La parte de los crímenes


is the name of book four in Bolaño's 2666. This book is centered on a catalogue of the series of murders around Juárez, beginning in 1993 and continuing to this day. I'm reading it as quickly as possible, anxious to find some sort of connecting plot. But none appears, other than the newspaper-like prose that lists and outlines clues, evidence found among the victims. There are no protagonists in this section of the novel. The growing list of dead seem to push toward a newspaper view, ink stained fingers and a growing dread that manifests itself in nightmares or strange (visionary?) dreams. Bolaño is building a tragedy on a massive scale, investigating evil and its mundane presence in our daily lives. The effect of so much suffering is paralyzing.

*

Rather than reading the half-assed researchers at The Nation on Venezuela, I prefer the analysis of Elizabeth Burgos, in her recent essay on Chavismo: "¿Revolución, nacional etnicismo, neo-fascismo?" published at El Meollo (see "Opinión" section).

Along with Francisco Toro's "The Non-sense Revolution or...Very early steps towards a critical theory of chavismo," at his blog.