Roberto Bolaño, Amulet
I thought I would give a little context before writing what I thought about this book. So, I am Mexican and I have lived my entire life in Mexico City where this novel takes place and I can say that a lot of the things that talked about Mexico City in the novel have not changed much to this date.
Having said that I have to say that this might be the reading that I have enjoyed the most and that is entirely due to the way the book talks about the different parts of the city as well as how the books uses words in Spanish which are specifically used in Mexico City and not used as much in other places of Latin America or even other parts of the country. A good example of this is how the author uses the word “chido” which means great, but is not used a lot in places outside Mexico City (I actually use this word very often).
The story of the book did not seem as anything that fascinating to me and since the first half of the book I was able to guess what was going to happen at the end. But even with that, what made me really enjoy this book is the whole journey in which we go through Mexico City, with all the places the author describes. As those are places where I have been before. One specific thing that made me smile when I read it, was that the author mentioned a park called “parque hundido” which is a place where my parents used to take me when I was younger.
I liked a lot how the author is able to introduce a part the history of Mexico with the killings of Tlatelolco in 1968 and glue this part of Mexican history to a novel that talks about different things. But as said before, the main thing that made me enjoy this book more and more as I read through it, was the journey in which the book takes us through Mexico City.
I find it very unlikely that someone in this class is going to be able to look into this book in the same way that I did and because of that my question for this blog is going to be about the structure of the book and if you liked the way the book goes into past and future stories rather than just having a linear timeline.
“I find it very unlikely that someone in this class is going to be able to look into this book in the same way that I did”
There’s at least one other Mexican in the class (perhaps two, I think…). It will be good to hear from you guys this week!
Of course, the book is very much about Mexico and set in Mexico City. I wonder what you thought about the fact that it was depicted through non-Mexican eyes, with a Uruguayan narrator and a Chilean author?
Great blog post and personal connections. You leave me wanting to hear more about these places in Mexico city that you recognize in the reading, and the significance they have to you, but also to the story (in your opinion)…
Hey Daniel,
Thank you so much for sharing your insight, I found it really interesting to read what you had to say about the city this book takes place in. I bet if one of the novels had my hometown in it, I would feel really connected to it! I feel that many of us have a lot of pride in where we come from and I think it’s awesome that you got to share with us the details that most of us would skip over. To answer your question, I did not like the structure of the book and would have preferred a linear timeline, mostly because I found it difficult to differentiate what was the present and what was the future. Honestly I would have been better off doing some research first and finding out that the book jumped back and forth before reading it, and should have learned my lesson from not figuring out that there were two stories when reading “W, or the Memories of Childhood”.