Roberto Bolaño, Amulet

I was initially very intrigued by this story. I was excited that it was under the category or ‘horror’ as this is not really a genre we've read yet in this class. The scene in the first section of the book where the soldiers are taking over the university reminded me a lot of memories from lockdown drills in school and more specifically what to do if you happen to be stuck in a stall at the time of entry of whoever (danger). I think the author did an excellent job of illustrating that scene and the position she held to avoid being seen. 

After that, the story began to head in the direction of explaining short stories and memories she had accumulated over her life. There were many! Some of the time I would get a little lost in the details of these stories, but for the most part they were very entertaining. It is safe to say that her life was interesting and deviated a fair bit from any sort of norm. She came off as a free spirit. Auxillio did not seem to have any sort of obligations, rather she just did what felt right in that moment. Whether that was surrounding herself around individuals much younger than her, or devoting her time and effort towards the University’s philosophy department solely out of love for the subject. It stood out to me that she would not accept any sort of financial reimbursement when that could've been extremely beneficial for her, as she did not have a place of her own. I think that speaks volumes to the type of character she has. Additionally, it spoke volumes to how much she valued spending time with the right type of feel good people - and an added benefit if they were interested in poetry. I must admit her nights out with friends seemed very cool. 


As for pretty much any text, you can never know for sure what biases the narrator has in their storytelling and whether what they're saying holds validity or not. For instance when she says “the story wasn't altogether credible, simply because of its source; that is me. (p.80) Of course, this reminded me of the fact that she is telling these stories of her memories all while trapped inside of the washroom in the university. Obviously she must be losing it a bit…. One thing that was brought up quite a few times throughout the novel was that she referred to herself as “the mother of poets”,? I never really understood what she meant by this, and the more serious significance? 

Comments

  1. Jennifer NagtegaalMarch 21, 2022 at 9:30 PM

    Great question, Daisy (and you will see that Jon has listed a related question here in #2: https://rmst202.arts.ubc.ca/bolano-questions/ ). How do we understand this "mother" role, as well as the idea of "giving birth to history" that we read? Especially in light of the fact that she is not a poet, but is rather an avid reader of poetry (not just Latin American, but of much Western literature), but nevertheless a narrator/storyteller....

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