A monstrous wall of text, devoid of paragraph breaks to ease our endurance of a deathbed soliloquy from a caricature of all that Bolaño hates. Feverishly recapitulated by a failed poet, turned critic all while neglecting his duties as a priest, this book is kind of a straw man for which the author seeks to decry:

marks the beginning of its author's criticism of artists who retreat into art, using aestheticism as a way of blocking out the harsh realities of existence

In some respects, it's kind of like Everyman in the sense that we're not even really supposed to feel sympathy for the narrator, but this is far more of a screed and political tell-all (a narrative device for Bolaño to speak out against Pinochete)

“One has a moral obligation to take responsibility for one’s actions, and that includes one’s words and silences, yes, one’s silences, because silences rise to heaven too, and God hears them, and only God understands and judges them, so one must be very careful with one’s silences. I am responsible in every way.”

Chronologies his visits to European parishes, plagued by pigeon shit, as well as his return to Chile where Urrutia pays little attention to the unraveling of Chilean democracy. Instead, he reads Greek tragedy.

He sells out in the new government, which is the central point of contention for Bolaño He visits Canales—in the wake of Pinochet’s downfall ostracized by literary society—and confronts her. She dares him to enter the basement where the torture took place. He refuses, and she scoffs,

“That is how literature is made in Chile.” Urrutia concedes this point, “or at least what we call literature to prevent ourselves from falling into the rubbish dump.”

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