He realizes he's losing his grip on reality - at one point he contemplates raping a teenage hotel maid - and it terrifies him. He needs control, and war games are his only way of getting it. Udo has memorized the game board he can manipulate the tokens - the game pieces that stand in for actual human soldiers - better than almost anyone else in the world. Novelists tend to be remembered for their most remarkable characters, and in Udo Berger, Bolano has created someone complex, sometimes frustrating and absolutely unforgettable. His novels include The Savage Detectives, 2666 and Antwerp. After Charly disappears while windsurfing, it doesn't take long for Udo to realize that no amount of skill or strategy can keep his life from falling apart.Ĭhilean novelist and poet Roberto Bolano was 50 years old when he died in 2003. His plans are derailed, though, once he and Ingeborg meet Charly, a charming, impulsive fellow German tourist, and El Quemado ("The Burned One"), a mysterious beach dweller who shows an unexpected interest in the game. He plans to use his time off to research an article he's writing about The Third Reich, a challenging World War II simulation (which is almost certainly based on the real 1974 game Rise and Decline of the Third Reich). Udo is a prodigy, a widely respected master of "war games" - a type of strategy-based board game popular among hobbyists in the 1970s and 1980s. The novel chronicles a month in the life of Udo Berger, a young German on vacation in northeast Spain with his girlfriend, Ingeborg. Compassionate, disturbing and deeply felt, it's as much of a gift as anything the late author has given us.
While it might not feature the narrative fireworks of his award-winning The Savage Detectives (1998) or the epic sprawl of 2666, it's no less brilliant. Not long after his death, his heirs discovered an unpublished manuscript, The Third Reich, written more than 20 years ago, and now translated into English by Natasha Wimmer.
Bolano had died the year before at age 50, and though his admirers suspected he was capable of anything, few anticipated how flawless, how majestic, his final masterpiece would be.Įxcept it wasn't really his final masterpiece.
When Chilean novelist Roberto Bolano's 2666 was released in 2004 (the English translation would come four years later), the literary world was stunned. It's a final gift from someone who can't give any more, a triumph somewhat lessened by the knowledge that the creator is gone forever. In literature, there are few things quite as simultaneously tragic and beautiful as a perfect novel, published posthumously. Your purchase helps support NPR programming. Close overlay Buy Featured Book Title The Third Reich Author Roberto Bolano
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