Bolaño 2666 Read-A-Long – Week 4
March 26, 2011 11 Comments
The Bolaño 2666 Read-A-Long is a twelve week read of 2666 with people who can’t face reading the tome on their own. There are about 8 of us who are reading this together.
If you like to join in, get your copy of 2666 and join us any time. You can find the full reading schedule in THIS POST.
Reading for Week 4
This week, we read the following
Section III The Part About Fate
4. Pages 231-291 (60 pages, about half-way this section)
My summary (may contain spoilers)
This part, a new character is introduced. This is Quicy Williams who is known as Oscar Fate at his work. He is a journalist and is asked to replace a sports journalist who has recently died. Oscar has to travel to Mexico to report on a boxing match between a New Yorker and a Mexican.
The magazine he works for is called Black Dawn, a small magazine for African-Americans.
Before he goes to Mexico, he visits Barry Seaman, a former celebrity who, having been out of the lime light for years, has come back to fame after writing a cookbook.
In Santa Teresa, he talks to Mexican journalists especially, as he prefers to hang out with them rather than with the American journalists. He also goes to meet the Mexican boxer.
When he finds out about the missing women in Santa Teresa (which was also alluded to in the previous section), he asks his boss whether he can stay longer to report on this, but his boss refuses and wants him to come back after the boxing match.
Discussion
I found this part rather boring. Boxing is a topic that doesn’t interest me in the least. I didn’t understand why Oscar went to visit Barry Seaman (and who this is). Some of the other things he undertakes were unclear to me as well.
There is just the link with Santa Teresa and the missing women, but otherwise this part of the book is totally unrelated (so far) to the earlier stories of the critics and of Amalfitano. Hopefully in the second half of this part, i.e., next week, we will find out more about a relation with the earlier sections.
Discussion questions
As Chinoiseries asked (me), Why does Oscar Fate call himself “Fate”?
Who is this Barry Seaman? Is he a former boxer?
Did you enjoy reading this part?
Do you have any predictions about what we can expect next?
Bibliojunkie (JoV) has already written her review for Week 4: http://bibliojunkie.wordpress.com/2011/03/21/2666-read-along-week-4/
Next week (Week 5)
This week, we’ll read the following
Section III The Part About Fate (2 weeks)
5. Pages 292-349 (57 pages) April 2nd
Read until the end of this section.
What did you think of this week’s read?
About Judith
Leeswammes' Blog 
Thanks for the mention Judith. Even we read a different edition, our end of section at 349 is the same. The link between sections I see is only such:
The academics met Amalfinato, Amalfinato has a daughter called Rosa and this Rosa eventually met Fate.
It is not given a reason why Quicy called himself Fate. I suppose is just a reminder perhaps this book has something to do with fate. Although Quicy looks like someone who takes decisive actions and do not succumb to fate.
I actually enjoy this part a bit more as it discuss the sociological aspect of Mexico and USA. Next part is going to be grim and it’s about the murder and the crime obviously, brace yourself for a frightening read, perhaps!
Lets huddle closer together for support. 🙂
Yes, I agree on the links. They are quite weak, in my mind. I hope to get back to Archimboldi, I find him mysterious and would like to know what’s happened to him. Maybe later…
What murder and crime? I don’t know nothing about that! 🙂
I’m also reading Out by Natsuo Kirino at the moment and there a body gets cut up so the parts can easily be hidden. So I’m used to a bit of gore now. 🙂
I am hopelessly confused …
Ha ha, Cindy. You are not actually reading along, are you? So I’m not surprised that you are confused. I read the book, I am confused, I write a confusing summary! 🙂
It’s a puzzling book, I think most of us agree on that. I really don’t know whether I would continue reading if it wasn’t for the read-a-long….
I feel exactly the same way about this part. Like Jo said, the link with Part Three is Rosa Amalfitano who will appear next week. The second half of Part Three is, in my opinion, a more interesting read. I am now wondering who we will see returning in Part Four, the (very exciting and grim) part about the Crimes…
Chinoiseries, I forgot that the fourth part is called The Part about the Crimes! No wonder Jo was talking about crimes. 🙂
It is because I don’t see where this story is going, that I want to keep reading. It is a very intruiging and puzzling book, but I really do enjoy it.
Nadine, that’s nice. I don’t enjoy it so much, probably for the same reasons!
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I’m catching up! Just wrote the week four post and I quite liked this part. http://www.ephemeraldigest.co.uk/2011/04/bolano-2666-week-4/
I do think that a lot more will be explained later on, for now we probably just have to keep reading to find out whether it all does mean anything. Thanks Judith.
Joanna, yes, I do hope a lot will be explained because it doesn’t seem to go anywhere right now. I’m glad you’re still enjoying it.