“I am a friend to all Mexicans. I could say I am the Mother of Mexican poetry, but I better not. I know all the poets and all the poets know me. So I could say it.” – Roberto Bolaño, ‘Amulet’
Books will find you when you need them. Well, it’s true of most art, but we’re talking about books. This week’s book, I picked it up at my last bookstore job, so probably 10 full years ago. The author had been recommended to me by a friend all the way back in college. Yet this novel, about a woman who hangs out with degenerate, idealistic poets too much and becomes a lone resister to a military invasion of a university—well, it was a good read as I’ve been reflecting on the year since Midway Blitz. Obviously, there was no lone fighter in Midway Blitz. The whole city came together. But knowing that our city had that in us, and then seeing it in action? Well. The title is instructive.
What I’ve Been Reading This Week
A book by a South American writer who, like I said, was first recommended to me by a college friend. Despite this, I didn’t know when era this writer belonged to. He’s dead, after all, but he’s also my parents’ age. So the novel feels, y’know, relatively within my lifetime. And reads so thrillingly! In fact, it says up front that it’s a horror story, but then the back jacket copy talks about mystery. So it seemed to the correct book to read in that in-between time of horror season and Noirvember. Horror and crime are cousins, anyway. I mean, I knew that, but Ted “Theodore” C. Van Alst, Jr., has said it, too. So you know it’s true. We’re talking, of course, about Amulet by Roberto Bolaño.
Amulet by Roberto Bolaño: this is one of them slippery time novels, but not in a sci-fi sense. I think part of what kept me from Bolaño for a while is that I thought I’d have to learn, like, quantum theory. It’s akin to Slaughterhouse Five, but closer to The Butterfly Lampshade by Aimee Bender or Still Alive by LJ Pemberton. Our narrator is Auxilio, the self-described “Mother of Mexican Poetry,” who happens to be a Uruguyan asylum-seeker. She’s technically in Mexico illegally, and makes money by acting as an assistant to some older poets by day while being a rad-sounding hang at the bars at night for the younger poets. Generations of poets are attracted to Auxilio’s orbit, because she’s that cool. These odd jobs eventually land her at the National Autonomous University of Mexico. She’s there when the army invades, two weeks before the Tlatelolco Massacre, which is a way way bloodier Kent State. Everyone flees or is arrested, but Auxilio happens to be in the bathroom. She holds out there for thirteen days.
The novel is her memories, unmoored from linear expression. Much like a novel we’ll be reading in December, this isn’t a tale of brave resistance and vanquished fascists. I heard there’s a new Hunger Games, if you’re interested. No, Auxilio isn’t quite right after an ordeal where “having her extremities fall asleep” is the first and least of her problems. She’s not quite haunted, either. She’s resilient, maybe a little more confused about exact details of things, but still mother to the poets. Still a good hang. When you face down an invading army of your own countrymen, how’s life supposed to go on? How are you supposed to forgive or forget? Interesting book to read one year after Midway Blitz, one year after ICE agents kicked in my building’s gate to kidnap a contractor, threatening to take a few of my neighbors and me with them.
LINKS!
Something to listen to while you browse? Inperplex posted a new video.
- I was pulling for Angel Reese and the Atlanta Dream, but Gabby Williams And The Valks Are Golden. Maitreyi Anantharaman at Defector with this particular recap. The Valkyries have been a fun, selfless team. And you know what? Good for the Bay Area. Been awhile since those diehards have raised a banner.
- the valkyries won for the gays by Frankie de la Cretaz in Out Of The League
- Let us never forget the games are what’s important. Enes Kanter wouldn’t know that, he could never stay on the court. The right is pushing its anti-trans fury on the WNBA. Players and fans are loudly pushing back by Lex McMenamin in The Guardian
- How The Golden State Valkyries Won The Most Unlikely Championship by Patrick Redford in Defector
- Mahmoud Khalil On His Time In ICE Detention And The Existential Threat Facing Higher Education by Sarah Borus at Defector
What’re you still doing here? I’m Tame Impala-curious, but not a fan fan. Their cover of Rihanna’s “Same Ol’ Mistakes” (somehow they wrote it and recorded it first, if you even believe in linear time) is really good. So I had to check out their “Kiss From A Rose” cover. Mal and I covered this song once, the few times we played shows together. It’s fun to play.
If you work in the service industry, may you clean up in tips this weekend. Hey, the world needs you, yes you. If there’s anything Amulet shows us, it’s that the most unlikely person can make the unlikeliest difference.
Sorry you got an email,
Chris