Love and Literature in Chile

Those words are synonyms, right?

Life for the book-obsessed is rough in Chile. Books here are unbelievably expensive, when bought new, in Spanish. They are semi-reasonable to mildy outrageious when bought used, in Spanish. They are hard to find and extremely expensive when bought used in English or French.

Now, I try to read in Spanish. However, given my rather hysterically emotional connection to literature, I have to say that it drives me absolutely mad to read a book and know that I'm not getting anything out of it except for the very surface of the meaning. So I have a couple of books in Spanish, but they go more into the "work" category than into the "personal pursuits" category. Next up is French, which I can read with a decent level of subtlety. For a really satisfactory reading experience, however, I'm still stuck on English, for obvious reasons (ie. I speak it pretty well).

There is a store at the bottom of my hill that sells books in English, French, and Spanish. They are used, and not unreasonably priced for Chile. But the selection is of course somewhat limited.

At times this is very frusturating. I had a similar experience in New Zealand, where I would load up on used books whenever I got the chance and then slowly and strategically comb through the disaster of hostel book exchanges, changing out a book every time I found something else worth reading. A limited book supply, plus a picky reader, involves a lot of effort.

However, there are interesting benefits. Being picky, but being very much left to fate in terms of my options, the last year has finally pushed me out of my center circle of literary interest (being Modernism and contemporary feminists, más o menos). As such, I have finally come to read all sorts of things that had been on the list for ages. For instance, within the last month, I have read the bizarre list of: Herman Hesse's "Steppenwolf," Carol Shields' "The Stone Diaries," Carlos Fuentes' "Aura," Jorge Luis Borges' "Labyrinths," Robert Louis Stevensen's "Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde," Mario Vargas Llosa's "Feast of the Goat," Albert Camus's "La Chute" and "Caligula," Dandwidge Endicat's "Krik? Krak!," D.H. Lawrence's "Sons and Lovers," Jose Donoso's "The Obscene Bird of Night," F. Scott Fitzgerald's "Tender is the Night," and.....Sara Gruen's "Water for Elephants." (NY Times No. 1 Bestseller!)

¡Lista excéntrica!