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The
modern socio-political history of Chile is tumultuous and
contentious. In the span of a few years, the government transitioned
from the socialist administration of Salvador Allende, which
brought 1200% inflation rates to the country, to the controversial
quasi-military rule of Augusto Pinochet, where more than 3,000
political dissidents were killed and over 30,000 tortured.
Chilean-Mexican writer Roberto Bolaño, who returned to Chile
1973 to support Allende's socialist government, spent eight
days in jail during Pinochet's rule. Knowing this, one can
see clearly that Bolaño's sympathies do not lie with the protagonist
of his book By Night in Chile.
Father
Urrutia Lacroix, priest, poet, literary critic, and supporter
of the Pinochet regime, lies on his deathbed delivering a
rambling, stream-of-consciousness narrative, essentially forgiving
himself for his sins (of which he contends he has none) while
he is taunted by a real or imagined "wizened youth." This
compelling monologue is Bolaño's condemnation of the hypocrisy
that ruled his country—both politically and artistically—for
a brief, terrible time.
At 130
pages, this seems a slender volume, but the book itself is
without paragraphs and the prose is meaty, emulating the sort
of internal dialogue that may go through one's mind during
a bout with insomnia. By Night in Chile is more of
a thick, solid poem than a novel; the reader is never rushed
along by narrative, but instead slowed by the priest's serpentine
thoughts.
Urrutia's
story begins when, as an impressionable young priest, he is
invited to the estate of a famous literary critic, the pseudonymous
Farewell. Urrutia clearly will lose his innocence and be spiritually
degraded by Farewell's opulent lifestyle and glittering parties
filled with Chile's elite literati. Urrutia himself becomes
a literary and cultural critic, writing criticism under the
name Ibacache. He also joins the Catholic group Opus Dei.
The use of pseudonyms by both Farewell and Urrutia speaks
of the sort of subterfuge that both use to distance themselves
as critics from their truer selves.
What
seems like a simple, albeit rambling, monologue is also a
statement on the corruption and decay of the human body and
soul. Images of viscera, feces, and nausea abound. When Opus
Dei advisors, Mr. Raef and Mr. Etah, send him to inspect dilapidated
European church buildings, he discovers that most churches
have been subjected to years of corrosion by pigeon guano
and are now being "protected" by a class of falconer-priests
whose birds-of-prey are sent up daily to rid the churches
of the pigeons. What follows is both comical and gruesome
as falcons with names like Ronny or Ta Gueule leave the small
town skies deep red with pigeon and starling blood and guts.
Raef and Etah (hate and fear, spelled backwards) are present
throughout the book, subtly bullying Urrutia into doing things
he may not want to do, such as instructing General Pinochet
and top members of the Junta in Marxism.
Allende's
reign, which Urrutia finds "absolutely unbearable," goes by
in a flash of two pages as Urrutia buries himself in classics
and criticism. Here, the prose becomes both more succinct
and hurried as Urrutia tries to rush through what he feels
is a terrible chapter in both his life and the life of Chile:
"The government nationalized the copper mines and then the
nitrate and steel industries and Pablo Neruda won the Nobel
prize and Dîaz Casanueva won the National Literature prize
and Fidel Castro came on a visit…and Lafourcade published
White Dove and I gave it a good review, you might say
I hailed in glowing terms, although deep down I knew it wasn't
much of a book, and the first anti-Allende march was organized…"
When Allende dies, the prose goes back to being more evocative
and descriptive, with tinges of death imagery: "It was as
if we had all been dreaming and had suddenly woken into real
life, although occasionally it seemed to be the other way
round, as if we had been plunged into a dream…anything can
happen and whatever happens the dreamer accepts it.
Movement works differently. We move like gazelles or the way
gazelles move in a tiger's dream."
That
Urrutia is an unreliable narrator almost goes without saying.
This becomes increasingly obvious towards the end when he
discusses his relationship with writer Marîa Canales—he
only went to her parties once a month, he only went to two,
he barely knew her, he only had two conversations with her,
he vows never to attend another party of hers, he goes to
her weekly soiree yet again. Bolaño uses the Canales soirees
to comment on the state of Chilean society in the 70's and
80's, as the rich and influential constantly violate government
curfews to hold lavish parties. Nothing happens to the privileged
classes, and nothing is mentioned of the regular people who
dare flout the curfew. Even Urrutia wonders, "I thought how
odd it was that, with all the racket and all the lights, the
house was never visited by military or police patrol."
Urrutia's
deathbed rant is more of a faux-confession that leaves out
all the bad parts. Urrutia says, "all horrors are dulled by
routine," possibly referring to both his own actions and the
actions of the Pinochet government. By Night in Chile
is one of those rare books that provide readers with a soul-searching
history lesson in the form of a sad, brief, gripping novel.
(July,
2007)
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