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'Bolaño's time in English is long overdue.'
--Guardian
--Guardian
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‘A hallucinatory and bewitching tapestry of love, death, booze and squalor’ Dazed & Confused
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6 of 7 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover|Amazon Vine™ Review
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A short novel about Auxilio Lacouture, a Uruguayan woman living in Mexico who surrounds herself with poets and becomes known as 'The Mother of Mexican Poetry'. When the Mexican army invades the university in Mexico City in 1968, Auxilio hides in the bathroom for twelve days, until she is the only person left on campus. Whilst there she recounts her life.
No doubt this is a novel of some literary importance, but I found it to be lacking in focus. The story is very episodic, jumping randomly from one time to another, as Auxilio tells of meetings with different poets and friends, none of which ultimately add up to anything cohesive. I suppose the disjointed nature of the narrative reflects the hallucinatory nature of residing in a bathroom for almost two weeks with nothing to eat but toilet paper, but it doesn't make for a compelling read. It has an air of stream of consciousness about it, not in the writing itself, but in the way the narrator recalls various events from her life.
Read this if you have a particular interest in Latin American writing, or poetry and revolution. But if you're the average reader who enjoys a compelling yarn, give this a miss.
No doubt this is a novel of some literary importance, but I found it to be lacking in focus. The story is very episodic, jumping randomly from one time to another, as Auxilio tells of meetings with different poets and friends, none of which ultimately add up to anything cohesive. I suppose the disjointed nature of the narrative reflects the hallucinatory nature of residing in a bathroom for almost two weeks with nothing to eat but toilet paper, but it doesn't make for a compelling read. It has an air of stream of consciousness about it, not in the writing itself, but in the way the narrator recalls various events from her life.
Read this if you have a particular interest in Latin American writing, or poetry and revolution. But if you're the average reader who enjoys a compelling yarn, give this a miss.
3 of 4 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
Bolano's posthumously published epic, 2666 is everywhere at the moment - Book of the Week at some booksellers and copiously mentioned in all the literary supplements. It seems fitting then that Picador have reprinted the slim but spellbinding Amulet written in 1999 four years before Bolano's untimely death. Amulet's storyline, on the surface, is simple; Auxilio Lacouture, a Uruguayan writer is immersing herself into the literary hub of Mexico City in the late nineteen sixties. She becomes trapped in the University during an attempt by the army to quell student demonstrations and during her fortnight as the only person on campus she recalls events of her life, writers she has known and sorrows shared. It soon becomes apparent that not all of these memories are actual and it becomes an intricate part of the narrative to untangle fact from fiction, reality from fantasy. As with Bolano's earlier books the cast is extensive and, at times, complex - minor characters disappear then reappear fifty pages on as if they have never been away. Above all else it is Bolano's prose which makes this a memorable book and for those who are new to his fiction an accessable introduction.
Format:Paperback
New readers to Roberto Bolano should perhaps start with his earlier work "the savage detectives" in that this novel is closer look at one of the figures in the earlier book, but like all the works of Bolano, his narative flows like water from a fountain,and here giving the reader a small glimpse of the atvantgard poets of 68-76 Mexico City, and their struggle to stay afloat in the mainstream of life
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Most Recent Customer Reviews
A reality we know little about
I don't know about you, but I'm not an expert in the socio-political upheavals that afflicted Mexico towards the end of the 1960s; I was vaguely aware there was a crackdown on... Read more
Published 22 months ago by Alan Hansen
Rambling
Perhaps this is the wrong book to begin with for a Bolano newcomer such as myself: though short, its brevity is at the price of any trace of the epic vision Bolano is said to... Read more
Published 23 months ago by alexliamw
Good and bad?
I have no idea how close the English version is to the original but it certainly readswell its a translation from the Spanish. Read more
Published on 25 Feb 2010 by R. Hallett
Good of Its Type
This is a translation from the Spanish. I have no idea how close the English version is to the original but it certainly reads well. Read more
Published on 23 Feb 2010 by Roger Rebec
Writing about writing
I get why Bolano is so critically hip - he writes books that valorise the writers of lit fiction as the true and only heroes of these messy and corrupt times, massaging the egos of... Read more
Published on 29 Jan 2010 by avl06
Borgesian dirge?
Seems like everybody's suddenly gone mad for the dead Chilean writer Roberto Bolaño. Two of his major novels, The Savage Detectives and 2666, were recently translated into... Read more
Published on 24 Nov 2009 by Andrew Sutherland
Dizzying
...but not dazzling. I've never read Roberto Bolano before, and it's been a long time since I've read fiction like his. Read more
Published on 12 Nov 2009 by Dinky
A product of the despair of Latin America
Roberto Bolaño (1953-2003) is a Chilean novelist discovered by the English speaking world, or to be more accurate its publishing trade, in 2008. Read more
Published on 25 Oct 2009 by Michael Lavocah
Spectacular writing in this extraordinary wonderful work
I really don't know where to begin with my review. I did not know of Roberto Bolano and came to this book with no pre conceived notions as to how it would be. Read more
Published on 21 Oct 2009 by J. Aitken
Meandering Prose Poem
I'm finding it difficult to sum up 'Amulet' for a satisfactory review, so I'll start with what I am sure about. Read more
Published on 18 Oct 2009 by Quicksilver
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