Empire Game

El Tercer Reich

Douban

NeoDB

☆ Bolaño's highly acclaimed early masterpiece, a precursor to the theme of "2666"

☆The boundary between reality and fiction is becoming blurred in this game, while desire and fear are becoming more and more clear and palpable.

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Udo Berg, an ambitious wargame enthusiast, vacationed that summer with his girlfriend to a Spanish coastal town he had often visited as a child. There, they met Hannah and Charlie, a couple also from Germany, as well as three locals: Wolf, Lamb, and El Quemado, a boat watcher who lived on the beach. However, not long after, Charlie disappeared after a surfing trip. A gloomy atmosphere gradually enveloped the bright and sunny vacation.

With Charlie's fate uncertain, Hannah decides to return to Germany. Ingeborg agrees that they should leave as soon as possible, but Udo seems to be tripped up by something unseen and is determined not to return until Charlie's body is found. Meanwhile, Udo notices El Quemado's keen interest in war games and invites him to play the World War II-themed game, "The Third Reich." As the holiday draws to a close, the tourists gradually depart, the town grows increasingly deserted, and there's still no sign of Charlie. Udo and El Quemado's game continues, and El Quemado, previously completely ignorant of war games, gradually turns the tide of the war. Strange dreams and unsettling fantasies plague Udo. Is there truly some unknown force within "The Third Reich"?

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There is a complete and strange attraction. ... "The Third Reich" is just a war game, as the protagonist Udo and other characters repeatedly emphasize, but as the plot progresses, it becomes more than just a game. We can't help but be drawn into Udo's sentences, and this fictional paper war inadvertently confirms the real trauma. - The New York Times

New readers who are intimidated by the threshold of "2666" will find the charm of Bolaño in this book. - The Economist

From the first sentence, "Games of Empire" reveals Bolaño's hallmarks. The irony, the atmosphere of sexual anxiety, the shadow of nightmare, the timidity, the unreliable narrator, all of which appear in his later works. The young novelist must have been excited, and perhaps a little surprised, to discover such mature writing talent in his work. - "Paris Review"

"Game of Empires" should be placed on the shelf labeled "For Completionists Only." ... The novel has a woozy, slightly dreadful mood, akin to the feeling of a hangover.

—The New Yorker

2020-04-01

上海人民出版社

Century Wenjing

369

9787208162075