So after reading this novel, I was discussing it with one of my roommates who has also read it. And we realized that we had nothing to say about it beyond the fact that we enjoyed it. And, to be sure, it was an amazing book that was well worth reading. It just felt incomplete and unresolved. We couldn’t be sure if it meant something or if it meant nothing. It was full of interesting characters whose live intertwined in amazing patterns…but the main plot was left hanging. All the characters end up revolving around a Mexican town known for hundreds of unsolved murders of young women.
In the end, I think I’m taking the book to be a prophetic-ish warning. The book clearly revolves around murder and violence, and there are a couple of characters who seem to be warning of encroaching doom. I think Bolano, on his deathbed (it was published post-humously), was looking at the current course of the world and saw it in a death spiral. Thus, an apocalyptic novel that shows the reader that they’re not desensitized (the fourth section of the book detailed the crimes and was one of the hardest things I’ve ever had to read) and that something needs to be done. But I could be wrong and have been known to be wrong before.