Bolano

            I'm reading a lot. I'm reading a book by Roberto Bolano, The Savage Detectives. It's a long book, six hundred and some-odd pages. My first impressions of Bolano were good, but then I was annoyed with his incessent need to name drop. He'd fill whole pages with names. Latin American writers mostly. If ever you want to learn about Latin American writers, read the first two hundred pages of The Savage Detectives. He stopped doing it and his stories got better. That's what writing is to me, good stories. Some people have them and some people don't. Bolano had them and he didn't pussyfoot around when he told them. I like that. Bad writing is like a meandering joke. It's not very entertaining, and at a certain point you'll lose interest in it. 
            There's an honesty to Bolano. He's not afraid to reveal the intimate elements of his characters. It's hard to be honest. It's a little easier in the third person. "She smells bad" is easier to say than "you smell bad."