I. What ideas of this writer or filmmaker appeal to you the most? Why?
I’m particularly interested in how Roberto Bolaño uses autofiction (a fictional account with autobiographical elements; Bolaño a Lihn were indeed pen pals) to create a dream or rather a nightmare in which Bolaño, Enrique Lihn, and Victor Jara cohabitate the same city, Santiago. This encounter allows Bolaño to elaborate on the aftermath and even afterlives of the Pinochet coup and long regime in Chile (Sep 11, 1973 – Mar 11, 1990). Just like a dream uncovers repressed memories and latent meanings, for Bolaño, the fascist Pinochet era lingers in Santiago for lack of accountability. The dead and the circumstances of repression and violence reappear destabilizing everyday life.
Who are they?
Roberto Bolaño
Enrique Lihn was a Chilean poet, playwright, and novelist. Born in 1929 in Santiago, Chile, Lihn aspired to be a painter, but after a failed attempt during university, he abandoned that dream to pursue writing. His work revolved around his contempt for the contemporary dictatorship as Chile was governed by a military junta. Works layered with social, political, and religious commentary are common throughout Lihn’s canon.
Víctor Jara was a Chilean teacher, theater director, poet, singer-songwriter, and socialist political activist tortured and killed during the dictatorship of Augusto Pinochet. The contrast between the themes of his songs—which focused on love, peace, and social justice—and the brutal way in which he was murdered transformed Jara into a potent symbol of the struggle for human rights and justice for those killed during the Pinochet regime.
. Analyze one specific section by your chosen author that best communicates what you identified in the question above.
After reading the last section of the story (199) and reflecting on the documentary Massacre at the Stadium, why do you think Bolaño talks about a city inhabited by the dead.
What is implied by the observations regarding facades of another time, “a terrible time that endured for no reason other than sheer inertia”? What is the political argument behind this phrase?
III. Discuss how the structure of the text and its linguistic choices (style) enhance the narrative goals of the author.
Infrarealist Poetics
Stylistically, Bolaño’s “Meting with Enrique Lihn” recuperates some of the tenets of the Infrarealist literary movement that Bolaño co-founded with other poets in Mexico during the mid-70s. The infrarealists thought of the poet as an adventurer, visionary, outsider, and intellectual provocateur.
They believe in poetry that could incorporate a mixture of languages and genres into the text as a way of representing the full integration of the poet into all areas of life, including the unconscious. For them, there are invisible levels of reality that need to be uncovered by the poet/writer.
“A new lyricism that’s beginning to grow in Latin America sustains itself in ways that never cease to amaze us. The entrance to the work is the entrance to adventure: the poem as a journey and the poet as a hero who reveals heroes.”
Answer on an Index Card
Do you see some of these ideas in the short story? Explain.
How Lihn’s notion of war complements Bolaño’s dreamscape?
IV. Can you show any analogy/relationship between what the author is saying and your personal experience? If this is not the case, can you establish any connection to other works you have read/heard/seen (books, comics, plays, paintings, photographs, podcasts, music, movies, series, documentaries, etc.)?
Film Noir and Bolaño
1:20-3:15
How Bolaño constructs his dream as the journey of a Film Noir (anti) hero?
How Bolaño integrates Film Noir aesthetics and narrative tropes into his nightmarish representation of Lihn and Jara? 191-2; 196-7