flat, like the ones whose parachutes never open.

M M: Does Octavio Paz continue to be the enemy?

R B: For me, certainly not. I don't know what the poets who wrote like clones of his during that era, while I was living in Mexico, must think. It's been a long time since I've known anything about Mexican poetry. I reread Jose Juan Tablada and Ramon Lopez Velarde; I can even recite "Sor Juana" divided in three, but I know nothing of what those who, like me, are nearing fifty years old write.

M M: Wouldn't you give that role to Carlos Fuentes today?

R B: It's been a long while since I've read anything by Carlos Fuentes.

M M: What do you make of the fact that Arturo Perez- Reverte is the most widely read author in the Spanish language?

R B: Perez- Reverte or Isabel Allende. It strikes me the same. Feuillet was the most widely read French author of his time.

M M: And of the fact that Arturo Perez- Reverte has been admitted to the Royal Spanish Academy?

R B: The Royal Spanish Academy is a cave full of privileged craniums. Juan Marse is not a member,

Juan Goytisolo is not a member, Eduardo Menndoza and Javier Marias are not members, Olvido Garcia Valdes is not a member. I don't remember if Alvaro Pombo is a member (if he is, it's likely due to a misunderstanding), but Perez-Reverte is a member. Besides, Coelho is a member of the Brazilian Academy of Letters.

M M: Do you regret having criticized the menu served by Diamela Eltit?

R B: I never criticized her menu. If anything, I would have" criticized her sense of humor, that of a vegetarian, or better still, her sense of humor on a diet.

M M: Does it hurt that she considers you a bad person since the story of that spoiled dinner came out?

RB: No, poor thing. Diamela doesn't hurt me. Other things hurt me.

M M: Have you shed one tear about the widespread criticism you've drawn from your enemies?

R B: Lots and lots. Every time I read that someone has spoken badly of me I begin to cry, I drag myself across the floor, I scratch myself, I stop writing indefinitely, I lose my appetite, I smoke less, I engage in sport, I go for walks on the edge of the sea, which by the way is less than 30 meters from my house, and I ask the seagulls, whose ancestors ate the fish who ate Ulysses: Why me? Why? I've done you no harm. 

M M: With regard to your work, whose opinion do you value most?

R B: My books are read by Carolina [wife], then [Jorge] Herralde [editor of Anagrama], and then I endeavor to forget them forever.

M M : What things did you buy with the prize money from the Rómulo Gallegos award?

R B: Not much, a suitcase as far as I can remember.

M M: During the time when you lived on literary competitions, Was there a prize you couldn't claim?

R B: None. Spanish city halls, in this respect, are decent and beyond reproach.

M M: Were you a good waiter, or a better costume jewelry vendor?

R B: I have best redeemed myself as the night watchman of a campsite near Barcelona. Nobody ever stole while I was there. I stopped some fights that could have ended badly, and I prevented a lynching-although on second thought, I should have lynched or strangled the guy myself.

M M: Have you experienced fierce hunger, boneechilling cold, breathtaking heat?

R B: As Vittorio Gassman says in a film, "Modestly, yes:'

M M: Have you stolen a book you later didn't like?

R B: Never. The good thing about stealing books - unlike safes - is that one can carefully examine their contents before perpetrating the crime.

M M : Have you ever walked in the middle of the dessert?

R B: Yes, and one of those times on the arm of my grandmother. The elderly woman was tireless, and I didn't think we would make it.

M M: Have you seen colorful fish underwater?

RB: Of course. Without going further than Acapullco, in 1974 or 1975.

M M : Have you ever burned your skin with a cigarette?

R a: Never voluntarily.

M M: Have you ever carved the name of your beloved in the trunk of a tree?

R B: I have committed greater abuses, but let's draw the veil at that.

M M: Have you seen the most beautiful woman in the world?

RB: Yes, sometime around 1984 when I worked at a store. The store was empty and in came a Hindu woman. She looked like a princess and well could have been one. She bought some hanging costume jewelry from me. I was at the point of fainting. She had copper skin, long red hair, and the rest of her was perfect. A timeless beauty. When I had to charge her, I felt embarrassed. As if saying she understood and not to worry, she smiled at me. Then she disappeared and I have never again seen anyone like her. Sometimes I get the impression that she was the goddess Kali, the patron saint of thieves and goldsmiths, except Kali was also the goddess of murderers, and this Hindu woman was not only the most beautiful woman on earth, but she seemed also to be a good person-very sweet and considerate.

M M: Do you like dogs or cats?

R B: Female dogs, but I don't have any more pets.

M M: What do you remember of your childhood?

R B: Everything. I don't have one bad memory.

M M: Did you collect figurines? 

R B: Yes, of soccer players and Hollywood actors and actresses.

M M: Did you have a scooter?

R B: My parents made the mistake of giving me a pair of roller skates when we lived in Valparaiso, a city made up of hills. The result was disastrous. Every time I put the skates on it was as if I was trying to commit suicide.

M M: What is your favorite soccer team?

RB: None right now. The ones who fall to second tier, then third consecutively, then regional until they've disappeared. The phantom teams.

M M: Which historical character would you have liked to resemble?

RB: Sherlock Holmes. Captain Nemo. Julien Sorel, our father. Prince Mishkin, our uncle. Alicia, our professor. And Houdini, who is a mix between Alicia, Sorel and Mishkin.

M M : Did you fall in love with older neighbors when you were young?

R B: Of course.

M M: Did the girls in your school pay any attention to you?

R B: I don't think so. At least I was convinced they did not.

M M: What do you owe the women in your life?

R B: Ever so much. A sense of defiance and high risk. For the sake of decency, I'll keep quiet about the other things.

M M: Do they owe you anything?

RB: Nothing.

M M: Have you suffered much for love?

R B: Very much the first time, then I learned to take things with a bit more humor.

M M: And what about hate?

R a: Even if I sound somewhat pretentious, I've never hated anyone. At least I'm certain I am incapable of sustained hatred. And if the hatred is not sustained, it's not hatred, is it?

M M: How did you win the affection of your wife?

R B: Cooking rice for her. I was very poor at that time and my diet basically consisted of rice, so I learned to cook it in many different ways.

M M: Describe the day you became a father for the first time.

R B: It was night, a little before midnight. I was alone, and because you couldn't smoke in the hospital, I smoked a cigarette virtually perched on the cornice of the fourth floor. No one saw me from the street, only the moon, as Amado Nervo would have said. When I came back in, a nurse told me my son had just been born. He was very big, almost all bald, with open eyes as if asking himself who the devil had him in his arms.

M M: Will Lautaro be a writer?

R B: I hope only that he's happy. Thus, it would be better if he were something else. Airplane pilot, for example, plastic surgeon or editor.

M M: What do you recognize in him as your own?

R B: Luckily he resembles his mother much more than me.

M M: Do you worry about the position of your books on bestseller lists?

R B: Minimally.

M M: Do you think about your readers?

R B: Almost never.

M M: Of all the things your readers have said about your books, what has moved you the most?

R B: Quite simply, the readers themselves move me-the ones who dare to read Voltaire's Philosophical Dictionary, which is one of the most pleasant and modern works I know. I'm moved by the steely youth who read Cortazar and Parra, just as I read them and intend to continue reading them. I'm moved by those youths who sleep with a book under their head. A book is the best pillow that exists.

M M: What things have made you angry?

R B: At this age, getting angry is a waste of time. And, regrettably, time matters at my age.

M M: Have you ever feared your fans?

R B: I've feared Leopolda Maria Panero's fans. On the one hand, he seems to me one of the three best living poets in Spain. During a cycle of readings organized by Jesus Ferrero in Pamplona, Panero closed the cycle and as the day of his reading neared, the neighborhood where our hotel was began to fill with freaks who looked like they had recently escaped an insane asylum. But on the other hand, they were the best readership any poet can aspire to reach. The problem was that some didn't just look crazy but like murderers too. Ferrero and I were afraid that at any moment someone might get up and say they had killed Leopoldo Maria Panero, then fired four shots at the head of the poet; and while they were at it, one at Ferrero and the last one at me.

M M: How does it feel to be regarded as the Latin American writer with the most promising future by critics like Daria Osses?

RB: It must be a joke. I am the Latin American writer with the least promising future. But on that point, I am the type with the most past, which is what matters anyway.

M M: Does the critical book being prepared by your compatriot Patricia Espinosa arouse your curiosity?

R B: Not at all. Apart from how I'll end up in her book, which I don't suppose will be very good, Espinosa seems to be a very good critic. But her work is necessary in Chile. In .fact, the need for new critics-let's call her that-is urgent all over Latin America.

M M: And what about the Argentine Celina Mazoni's book?

R B: I know Celina personally and I'm very fond of her. I dedicated one of the stories from Putas Asesinas to her.

M M: What bores you?

R B: Empty discourse from the left. I take for granted the empty discourse from the right.

M M: What entertains you?

R B: To see my daughter Alexandra play. To eat breakfast at a bar by the sea and to eat a croissant while reading' the paper. Borges' literature. Bioy's literature. Bustos Domecq's literature. Making love.

M M : Do you write by hand?

R B: Poetry, yes. For the rest, I use an old computer from 1993.

M M: Close your eyes. Out of all the landscapes you've come across in Latin America, what comes to mind first? 

R B: Lisa's lips in 1974. My father's broken -down bus on a desert road. The tuberculosis wing of a hospital in Cauquenes arid my mother telling my sister and I to hold our breath. An excursion to Popocatepetl with Lisa, Mara, Vera and someone else I don't remember. But I do remember Lisa's lips, her extraordinary smile.

M M : What is heaven like?

R B: Like Venice, I’d hope, a place full of Italian men and women. A place you can use and wear down, a place that knows nothing will endure, including paradise, and knows that in the end at last it doesn't matter.

M M : And hell?

R B: It's like Ciudad Juarez, our curse and mirror, a disturbing reflection of our frustrations, and our infamous interpretation of liberty and of our desires.

M M: When did you know you were gravely ill?

RB: In 1992.

M M: What change did your illness have on your character?

R B: None. I knew I wasn't immortal, which at thirty-eight it was high time I learn.

M M: What do you wish to do before dying?

RB: Nothing special. Well, clearly I'd prefer not to die. But sooner or later the distinguished lady arrives. The problem is that sometimes she's neither a lady nor very distinguished, but, as Nicanor Parra says in a poem, she's a hot wench who will make your teeth chatter no matter how fancy you think you are.

M M: Whom would you like to encounter in the hereafter?

RB: I don't believe in the hereafter. Were it to exist, I'd be surprised. I'd enroll immediately in some course Pascal would be teaching.

MM: Have you ever thought about committing suicide?

R B: Of course. On one occasion I survived precisely because I knew how to kill myself if things got any worse.

M M: Have you ever believed you were going crazy?

R B: Of course, but I was always saved by my sense of humor. I'd tell myself stories that made me crazy with laughter. Or I'd remember situations that made me roll on the ground laughing.

M M: Madness, death and love. Which of these three things have you had more of in your life?

R B: I hope with all of my heart that it was love.

M M: What makes your jaw hurt laughing?

R B: The misfortunes of myself and others.

M M: What things make you cry?

R B: The same: the misfortunes of myself and others.

M M: Do you like music?

RB: Very much.

M M: Do you see your work the way your critics and readers see it: The Savage Detectives above all, then all the rest?

R B: The only novel that doesn't embarrass me is Amberes, maybe because it continues to be unintelligible. The bad reviews it has received are badges of honor from actual combat, not skirmishes with simulated fire. The rest of my "work" is not bad. They're entertaining novels. Time will tell if they're anything more. For now, they earn money, get translated and help me make very generous and kind friends. I can live, and live well, off literature, so complainning would be gratuitous and unfounded. The truth is I concede very little importance to my books. I am much more interested in the books of others.

M M: Would you not cut a few pages out of The Savvage Detectives?

RB: No. In order to cut pages, I would have to reread it and my religion prohibits me that.

M M: Does it scare you that someone might want to make a film version of the novel?

RB: Oh, Monica, I fear other things-much more terrifying things, infinitely more terrifying.

M M: Is "Silva the Eye" a tribute to Julio Cortazar?

RB: In no way.

M M: When you finished writing "Silva the Eye;' didn't you feel you had probably written a story on the level of, say, "A House Taken Over"?

R B: When I finished writing "Silva the Eye" I stopped crying or something like it. What more could I want than for it to resemble a Cortazar story? Although "A House Taken Over" is not one of my favorites.

M M: Which five books have marked your life?

R B: In reality the five books are more like 5,000. I'll mention these only as the tip of the spear: Don Quixote by Cervantes, Moby-Dick by Melville. The complete works of Borges, Hopscotch by Cortazar, A Confederacy of Dunces by Toole. I should also cite Nadja by Breton, the letters of Jacques Vache. Anything Ubu by Jarry, Life: A Users Manual by Perec. The Castle and The Trial by Kafka. Aphorisms by Lichtenberg. The Tractatus by Wittgenstein. The Innvention of Morel by Bioy Casares. The Satyricon by Petronius. The History of Rome by Tito Livio. Pensées by Pascal.

M M: Do you get on well with your editor?

R B: Very well. Herralde is a very intelligent person and very often quite charming. Perhaps for me it would be more convenient if he weren't so charming. The truth is I've known him for eight years now and, at least for my part, the affection does nothing if not grow, as one bolero puts it. Even though it might perhaps be better for me if I didn't care for him so.

M M : What do you say to those who believe The Savage Detectives is the great contemporary Mexican novel? 

R B: That they say it out of pity. They see that I'm down or fainting in public plazas and they can think of nothing better to say than a merciful lie, which, by the way, is the most appropriate thing in these cases, and it's not even a venial sin.

M M: Is it true that it was Juan Villoro who convinced you not to name your novel By Night In Chile "Shit Storms"?

R B: It was between Villoro and Herralde.

M M: From whom else do you take advice about your work?

R B : I don't listen to advice from anybody, not even my doctor. I wildly dole out advice, but I don't heed any.

M M: How is Blanes?

R B: It's a nice little town. Or a very small city of 30,000 inhabitants. Quite nice. It was founded 2,000 years ago by the Romans, then people from all over started passing through. It's not a rich person's resort but a proletariat's. Workers from the north and the east. Some stay to live forever. The bay is most beautiful.

MM: Do you miss anything about your life in Mexico? 

RB: My youth, and endless walks with Mario Santiago.

M M: Which Mexican writer do you admire profoundly?

R B: Many. From my generation I admire Sada, whose writing project I find the most bold, Villoro and Carmen Boullosa. Among the young writers, I am very interested in what Alvaro Enrique and Mauricio Montiel are doing, as well as Volpi and Iggnacio Padilla. I continue to read Sergio Pitol, who writes better every day. And Carlos Monsivais, who, according to Villoro, gave Taibo II or III (or IV) the nickname Pol Pit, which seems to me a real poetic find. Pol Pit. It's perfect, isn't it? Monsivais keeps his nails sharp. I also like what Sergio Gonzalez Rodriguez is doing.

M M: Is the world without remedy?

R B: The world is alive and no living thing has any remedy. That's our fortune.

MM: Do you have hope? For what and for whom?

R B: My dear Maristain, again you push me toward the land of bad taste, which is not my native land. I have hope for children. For children and warriors. For children who fuck like children and warriors who fight like brave men. Why? I defer to the headstone of Borges, as the illustrious Gervasio Monteenegro of the Academy (like Perez- Reverte, do take notice) would say, and let us not speak of this matter further.

M M: What kinds of feelings do posthumous works awaken in you?

R B: Posthumous: It sounds like the name of a Roman gladiator, an unconquered gladiator. At least that's what poor Posthumous would like to believe. It gives him courage.

M M: What is your opinion about those who opine that you will win the Nobel Prize?

R B: I am sure, dear Maristain, th,at I will not win it; as I am sure that some lazy person from my generation will win it and not even in passing mention me during his or her Stockholm speech.

M M: When were you the happiest?

R B: I have been happy almost every day of my life, except for short periods, including during the most adverse circumstances.

M M: If you hadn't been a writer, what would you have been?

R B: I should like to have been a homicide detective much better than being a writer. I am absolutely sure of that. A string of homicides. I'd have been someone who could come back to the scene of the crime alone, by night, and not be afraid of ghosts. Perhaps then I might really have become crazy. But being a detective that could easily be resolved with a bullet to the mouth.

M M: Do you confess to having lived?

R B: Well, I continue to live, to read, to write and to watch films, and as Arturo Prat said to the suicides of Esmeralda, "While I am still alive, this flag will not come down."