Most American Poets- like most Americans are unaware of the world outside their own minds. There is little dialogue between American poets and global poets and so the project of Roberto Bolano's Nazi Literature in the Americas will fall flat. But to those few who know the rich cultural milleu of our Hemisphere this book will serve as a lodestar.
Bolano takes as his central premise Right Wing literati and then he uses short story to expose their ironies. He is especially hard on poets- which is appropriate since poets are the artists he most admires. This book however serves as a critique of all of us.
Many writers and poets today are content to remain within the safe world of Academe or poetland and they do not engage with society as a whole. In Bolano's book he takes another tact- the Fascist. The fact is that there are many poets and writers who were not Leftish- Pound, Stevens, Celine, Marinetti, Ahkmatova, Llosa and many others and we tend to forget this fact. Also there are a slew of lesser writers whose work is nursed on the tit of the right.
Bolano also deconstructs our decisions in this book. He shows us how the decisions we make as poets or writers can lead to a consequence we regret. Here in is the reasonj to read this book. \
Spend the time with its short stories and listen for your own hypocracy- I certainly listened to mine.
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