2666

"2666" is divided into five parts, each telling five independent yet interconnected stories. The first part focuses on literary critics. Four contemporary European literary critics (three men and one woman) are linked by the fate of a German writer named Benno von Archimboldi. These four scholars, translating and researching Archimboldi's works in their respective countries, eventually met and became friends at an international literary symposium. A romantic bond then blossomed between these three men... A chance tip led them to believe that Archimboldi had recently appeared in Mexico. Thus, three of the four critics flew to Mexico, arriving at the dilapidated city of Santa Teresa...
Part Two: Amalfitano. A philosophy professor living in Santa Teresa, Amalfitano, is edging closer and closer to insanity. His wife, Laura, left him for a poet in a mental hospital, and he now lives alone with his seventeen-year-old daughter in this desolate town on the Mexican border. One day, while sorting through a bookcase, he decides to hang a geometry book he stumbled upon on a clothesline in the yard. He wants to see this abstract mathematical work, "How to resist the attacks of nature" and "How to overcome desert weather," so that "the wind can wander through the pages, select the questions it finds, and turn and tear the pages."
Part Three, Fate. Oscar Fate, an African-American journalist working for a New York magazine, is assigned to Santa Teresa to cover a boxing match in Mexico. Here, he encounters a group of local media professionals and befriends Amalfitano's daughter. Fate learns that the border town is plagued by a serial murder epidemic, with local women being murdered, raped, and their bodies dumped in the wilderness. Fate attempts to report on these horrific murders, but encounters numerous obstacles...
Part Four, "The Crimes," is the novel's longest and darkest section. The author presents the reader with a chilling, blood-curdling account of the serial murders in Santa Teresa. The author documents the murders of over 100 women in Santa Teresa between January 1993 and December 1997, a case the police have been unable to solve or prevent.
Part Five: Acinboldi. Acinboldi finally appears. His story begins in childhood. It tells the story of a child born in a seaside village, how he became fascinated by a book titled "Fauna and Flora of the European Coastal Region," how he became a young servant in a declining estate, how he began reading novels, how he enlisted and marched to the battlefields of World War II, how he experienced various adventures during the war, how he became a writer after the war, how he found himself forced to remain anonymous, how he became connected to a murder case in Mexico, and how he decided to travel to Santa Teresa...

2012-01-01

上海人民出版社

Century Wenjing

872

9787208100718