The Part About the Critics (Week One, Post #2, pp. 1-85)

Frampton, G. (Sculptor). (1912). Peter Pan Statue. Kensington Gardens, London, England.

Three areas that I want to address in today’s post:

1. Pelletier’s and Espinoza’s lust for and romantic liaisons with their colleague Liz Norton.

2. Artistic mania.

3. The brutal attack on the Pakistani taxicab driver.

When we are introduced to each of the four critics—Pelletier, Espinoza, Morini, and Liz Norton--in the opening pages of the novel, the narrator describes the three men as being ambitious about their Archimboldi pursuits. Liz Norton is not similarly driven, being less ambitious by nature. Prior to the time that Pelletier and Espinoza recognized and proclaimed their love for Liz, Archimboldi studies was their life. While Pelletier and Espinoza work to maintain their friendship during the months both are sleeping with Liz, the mystery of Liz’s heart and intentions strains the men’s relationship. But when the two men realize that Liz is sexually involved with yet a third man, a teacher named Prichard, they now share a target for their animus, jealousy, and self-doubts.

What do these developments say about Pelletier’s and Espinoza’s professional drive? Their friendship? Their respect for Liz Norton? Their maturity? In the midst of this sexual to and fro, Morini, our fourth critic, looks mature and confident in comparison!

Perhaps the author’s point in presenting these untenable flings is to question the single-focused pursuit of art. Do our base human instincts, like sex, usurp art? Maybe Mrs. Bubis’ question about how well anyone could ever really understand another’s art underlines the futility of even trying to do so? Has loving Liz made this apparent to Pelletier and Espinoza as pertains to their former Archimboldi fixation?

The topic of being obsessed with art brings me to Liz’s story about the painter Edwin Jones, which she shares with Morini. (I don’t’ know if Edwin Jones is based on an actual artist. The story is so tragically absurd that I really hope not!). Jones at the age of thirty-three, intentionally chopped off his right hand and incorporated it into his self-portrait. This act of self-mutilation brought Jones fame and huge success. But Jones soon afterward went mad and has lived in a French convalescent home since. Liz tells Morini that the act of self-mutilation happened when Jones moved his studio into a poor neighborhood where he recognized that “pain or the memory of pain” eventually leaves nothing but “a void,” or “emptiness.”

Morini is very affected by the story of Jones, and when Liz gives him an artbook about Jones’ work, Morini accepts it, but reluctantly, thinking that it might not be a good idea to dwell on Jones, “[b]ut if I don’t do it I’ll die.” What draws Morini to Jones and this type of madness? Is there a parallel between the irresistible pull of Jones’ life and work for Morini and the pull of Archimboldi on the critics’ imagination? Morini is handicapped, as is Jones. We are told in the opening paragraphs of the novel that Morini has multiple sclerosis and suffered a “strange and spectacular accident that left him permanently wheelchair-bound.” Might this strange, spectacular accident” be similar in some degree to what Jones did to himself?

Even more disturbing than the story about Jones, however, is Pelletier’s and Espinoza’s assault of the Pakistani taxi driver in London, which I mentioned briefly in my prior post. When the driver overhears Liz and her two colleagues/lovers talking about the perils and inevitability of jealousy in sexual relationships, he begins to insult them, calling Liz a “slut” and Pelletier and Espinoza “whoremongers.” As the taxi stops, Espinoza gets out and drags the driver out of the cab as well. He and Pelletier repeatedly kick the driver to the ground, continuing to do so even after he lays inert at their feet. The fact that these two well-heeled scholars commit this assault absent any threat of physical harm to themselves, and in the face of Liz’s protest that they stop, is remarkable. So, too, is how all three of the critics feel immediately afterwards: as though they were experiencing a post “orgasmic” calm.

During the days that follow the two men discuss their guilt and remorse about the beating, “though deep inside they were convinced that it was the Pakistani who was the real reactionary and misogynist, the intolerant and offensive one, that the Pakistani had asked for it a thousand times over. The truth is that at moments like these, if the Pakistani had materialized before them, they probably would have killed him.”

I mentioned that one of the primary narratives of 2666 is the serial killings of women at the US-Mexico border. What is Bolaño telling us about violence with this episode of the assault of the taxi driver? Would this fit of madness have occurred if the driver had been white? Western?

It occurs to me that I used “madness” and “fit of madness” to describe both Edwin Jones’ violence to himself and the critic’s assault of the Pakistani. What distinctions or similarities should we see in these two acts?

Also, what about the scene where Pelletier and Espinoza watch the Japanese horror film together? Espinoza’s misogyny is revealed here, as is Pelletier’s later with his attitude toward Vanessa, the prostitute that he hires. Is this type of misogyny a “gateway” to physical violence?

Things to think about as we approach our week two reading:

1. Are you enjoying the book? Do you find the digressions enlightening or distracting? Are you frustrated by the lack of a clear path forecasting the direction that the novel is going?

2. Might Morini be a foil for Pelletier and Espinoza? (Happily, we get a bit more Morini in week two).

3. Is Bolaño’s direct, colloquial style of writing appealing? Although there remains some mystery regarding the four critics, do you feel that Bolaño is developing these characters’ personalities well?

An interesting footnote: The author Rodrigo Fresán makes a cameo in the novel. On pages 59-60, Liz Norton, Pelletier, and Espinoza watch the sun set near the Peter Pan statue in Kensington Gardens, a favorite spot of Norton’s since childhood. There they see a young Spanish couple approach the Peter Pan statue. The man jots down something on a notepad and says aloud, “Kensington Gardens.”

Fresán’s 2003 novel Kensington Gardens is about the life of J.M. Barre, the creator of Peter Pan. Bolaño and Fresán were friends, and Fresán has talked about his appearance in 2666. If you are interested in checking out Fresán’s work, I highly recommend his latest novel, Melvill.