Based on connections the novel itself suggests, I establish a link between 2666 and modernist novels that deal with the concept of a total novel. By approaching 2666 this way, many questions are raised regarding two main issues: what sort of novel is 2666? And what does it represent to the literary writing in early 21st century? The book is often classified as encyclopedic and maximalist, and placed side by side with other long American novels I disagree with those labels, and seek to show how limited they are, reflecting upon the way 2666 rejects common categorical interpretations. The authors main themes the link between ethic and aesthetic, art and violence are reached through formal analysis, in a constant dialog with other works that belong to genres which Bolaño tries to assimilate. The first part of the thesis is dedicated to a close reading of the novel, analyzing its structure, the narrators modulation and Bolaño's stylistic changes in each section, in order to understand how such genres are assimilated.

In this thesis, I argue that 2666 assimilates different literary genres such as the American realist novel, crime fiction in more that one variant, and finally the bildungsroman. Regarded as the high point of Chilean writer Roberto Bolaños (1953-2003) oeuvre, the novel 2666, published posthumously in 2004, is divided in five disharmoniously connected parts.

Bolanos 2666