The opening of the novel, wherein the narrator and self-proclaimed “mother of poetry,” Auxilio Lacouture, claims this novel is going to be a horror story but it won’t seem like it from her perspective could not have held more true. As a reader, it was so easy to get distracted by the lifestyles of Auxilio […]
Posted in Blogs, Bolaño | Tagged with future, memory, past, Poetry
I thoroughly enjoyed this novel, particularly the style of prose. I love poetry, so this was a riveting read. It is not surprising that an author writing about poets is a poet himself, and thus uses poetic language/devices in his writing. One of my favourite lines is, “women, dust and literature have always gone together” […]
Posted in Blogs, Bolaño | Tagged with historical, poet, Poetry, prose, revolution
I found this week’s reading to be really captivating, and from reading some other blog posts, I think this is a fairly objective opinion. Personally, I didn’t have that much background education on Latin American history, and I found Amulet … Continue reading →
“All she, and Bolaño, can do is ensure that the echoes of their song, the traces of that generosity and courage, endure as both promise and warning.” This statement from Professor Beasley-Murray, for me, was a very precise one-sentence summary of the meaning behind Roberto Bolaño’s Amulet. Indeed, this story seems to be the living […]
Posted in Blogs, Bolaño | Tagged with history, literature, Magic Realism, modernism, recollection, Symbolism, temporality, war
Roberto Bolaño’s Amulet is indeed a story of a terrible crime, as the introductory paragraph of the novel indicates. The story is associated with painful memories that are difficult to talk about. In the narrative point of view of an Uruguayan woman named Auxilio Lacouture, a tale of poetry, trauma, and political resistance is told. […]
Posted in Blogs, Bolaño | Tagged with idealism, politics, trauma, violence
This was the first book I read entirely in one sitting. I was surprised, but how could you not keep on reading when the first line is “This is going to be a horror story”(pg.1) … The theme of memory is quite present throughout Auxilio’s broken narrative. Her recollections seem very “…fragmentary, as if mauled … Continue reading “Thoughts on Bolaño’s Amulet”
Posted in Blogs, Bolaño | Tagged with Hallucination, memory, Mexico, Poetry, trauma
Another book with a stream of consciousness about memories … I am sensing a theme here. As Auxilio hides in the university bathroom for 12 days, she reflects on different memories and experiences, transporting the reader to a different world than the reality of her sitting in the bathroom stall as the army invades the […]
Posted in Blogs, Bolaño | Tagged with horror, latin america, Mexico, time, week10
“Amulet” by Roberto Bolaño examines a Uruguayan poet, Auxilio Lacouture, grounded in being stuck in a fourth-floor university bathroom cubicle for thirteen days (or so) with no food during the Tlatelolco massacre in Mexico City. This massacre was a real life event in which the Mexican armed forces opened fire on unarmed students protesting the […]
