Book Club 2025: De romantiske hundene by Roberto Bolaño
Of all the things I opine on that I’m utterly unqualified to opine on, poetry is the thing that I’m unqualifiediest (that’s a word) to opine on.
But I’ve never let that stop me before, so:
Eh, it didn’t grab me. I have no idea, of course, whether it’s the translation that’s the problem (this was originally Los perros románticos, or The Romantic Dogs in English), or whether the poems are just kinda flat, but it feels oddly lifeless and not very interesting. And that’s certainly not a problem with Bolaño’s novels.
Helle Helle is a Danish author, and I've seen her books around for years, but never actually read any of her books. I guess the main intriguing thing for me has been her cool name -- yes, I'm that shallow. I guess I bought this book at an airport in…
I quite enjoyed Block's later Bernie Rhodenbarr books -- they were repetetive, but well-written and amusing. So I went ahead and bought all of his earlier Tanner books, and this is the second of those I've read. And as before, he's got the patter going, and it's amusingly written. But…
I bought this (at a sale) back in 2009 along with either Malone Dies or Molloy. I read the other book at the time, but not this one. I'm really culturemaxxing here -- this edition was translated by Norway's foremost poet, Jan Erik Vold, in the late 60s. And it…
