>I don’t think I’m a slouch in reading books that can drag, lesser Joseph Heller novels, Murakamis 1Q84 are books that I have deeply enjoyed, but every time I pick up 2666 my brain begs me to put it back down. Clocking in at 1000 pages the book is purportedly about a mysterious serial killer in Mexico and a meditation on the nature of evil but if in my 300 pages of reading I’ve come across that I’d be hard pressed to tell you how.

Well the dryness may actually be the translation. I found him detached but not dry, not as if I were reading a history book, more almost hmmm, like a legend or something, glimpsed from old newspaper lines, a clouded view into something that leaves out as much as it takes in.

I think this perspective is most obvious when you get to the part with the Hungarian Fascist guy. To me, this was the lynchpin of the book. That despite the debonair and suave exterior that someone like your professors have, there is a rage and brutality that lurks within them, that makes them not unlike the very suave Hungarian fascist, who also has his own concealed rage. They have that thirst in them, even when they hide it. It is this kind of person who is somehow coddled and nurtured by the world, until he or she can come forth and make that rage bloom in some kind of act.

Are you reading this in English? I think it's legitimately better in Spanish.

Bolaño builds terror through menace, that is what the book is thematically about.

Evil, terror, menace, and violence that swirl and congeal, and as soon as you look at those things and try to examine them, they dissipate. But, the inability to measure or understand the menace, the evil, the conspiracy, the blind but morbid workings of society, in no sense means that it is somehow not real or dangerous.

Rather it is like being in a dark room, trying to find the monster, knowing one is there, and watching him occasionally do his thing in very dim glimpses. Also, this is somewhat a test of your sanity, as is the case with "Tercer Reich".

It had a few boring moments, but I thought it was well written, and in some ways realistic: a person in that situation won't have many chances or opportunities to escape it, or to influence the world very much. She's a prisoner inside an effective totalitarian theocracy.

They created the economic framework of neoliberalism, which destroyed the very service and technical jobs they got rich on, while simultaneously unchaining basic prices of healthcare and education which have inflated to disgusting levels. Doing this they cheated their children and children's children of stable incomes, healthcare access, and any kind of secure future.

There's quite a bit to be dissatisfied about when it comes to the Reagan/Thatcher generation and their after effects.

EDIT: We've been so ideologically lobotomised by this generation, that we can no longer imagine meaningful economic intervention in society. Like the fool who thinks "we'd be infinitely worse off" if we actually... I don't know... DID something about billionaires causing people to spend their entire lives in debt slavery because they want an education or because they need to see a doctor. (this is the comment I got with the facepalm award - thank you for highlighting the incredible narrowmindedness of neoliberal policy).

It's disgusting.

>Best of luck. I wish we in the UK could choose our next leader.

You can choose a capitalist who causes the rise of fascism, or a diet coke fascist.

Welcome to every single US election. Does RoCk tHa VoTe feel significant to you, now?

American fascism is not like German Nazism, and as others have mentioned, is more akin to Italian Fascism. The Americans are neither as focused or as organized, and like Italy, Spain, and perhaps Chile, lean on traditional values, machismo, and religion more. They're possibly less organized than those three countries, as well.

All political ideologies, including fascism, mold themselves to fit our particular time and material conditions. In that light, the fascists can't help but change as well.

So, I don't think it will be a step-for-step repeat, but will it be a fascist rising? Probably. Will there be a far left, that is anarchist or communist that opposes it? Probably. What is causing all of this? The failure of the capitalist center politicians and political ideologies to be relevant and helpful for the great masses of the people.