Roberto Bolaño’s Amulet starts the novel starts off with a thrilling note as the first few lines are: “This is going to be a horror story. A Story of murder, detection, and horror” (1). However, the narrator, who is later revealed to be a Uruguayan woman named Auxilio Lacouture, makes the quick distinction that the story won’t appear to have those traits because of her narration.

I agree with that statement because this book did not feel like a horror story or even fit its description of being a “story of a terrible crime”(1). Instead, I found that this book felt like reading a stranger’s diary. In particular, since there are many references that the narrator makes to real life individuals and historical contexts that I’m not familiar with, I felt lost at times. The best example of this is on page 159 where the narrator makes a series of prophecies about historic figures and how they will regain a sense of relevancy in the future. Nevertheless, apart from Marcel Proust and Virginia Woolf, I wasn’t aware of who the other individuals were. However, interestingly enough, the dates for the years when everyone else is supposedly prophesied to become significant are still decades away. So, maybe in 2045, I’ll be aware of who César Vallejo and Jorge Luis Borges are and read their books underground?

Moreover, I noticed that chapters would often start with a line that would directly relate back to the last line of the previous chapter. For instance, chapter four ends with “Although I could also have gone crazy” (41) and leads to chapter five starting with “But one thing stopped me from going crazy” (43). With the combination of this novel’s short length, it made it a fairly quick read.

Hence, since Bolaño made such an effort to link each chapter, I began to question why he chose the name the book “Amulet”. Until the last line, “And that song is our amulet”, there isn’t any other mention of the word amulet (184). However, since amulets are supposedly objects or tiny trinkets that possess magical capabilities to protect individuals from diseases and dangers, could it be a direct reflection to the novel’s first line? To elaborate, my thoughts are that maybe the narration style of Lacouture acts as an amulet that keeps the tone lighthearted and prevents it from becoming like a classic horror story.

That concludes my thoughts about this novel, but here are some questions for everyone else!

When authors make references to real world individuals/events that you are unaware of, do you google it to gain the context or do you ignore them? Do you think those references affect your ability to be engages or understand the novel? Also, what are your thoughts on why Bolaño decided to name the novel “Amulet”?