- Paperback
- Publisher: Picador; Export & Airside ed edition (5 Jan 2012)
- Language English
- ISBN-10: 033053579X
- ISBN-13: 978-0330535793
- Product Dimensions: 23.2 x 15.4 x 2.4 cm
- Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 624,666 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
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Review
Praise for Roberto Bolano
"[Bolano] makes you feel changed for having read him; he adjusts your angle of view on the world." --Ben Richards, "The Guardian"
"When I read Bolano I think: Everything is possible again." --Nicole Krauss
"Not since Gabriel Garcia Marquez . . . has a Latin American redrawn the map of world literature so emphatically as Roberto Bolano does . . . It's no exaggeration to call him a genius." --Ilan Stavans, "The Washington Post Book World"
"[Bolano's] work . . . is as vital, thrilling and life-enhancing as anything in modern fiction." --Christopher Goodwin, "The Sunday Times "(London)
"Novelists have been smashing high and low together for a century, but Bolano does it with the force of a supercollider." --Daniel Zalewski, "The New Yorker"
"[Bolano] has the natural storyteller's gift--but more important, he has the power to lend an extraordinary glamour to the activities of making love and making poetry." --Edmund White
"A su
Product Description
Discovered after his death, in 2003, Bolano left this novel complete as a typewritten manuscript - meticulously corrected by hand - it is published in English translation for the first time. Udo Berger, aspiring writer and wargames champion of Stuttgart, decides it is time to take his new love, Ingeborg, on holiday to the Costa Brava. He brings along his new game, The Third Reich, which he plans to practice for the upcoming wargames tournament in Paris, where he will finally meet the sleek American champion, Rex Douglas. However, things take a sinister turn when some shady locals arrive on the scene and one of Udo's friends disappears. Pursued by a shadowy detective who visits his nightmares in quest for the truth; the surrealistic landscape of the Costa Brava and his increasingly feverish dreams draw him further into delirium. Finally, he finds himself locked in mortal combat when he engages in a game of Third Reich with the enigmatic and disfigured El Quemado - a foreginer who lives in a Kafkaesque burrow on the beach. Unpublished in any language during Bolano's lifetime, this story of one man's journey into nightmare will make a welcome addition to this author's already astonishing oevre.
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Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
3 of 4 people found the following review helpful
An early novel written in 1989 and found among the papers of Roberto Bolano after his premature death in 2003, The Third Reich, is an odd but often mesmerizing story of obsession--specifically with the playing of a war game based on the actions taken by the German Reich during World War II. Udo Berger, the German national champion of this highly competitive and addictive game, is a young man, barely out of his teens, when he and his lover, the gorgeous but shallow Ingeborg, take a vacation to the Costa Brava, where Udo used to vacation as a child. They stay at the Hotel Del Mar, the small hotel where his family stayed, and where he has vivid memories of Frau Else, the hotel's owner, a lovely woman about whom has had childhood fantasies..
Shortly after their arrival, they meet Charly and Hanna, fellow Germans also on vacation. Charly and Hanna are out for a good time, with non-stop drinking and partying, and Udo would rather stay in his room where he pores over strategy for The Third Reich. Inge often goes off with Charly and Hanna, to the beach, to Barcelona, or to nightclubs, where they soon become friends with two low-lifes, Wolf and the Lamb, through whom Udo also meets El Quemado, who owns one of the paddleboat concessions along the beach. "El Quemado," which translates as "the burning," is a former soldier who is grotesquely burned on his head and upper body, and though he is untutored, he soon becomes as avid a player of The Third Reich as Udo.
As Udo and El Quemado replay the Second World War late at night while the others are out, Quemado proves to be a worthy challenger to Udo. While Udo is involved with all this, real life is taking place in the real world. One of the other characters disappears and is presumed dead, the women face possibly life-threatening crises and assaults, and suggestions of real, on-going evil pervade the action on all levels.
Ultimately, the novel takes on some of the themes and, certainly, the tone of the German Faust legend. Udo, the champion, playing the role of the Germans, resembles the intelligent but somewhat naïve Faust, and El Quemado, "the burning" or "the burned one," playing the Allies, resembles the devil, at least from Udo's point of view. Ultimately, the Faust parallels, though intriguing and atmospheric, are not complete, however, and the reader is left without a sense of real resolution. Overall, the novel is fun to read, but this is a very early novel which Bolano himself decided not to publish during his lifetime. The whole concept of obsession so dominating a person or group of people that it controls their entire raison d'etre is a fascinating one, certainly one we saw with the real Third Reich, though the description of the game and its moves is less interesting , if not dull. Had the subordinate characters been more fully developed and more plausible, the novel would have been stronger, but overall, this lesser Bolano was more fun to read and more interesting than many contemporary novels by lesser authors. Mary Whipple
Shortly after their arrival, they meet Charly and Hanna, fellow Germans also on vacation. Charly and Hanna are out for a good time, with non-stop drinking and partying, and Udo would rather stay in his room where he pores over strategy for The Third Reich. Inge often goes off with Charly and Hanna, to the beach, to Barcelona, or to nightclubs, where they soon become friends with two low-lifes, Wolf and the Lamb, through whom Udo also meets El Quemado, who owns one of the paddleboat concessions along the beach. "El Quemado," which translates as "the burning," is a former soldier who is grotesquely burned on his head and upper body, and though he is untutored, he soon becomes as avid a player of The Third Reich as Udo.
As Udo and El Quemado replay the Second World War late at night while the others are out, Quemado proves to be a worthy challenger to Udo. While Udo is involved with all this, real life is taking place in the real world. One of the other characters disappears and is presumed dead, the women face possibly life-threatening crises and assaults, and suggestions of real, on-going evil pervade the action on all levels.
Ultimately, the novel takes on some of the themes and, certainly, the tone of the German Faust legend. Udo, the champion, playing the role of the Germans, resembles the intelligent but somewhat naïve Faust, and El Quemado, "the burning" or "the burned one," playing the Allies, resembles the devil, at least from Udo's point of view. Ultimately, the Faust parallels, though intriguing and atmospheric, are not complete, however, and the reader is left without a sense of real resolution. Overall, the novel is fun to read, but this is a very early novel which Bolano himself decided not to publish during his lifetime. The whole concept of obsession so dominating a person or group of people that it controls their entire raison d'etre is a fascinating one, certainly one we saw with the real Third Reich, though the description of the game and its moves is less interesting , if not dull. Had the subordinate characters been more fully developed and more plausible, the novel would have been stronger, but overall, this lesser Bolano was more fun to read and more interesting than many contemporary novels by lesser authors. Mary Whipple
2666 is considered the late Chilean author Roberto Bolano's masterpiece, but some find it complicated, dark and (at 900 pages) too long. At less than 300 pages, not at all complicated and not particularly dark, The Third Reich offers a more readily digested introduction to Bolano's work.
Twenty-four year old Udo Berger is holidaying in Spain with girlfriend Ingeborg, their first holiday together. He has taken her to a hotel where he several times stayed with his family when a boy. The hotel, the beach, and some of the cafes and night spots remain much the same as ten years earlier, but apart from Frau Else, proprietress of the hotel, they meet no-one he knows. Even so, they quickly acquire a set of friends. Hannah, holidaying with Charly, becomes a particular friend for Ingeborg. Udo is not keen on Charly, considering him a braggart and a drunkard, and is not much interested in his windsurfing. Udo is attracted more by two locals, known as The Wolf and The Lamb, though their company too involves hard drinking in non-touristic bars. Udo also develops a fascination for El Quemado (the burned one), a horribly disfigured South American who hires out paddle boats on the beach.
Ingeborg's desire to sunbathe, her friendship with Hannah and her absorption in a detective novel allow Udo the time he needs to set-up and practice a board game he has brought with him, The Third Reich. The game represents military and strategic aspects of the Second World War. As players combine their skill as commander-in-chief with the chance element of successive throws of a dice, varying scenarios become possible, including invasion of England and victory for Germany. Udo has established himself in Germany as a top player of the game, has published some magazine articles about it, and on the strength of that hopes to become a professional writer.
Although the novel is narrated throughout by Udo, we quickly realise that his representation of other people's feelings, even of some basic facts, cannot necessarily be relied upon. We start to draw our own conclusions about his relationship with Ingeborg; to think The Wolf and The Lamb dangerous company; to realise that there is more depth to El Quemado than Udo suspects, more depth than there is to Udo himself. Udo is riding for a fall.
Like 2666, The Third Reich was complete when Bolano died, but not in his view ready for publication. Unlike 2666, on which he was actively working when he died, The Third Reich was an earlier work and had been set aside. So don't expect too much of the closing pages; remember that Bolano was presumably not happy with them and, had he lived, might even have made plot changes.
Being thus warned, though, don't be put off; the book is well worth reading.
Twenty-four year old Udo Berger is holidaying in Spain with girlfriend Ingeborg, their first holiday together. He has taken her to a hotel where he several times stayed with his family when a boy. The hotel, the beach, and some of the cafes and night spots remain much the same as ten years earlier, but apart from Frau Else, proprietress of the hotel, they meet no-one he knows. Even so, they quickly acquire a set of friends. Hannah, holidaying with Charly, becomes a particular friend for Ingeborg. Udo is not keen on Charly, considering him a braggart and a drunkard, and is not much interested in his windsurfing. Udo is attracted more by two locals, known as The Wolf and The Lamb, though their company too involves hard drinking in non-touristic bars. Udo also develops a fascination for El Quemado (the burned one), a horribly disfigured South American who hires out paddle boats on the beach.
Ingeborg's desire to sunbathe, her friendship with Hannah and her absorption in a detective novel allow Udo the time he needs to set-up and practice a board game he has brought with him, The Third Reich. The game represents military and strategic aspects of the Second World War. As players combine their skill as commander-in-chief with the chance element of successive throws of a dice, varying scenarios become possible, including invasion of England and victory for Germany. Udo has established himself in Germany as a top player of the game, has published some magazine articles about it, and on the strength of that hopes to become a professional writer.
Although the novel is narrated throughout by Udo, we quickly realise that his representation of other people's feelings, even of some basic facts, cannot necessarily be relied upon. We start to draw our own conclusions about his relationship with Ingeborg; to think The Wolf and The Lamb dangerous company; to realise that there is more depth to El Quemado than Udo suspects, more depth than there is to Udo himself. Udo is riding for a fall.
Like 2666, The Third Reich was complete when Bolano died, but not in his view ready for publication. Unlike 2666, on which he was actively working when he died, The Third Reich was an earlier work and had been set aside. So don't expect too much of the closing pages; remember that Bolano was presumably not happy with them and, had he lived, might even have made plot changes.
Being thus warned, though, don't be put off; the book is well worth reading.
2 of 3 people found the following review helpful
Discovered after his death `The Third Reich' is a tale of madness and obsession, the descent from order into chaos. The protagonist, Udo Berger, has recently been crowned German War-Games Champion and `Third Reich' is his favourite game. He is now on holiday on the Costa Brava - at a resort he visited as a child - with his girlfriend Ingeborg where they befriend another German couple, Charly and Hanna and some dissolute locals including the Wolf and the Lamb. He also becomes intrigued by El Quemado, a badly deformed foreigner who hires out paddle boats and sleeps on the beach. Udo leads and frankly, needs a structured, well-ordered life and while the others spend most of the time at the beach enjoying themselves he locks himself away planning strategies for his games. One night Charly vanishes and this creates a situation that Udo is unable to control and he refuses to return home until Charly has been found - dead or alive and Ingeborg returns to Germany alone. His life starts to fall apart and he begins to suffer from hallucinatory dreams that drive him to the verge of madness. Believing that playing war games is the one thing he can control he begins a long game of `Third Reich' with El Quemado. The game does not progress as Udo expects, he becomes increasingly paranoid and the tension of the novel increases, for Udo war gaming is a deadly serious business, but what does it mean to El Quemado?
As you would expect from Bolano the writing style of `The Third Reich' is poetic and hypnotic and there is a lot going on beneath the surface of the story. It also contains some long paragraphs, one being a list of German generals. There is also a lot of technical detail involving strategy and the rules of the games which some readers may find boring however it does reflect Udo's obsessive nature of. I think that anyone reading this book will see why the protagonist had to be German, the well-ordered life of Udo and therefore the entire story would not have worked had he been South American or Spanish! A more accessible novel than `2666' but still not an easy read although it is well worth the effort.
As you would expect from Bolano the writing style of `The Third Reich' is poetic and hypnotic and there is a lot going on beneath the surface of the story. It also contains some long paragraphs, one being a list of German generals. There is also a lot of technical detail involving strategy and the rules of the games which some readers may find boring however it does reflect Udo's obsessive nature of. I think that anyone reading this book will see why the protagonist had to be German, the well-ordered life of Udo and therefore the entire story would not have worked had he been South American or Spanish! A more accessible novel than `2666' but still not an easy read although it is well worth the effort.
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