Week 7: Amulet by Roberto Bolano

This is another one of those books where a preface or introduction is invaluable. If I hadn't known that this book was the ramblings of a half-starved woman trying to survive for 13 days in the university's ladies' restroom, it might have been my second failure of the year.

Apparently, this book was originally published in Spanish, and I wonder if some of the author's intonation might have been lost in translation... I realize the idea is to understand Auxilio's frame of mind, but the rambling on and on was so aggravating. I felt like saying, "I get it! I get it! She's insane! Okay! Move onto the next point." I skipped whole sections once I understood the pattern.

The author used no quotations when it came to dialogue, which made this book even tougher for me - reading this book with a headache was nearly impossible - so perhaps if I had read this somewhere with less barometric pressure, I might have been more successful in understanding it from cover to cover. Oh well, onto the next one.