Roberto Bolano - Last Evenings On Earth

53. Some time ago I met three Argentinian brothers who later gave their lives for revolutionary causes in different Latin American countries. The mutual betrayal of the two elder brothers accidentally implicated the younger one, who hadn't betrayed anyone, and died, so I heard, calling out to them, although it is more likely that he died in silence. 54. The children of the Spanish lion, said Rubйn Darнo, a born optimist. The children of Walt Whitman, Josй Martн, and Violeta Parra; torn apart, forgotten, in mass graves, at the bottom of the sea, the Trojan destiny of their mingled bones terrifying the survivors. 55. I think of them this week as the veterans of the International Brigades visit Spain: little old men climbing down from the buses, brandishing their fists. There were 40,000 of them, and 350 or so have come back to Spain. 56. I think of Beltrбn Morales, I think of Rodrigo Lira, I think of Mario Santiago, I think of Reinaldo Arenas. I think of the poets who died under torture, who died of AIDS, or overdosed, all those who believed in a Latin American paradise and died in a Latin American hell. I think of their works, which may, perhaps, show the Left a way out of the pit of shame and futility. 57. I think of our useless pointy heads and the abominable death of Isaac Babel.

58. When I grow up I want to be Nerudian in my synergy.

59. Questions to ponder before going to sleep: Why didn't Neruda like Kafka? Why didn't Neruda like Rilke? Why didn't Neruda like De Rokha? 60. Did he like Barbusse? Everything seems to suggest that he did. And Sholokhov. And Alberti. And Octavio Paz. Odd companions for a voyage through Purgatory. 61. But he also liked Eluard, who wrote love poems. 62. If Neruda had been addicted to cocaine or heroin, if he had been killed by a piece of rubble during the siege of Madrid in 1936, if he had been Lorca's lover and committed suicide after Lorca was killed, it would be quite a different story. If Neruda had been the mystery that, deep down, he really is! 63. In the basement of the edifice known as "The Works of Pablo Neruda," is Ugolino lurking, waiting to devour his children? 64. Without the slightest remorse! Innocently! Simply because he's hungry and doesn't want to die! 65. He didn't have children, but the people loved him. 66. Do we have to come back to Neruda as we do to the Cross, on bleeding knees, with punctured lungs and eyes full of tears? 67. When our names no longer mean a thing, his will go on shining, his will go on soaring over an imaginary domain called Chilean Literature. 68. By then all poets will live in artistic communities called jails or asylums. 69. Our imaginary home, the home we share.