[Marxism] Robert Bolaño's "By Night in Chile," by L. Proyect

["Gilles d'Aymery" <aymery@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Swans

Robert Bolaño's By Night in Chile
by Louis Proyect
Book Review
May 10, 2004

Robert Bolaño, By Night in Chile, Harvill Press, London, 2000;
ISBN: 1-84343-035-5.

While most people might feel the need to confess on their deathbed,
the Opus Dei priest of Robert Bolaño's By Night in Chile does just
the opposite. Over the course of this intense novella, Sebastián
Urrutia Lacroix attempts to justify his collaboration with the Pinochet
regime to his readers, yet seems determined above all to convince
himself that he was without sin. The opening sentences set the tone for
the entire work:

"I am dying now, but I still have many things to say. I used to be at
peace with myself. Quiet and at peace. But it all blew up
unexpectedly. That wizened youth is to blame. I was at peace. I am
no longer at peace. There are a couple of points that have to be
cleared up. So, propped up on one elbow, I will lift my noble,
trembling head, and rummage through my memories to turn up the
deeds that shall vindicate me and belie the slanderous rumours the
wizened youth spread in a single storm-lit night to sully my name. Or
so he intended. One has to be responsible, as I have always said. One
has a moral obligation to take responsibility for one's actions, and that
includes one's words and silences, yes, one's silences, because
silences rise to heaven too, and God hears them, and only God
understands and judges them, so one must be very careful with one's
silences. I am responsible in every way. My silences are immaculate.
Let me make that clear. Clear to God above all. The rest I can
forego. But not God. I don't know how I got on to this. Sometimes I
find myself propped up on one elbow, rambling on and dreaming and
trying to make peace with myself."

Despite being a priest (or perhaps as a result of being one), Urrutia
has lived a life in which morality was the least of his considerations.
His main calling was not to serve god, but to make it the literary world
as a poet and critic. Throughout his narrative, he recounts the various
encounters that helped him achieve that goal, starting with a weekend
at the country estate of "Farewell," the name he gave to a wealthy
Chilean writer. It was there that he met Pablo Neruda, the greatest
poet in Chilean history and a life-long Communist. Father Urrutia is in
awe of Neruda, who spent the evening "reciting verses to the moon."

The next day, while strolling about Farewell's property, he takes a
wrong turn and finds himself among some "rather godforsaken-looking
orchards," being tended by a boy and a girl who were "naked like
Adam and Eve." Urrutia recounts, "The boy looked at me: a string of
snot hung from his nose down to his chest. I quickly averted my gaze
but could not stem an overwhelming nausea. I felt myself falling into
the void, an intestinal void, made of stomach and entrails."

This reaction would betray a certain inability on Urrutia's part to
engage with an aspect of Neruda's poetry that is not focused on the
moon and stars, but rather on more mundane matters:

My love, we are not fond
as the rich would like us to be,
of misery. We
shall extract it like an evil tooth
that up to now has bitten the heart of man.

("Poverty," from The Captain's Verses)

Through persistent hard work, the priest Urrutia becomes a member
of the Chilean literary and intellectual establishment, which he sees in
terms of any hierarchy with a pecking order: "I wrote articles. I wrote
poems. I discovered poets. I praised them. They would have sunk
without a trace if not for me. I was probably the most liberal member
of Opus Dei in the whole Republic." Even the poets of the Chilean
Communist Party "were dying for a kind word from me, a word of
praise for their poetry."

It is possible that Urrutia was inspired by an influential Opus Dei
literary critic of the right wing newspaper El Mercurio. The role of the
Catholic Church in general and Opus Dei in particular in the Chilean
counter-revolution is a story in itself. According to Catholic scholar
and activist Anne Pettifer:

"The Church never distanced itself from the Pinochet regime, which
was largely comprised of Roman Catholics in good standing. (One of
the think tanks instrumental in planning the coup was staffed by
zealous, far-right Catholics.) No one was ever excommunicated, and
when Pope John Paul II celebrated a public Mass during his visit to
Chile in the late 1980s he gave the Eucharist to the General and his
cronies. Some of these men must have been involved in the Santiago
Stadium where so many Chileans were liquidated. At a rally in
Chicago not long after the coup, I heard Victor Jara's widow describe
the manner in which her husband -- the great Chilean folk-singer and
poet -- had been killed in the Stadium. His hands were cut off; then a
guitar was thrust at him and he was told to play."
(http://www.zma g.org/zmag/articles/pettiferapril2000.htm)

Throughout his career, Urrutia remains impervious to Chilean politics.
When Allende arrives on the scene, his aesthetic aloofness faces its
greatest challenge. It was almost impossible for him to ignore the
clashes between the country's haves and have-nots, despite his best
efforts:

[ Full: http://www.swans.com/library/art10/lproy14.html ]


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