Distant Star - Closing

A taxi pulled up beside us. Look after yourself, my friend, he said, and off he went.

Distant Star - pg. 130

This is my last communique from the planet of the monsters/ Never again will I immerse myself in literature's bottomless cesspools. I will go back to writing my poems, such as they are, find a job to keep body and soul together, and make no attempt to be published.

Distant Star - Opening

I

I saw Carlos Wieder for the first time in 1971, or perhaps in 1972, when Salvador Allende was President of Chile.

At that stage Wieder was calling himself Alberto Ruiz-Tagle and occasionally attended Juan Stein's poetry workshop in Concepcion, the so-called capital of the South.

"What star falls unseen?"
WILLIAM FAULKNER

For Victoria Avalos and Lautaro Bolaño

Copyright 1996 by Roberto Bolaño and Editorial Anagrama
Translation copyright 2004 by Chris Andrews

Published by arrangement with the Harvill Press, Random House UK, London.

This edition has been translated with the financial assistance of the Spanish Direccion General del Libro y Bibliotecas, Ministerio de Cultura.

Originally published by Edditorial Anagrama as Estrella distante in 1996

Manufactured in the United States of America.
New Directions books are printed on acid-free paper.
First published as a New Directions Paperbook (NDP993) in 2004.



New Directions Books are published for James Laughlin
by New Directions Publishing Corporation,
80 Eighth Avenue, New York 10011

Bolaño Correspondence @ n+1

http://nplusonemag.com/i-never-went-to-blanes

Monsieur Pain - Closing

" ... In any case a busy routine would have been too much for Monsieur Pain. He tried to get his veteran's pension back, but everything was such a mess in those years; it was hopeless. So we went on working in cabarets and circuses on the outskirts of Paris. Until one day his lungs gave out and he collapsed. He died in my arms, in the manager's office at the Cabaret Madame Dore."

Monsieur Pain - pg. 86

"The movie has just begun," murmured the vendor without looking at me; she was a rather plump redhead, more or less my age, who was busy writing something in what appeared to be an ordinary school exercise book, except that its pages were pink. Verses! A poet!

Monsieur Pain - pg. 82

All I could do was formulate a series of questions. What was Madame Reynaud doing in Lille? Was her presence there related in some way to Vallejo? What threats or promises could the telegram have contained to precipitate such an abrupt departure? How could I describe, or understand, my experience in the warehouse? Had it been an hallucination due to my own nervous instability, or some kind of inscrutable apparition. Was the imitated hiccupping a parody or a premonition? I had claimed that there was a plot to assassinate Vallejo; did I really believe that? I raised the napkin to my lips and closed my eyes. Yes, I did.

Monsieur Pain - pg. 58

"How about you do us a favor and shut up, Jean Luc?"

Raoul requested patiently. "The gentlemen here are trying to have a serious discussion about the fate of our homeland."

Monsieur Pain - pg. 57

The news was about the war in Spain: the latest on the bombing raids, the shelling, and new weapons that we hadn't known in the Great War.

"The damned Germans are testing out their arsenal." said Raoul.

Monsieur Pain - pg. 50

"I don't think so. Dancing is beautiful."

"You're a gentleman, Monsieur Pain. Goodnight."

"Goodnight, Madame Grenelle."

Monsieur Pain - pg. 47

I went across to the tank. On the bottom, resting on a layer of very fine sand, were miniature boats, trains and planes arranged to depict calamities, disasters simultaneously frozen in an artificial moment, over which indifferent goldfish were swimming back and forth.

Monsieur Pain - pg. 46

I went into a cafe: the roof, the walls, the tables, the seats, everything was green. As if the proprietor had, in a fit of madness, tried to give it a jungle-like ambiance or, as I later thought, endeavored to camouflage the premises, and partly succeeded, although in a way that was clearly inept.

Monsieur Pain - pg. 44

"And what are you? A detective?"

"No, god forbid ... Do I look like a detective? I'm just trying to return something that belongs to those two doctors."

Monsieur Pain - pg. 43

Before leaving I glanced at the bed-ridden man. He was dark and the sheets were white and harsh. At that moment everything seemed deceptively simple, or at least open to simple solutions. I was convinced -- and not entirely without reason -- that I could cure Vallejo.

Monsieur Pain - pg. 37

There was not the slightest sound from outside, except perhaps the murmuring of an indecipherable presence in the air,suspended matter;l and the light delineating her silhouette had the gray intimacy of certain Parisian mornings. She smiled sweetly, although with a certain reserve, and looked at everything with the curiosity of a vaguely disappointed little girl.

Monsieur Pain - pg. 31

"Not at all. It would simply be an error for an old man like me to set himself up as a judge ... But there will be judges, Pierre, you can be sure of that, judges hard as stone, who will not know the meaning of the word pity. Sometimes, between sleep and waking, I catch a glimpse of them; I see them at work, deciding. They piece it all together; they are cruel and follow rules that to us seem entirely arbitrary. In a word, they are dreadful and inscrutable. But by then, of course, I'll be gone."

Monsieur Pain - pg. 23

I observed him through the glass of wine: a slow, red eel, sucking his teeth and drinking with a feigned parsimony.

Monsieur Pain - pg. 8

My role and mission when I first appeared in her life had been to save her husband, and I had failed, but now I had a second chance, with her friend's husband; I had to save him, and so testify to a higher reality, a logical oder, in which we could continue to be who were. And perhaps come to recognize one another, finally, and having attained that condition, change, and, in my case aspire to happiness. (A reasonable happiness, akin to care and trust.)

Monsieur Pain - pg. 5

The waiter and the black man turned to look at us. The men, who were extremely pale, nodded their heads in unison, as if to signal assent. I was momentarily under the strange impression that those men, the pair of them, were one of the possible incarnations of pity. I wondered if Madame Reynaud might know them.

Monsieur Pain - Opening

PARIS, 1938

On Wednesday the sixth of April, at dusk, as I was preparing to leave my lodgings, I received a telegram from my young friend Madame Reynaud, requesting, with a certain urgency, my presence that evening at the Cafe Bordeaux, on Rue de Rivoli, relatively close to where I live, which meant that if I hurried, I could still arrive punctually at the specified time.

P. Does the idea of death afflict you?

V. (Very quickly). No--no!

P. Are you pleased with the prospect?

V. If I were awake I should like to die, but now it is no matter. The mesmeric condition is so near death as to content me.

P. I wish you would explain yourself, Mr Vankirk.

V. I am willing to do so, but it requires more effort than I feel able to make. You do not question me properly.

P. What then shall I ask?

V. You must begin at the beginning

P. The beginning! But where is the beginning?

"Mesmeric Revelation"

Edgar Allen Poe

for Carolina Lopez

Copyright 1999 by Roberto Bolaño

Translation copyright 2010 by Chris Andrews

Originally published by Anagrama, Barcelona, Spain, as Monsieur Pain in 1999; published by arrangements with the Heirs of Roberto Bolaño and Carmen Balcells Agencia Literaria, Barcelona.

All rights reserved. Except for brief passages quoted in a newspaper, magazine, radio, or telvision review, no part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying and recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the Publisher.

Manufactured in the United States of America

Published simultaneously in Canada by Penguin Books Canada, Ltd.

New Directions Books are printed on acid-free paper.

First published as a New Directions Book in 2010.

New Directions Books are published for James Laughlin

by New Directions Publishing Corporation,

80 Eighth Avenue, New York 10011