That Other September 11, That Other 3,000

Salvador Allende (1908-1973) Vive En Memoria

It was on September 11, 1973, 40 years ago, that democracy died in Chile. A CIA backed coup, led by Gen. Augusto Pinochet, overthrew democratically elected President Salvador Allende and began a repressive, 17 year military dictatorship. Some say that Allende committed suicide during the coup; others, that he was murdered. This event preceded the phrase "regime change" but embodied it.

The BBC put it this way in 1973:

President Salvador Allende of Chile, the world's first democratically-elected Marxist head of state, has died in a revolt led by army leaders.

Air Force planes attacked the presidential palace with rockets and bombs and tanks opened fire after President Allende rejected an initial demand for his resignation.

According to military sources, Dr Allende asked for a five-minute ceasefire in order to resign. But the armed forces said that was impossible because snipers loyal to the president were operating from buildings near the presidential palace.

At least 17 bombs were dropped in an attack on the palace, one of which scored a direct hit. Martial law has been declared throughout the country, a curfew has been imposed and the carrying of guns has been banned.

Although Dr Allende called on his followers to support him, there appeared to be little organised resistance.

Troops blasted buildings in the city centre around the presidential palace in an attempt to dislodge pro-Allende snipers. Helicopters repeatedly machine-gunned the top floors of buildings near the British Embassy. Bullets ripped through the windows of the embassy - but no-one was reported hurt.

Thousands of workers are said to be marching on Santiago from the north, despite a warning any resistance would be met with air and ground fire.

Opposition to President Allende has been growing for months. He was elected to power in 1970 with only 36% of the vote. He has not held a majority in Congress and gradually his authority has been eroded.

His attempts to re-structure the nation's economy have led to soaring inflation and food shortages. A prolonged strike by lorry drivers who opposed his plans for nationalisation has recently been joined by shopkeepers angry they have nothing to sell.

President Allende brought senior army officers into his government last month in an attempt to head off a revolt.

But the final crunch came three days ago when the two major opposition parties called for the President's resignation. ***

After President Allende's death, General Augusto Pinochet, the Chilean Commander-in-Chief and a leader of the military junta, appointed himself President. His Cabinet was made up almost entirely of military men. Martial law remained in effect. Troops patrolled the streets. Dissenters were disappeared. Bodies piled up in the streets and the soccer stadium.

President Allende's widow and a number of his other supporters were granted political asylum in the Mexican Embassy and flew to Mexico five days later.

Pinochet's regime was characterised by brutal repression and more than 3,000 people were killed or disappeared during his 17 years in charge. He was arrested in London in 1998 for human rights abuses but after a protracted legal battle he was ruled unfit to stand trial.

And so, in Chile, a different, sad 9/11, one which our Government would just as soon have us forget. But it's a 9/11 I hope you will pause today to remember, as I do.

I think of Allende and Neruda drving around Chile campaigning. Allende sleeps between the frequent stops. Neruda stares out the window and scribbles. After Allende speaks of politics to small groups of villagers, Neruda, who had by then won the Nobel Prize, reads his poems to them. I imagine that Allende and Neruda are weary but happy. I imagine that they smile and are thankful that they can bring economic justice to their country. I prefer to dwell on these optimistic images of hope than the violent bombing of the presidential palace by Pinochet's colleagues. I prefer to think of Chile (and the world) like this:

How Your Hearts Ache

It must have been a dream. I was in a very dry, very quiet place. Is this the Atacama Desert in Chile? I am not sure. The days are broiling and the sun is blinding. During the day the sky is perfectly blue and cloudless. The nights are freezing and there are millions of stars. As soon as the sun sets, the temperature plummets. There is little vegetation. None of it is green. There are many snakes and scorpions. I am sunburned on the top of my head, and my body is freezing despite the fire. Despite a blanket. I do not understand how we have fuel for a fire. Is it wood? Is it dung? I don’t know. My companions, who appear to be Aymara people, joke about how ill suited I am for this place, their home. Wrong color. Wrong shape. Wrong age. Hands too soft. Feet not hard enough. Very unusual person for here. They are sympathetic to my discomfort. Their kidding is all good natured, a sign of their affection, a part of our being here together. As we sit, they sing songs. The songs are all about rain, even though it has probably never rained in this spot. Ever. Why, I ask them, are all their songs about rain? An old man sitting next to me smiles at the question. “We sing about what we don’t have.” Why, I wonder, are almost all of the songs in the place of my birth about love? The old man sees the sadness appear on my face. “You don’t sing about rain where you come from,” he says. “You must have rain.” He looks up at the stars. “No. Do you sing instead about how your hearts ache?” I nod. He touches me on the shoulder.

Chile: A Call For Your Assistance

Chile's Earthquake

The New York Times is reporting that yesterday's Chile's government having recognized the far ranging extent of the national catastrophe, was calling for international assistance. The Times reports:

Chile’s government, after initially waving off outside aid, changed course Monday as the devastation from the powerful earthquake sank in and the nation’s pressing needs became clear.

With the desperation of many Chileans mounting, the United Nations said that the government had asked for generators, water filtration equipment and field hospitals, as well as experts to assess just how much damage was caused by Saturday’s magnitude 8.8 quake, one of the largest ever measured.

“Everything is now moving,” said Elisabeth Byrs, a spokeswoman for the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs. “We are looking immediately to match the needs.”

Chile has always been considered Latin America’s most earthquake-ready country.... /snip

But despite all that, the powerful quake that jolted Chileans awake has left the country reeling. Collapsed bridges and damaged roadways have made it difficult to even get to some areas. Downed phone lines and cellular towers have made it impossible to communicate. And many residents in the most damaged areas have not only taken food from supermarkets, but also robbed banks, set fires and engaged in other forms of lawlessness.

The Times also notes what should be obvious to people who know Chile: the income and wealth disparities in the country are cavernous. Poor people, to no one's surprise, are most affected by the devastation the quake caused:

The quake has also exposed the fact, experts say, that although Chile is one of the most developed countries in the region, it is also one of the most unequal, with huge pockets of urban and rural poor, who suffered most in the quake.

“It’s the poorest Chileans who live near the epicenter,” said Carolina Bank, a Chilean-born sociology professor at Brooklyn College.

This means that this would be a really good time to get out our wallets and to give aid to organizations that are providing assistance in Chile. Let's remember that this is the internet. Large numbers of people making small donations can have an enormous impact.

My essay on the weekend gave this information, which I repeat here:

The Nation let's us know how to help:

Save The Children -- Save The Children is sending an emergency assessment team to Chile, and is asking for contributions to its Children's Emergency Fund to aid these efforts.

World Vision -- The international development, relief and advocacy organization has already sent its first relief flight, from Bolivia this afternoon, with supplies like tarps, blankets, plastic sheeting, and collapsible water containers for survivors. Support these efforts with earmarked gifts to families that need them.

AmeriCares -- Vice President of Emergency Response, Christoph Gorder, says AmeriCares is sending medical supplies and humanitarian aid to Chile. Make a direct contribution to AmeriCares' Chilean earthquake fund.

Habitat for Humanity -- Habitat for Humanity has a continual presence in Chile, where the group has constructed more than 1,300 homes. Habitat will be essential in reconstruction efforts, especially in hard-hit rural areas.

International Medical Corps -- IMC has a presence in dozens of countries around the globe, providing immediate medical care to those affected by natural disasters. Contribute to its emergency response fund.

ShelterBox -- International disaster relief agency ShelterBox has mobilized a team to bring aid to Concepcion, Chile's second largest city, which saw the worse damage.

There are other groups listed below I like to support. Also, I have some antipathy to some of the groups here, particularly World Vision, because of their proselytizing activities to indigenous people in the high Andes, but right now I think the primary idea is to get aid on the ground to places that need it. There doesn't seem to me to be time to apply litmus tests to the groups that can help right now.

Please add to groups that can help the following:

Oxfam America and

Doctors Without Borders

You can also donate via text message as follows:

* Text CHILE to 90999 to donate $10 to the Red Cross

* Text CHILE to 23583 to donate $10 to Habitat for Humanity

* Text CHILE to 20222 to donate $10 to World Vision

* Text CHILE to 50555 to donate $10 to the Friends of World Food Program

* Text CHILE to 52000 to donate $10 to the Salvation Army

* Text REBUILD to 50555 to donate $10 to Operation USA

* Text 4CHILE to 50555 to donate $10 to Convoy of Hope

Finally, google is supporting donations to UNICEF and Direct Relief International.

Chile's Earthquake: How To Help

The New York Times reports:

A strong aftershock struck Chile on Sunday, a day after a destructive 8.8-magnitude earthquake left hundreds of people dead and a long swath of the country in smoky rubble.

The death toll was expected to rise, particularly around Concepción, Chile's second-largest metropolitan area, which is roughly 70 miles from the quake's center. The aftershock was reported around 8:30 local time Sunday morning from the capital of Santiago, where it shook buildings, according to Reuters.

More than 1.5 million people have displaced by the quake, according to local news services that quoted the director of Chile's emergency management office. In Concepción, which appeared to be especially hard hit, the mayor said Sunday morning that 100 people were trapped under the rubble of a building that had collapsed, according to Reuters.

Elsewhere in Concepción, cars lay mangled and upended on streets littered with telephone wires and power cables. A new 14-story apartment building fell, while an older, biochemical lab at the University of Concepción caught fire.

In other words, what Chilean President Michele Bachelet called a "catastrophe."

Time, again, to get out the checkbook. Remember that this is the internet. Heroics aren't required, just lots of people giving small amounts.

The Nation let's us know how to help:

Save The Children -- Save The Children is sending an emergency assessment team to Chile, and is asking for contributions to its Children's Emergency Fund to aid these efforts.

World Vision -- The international development, relief and advocacy organization has already sent its first relief flight, from Bolivia this afternoon, with supplies like tarps, blankets, plastic sheeting, and collapsible water containers for survivors. Support these efforts with earmarked gifts to families that need them.

AmeriCares -- Vice President of Emergency Response, Christoph Gorder, says AmeriCares is sending medical supplies and humanitarian aid to Chile. Make a direct contribution to AmeriCares' Chilean earthquake fund.

Habitat for Humanity -- Habitat for Humanity has a continual presence in Chile, where the group has constructed more than 1,300 homes. Habitat will be essential in reconstruction efforts, especially in hard-hit rural areas.

International Medical Corps -- IMC has a presence in dozens of countries around the globe, providing immediate medical care to those affected by natural disasters. Contribute to its emergency response fund.

ShelterBox -- International disaster relief agency ShelterBox has mobilized a team to bring aid to Concepcion, Chile's second largest city, which saw the worse damage.

There are other groups I like to support I have not listed here. I will update this later to add them. Also, I have some antipathy to some of the groups here, particularly World Vision, because of their proselytizing activities to indigenous people in the high Andes, but right now I think the primary idea is to get aid on the ground.

Wal-Mart: Hands Off Chile!

As if depriving worthy drinkers of Cuban Rum in the US for half a century weren't a grave enough offense and annoyance, Wal-mart has evidently decided to buy Chile's largest supermarket chain, Lider, and, that's right, cut off Chilen@s from Cuban products, including Havana Club. Basta ja!

This from HuffPo:

Recently, Chilean consumers stormed the liquor section of dozens of supermarket locations throughout Chile, snatching all the Cuban rum they could buy.

The reason for the rum rush: Wal-Mart is coming to town, and it refuses to sell Cuban products....snip

On Dec. 23, the giant U.S. retailer made a bid to control all the shares of D&S, the company that owns Supermarket Lider, Chile's largest supermarket chain. The deal is due to be finalized Jan. 22....snip

Alarms are already ringing, as Supermarket Lider workers fear that Wal-Mart may dismantle their unions or revoke their benefits. Small retailers, meanwhile, are nervous about being squeezed out of business. As economist and union advisor Luis Alberto Araya puts it, "Wal-Mart arrives preceded by a bad reputation."

But the near-certainty that Wal-Mart will take over Supermarket Lider has already caused an entirely different, unexpected casualty: Cuban rum....snip

On Jan. 3, Supermarket Lider -- which controls 34 percent of the supermarket business here --began selling its entire stock of Cuban rum at half price. In a country where demand for rum has surged over the past decade, with sales in 2007 increasing 48 percent over the previous year, Supermarket Lider's announcement led to a flood of thirsty consumers...snip

Meanwhile, Chile and Cuba have signed an agreement to facilitate trade. It remains unclear which rules Wal-Mart will have to play by: the U.S. embargo or the Chile-Cuba trade agreement.

The new Obama administration cannot act soon enough to end the Bloqueo. The blockade has had devastating consequences for Cuba and for the US, it hasn't toppled Cuba's government, and now that it's hopefully on its last gasp, it's affecting even Chilen@s who know that Havana Club, particularly in its 7 year-old iteration, is the best rum. Enough already. Enough.

Chile's Gone Wild!

In what has to qualify as a soft core article in the New York Times we are slightly astonished to read in a headline, "In Tangle of Young Lips, a Sex Rebellion in Chile." The article itself seems to make it clear that Michele Bachelet is leading a country that isn't exactly Pinochet's Chile:

It is just after 5 p.m. in what was once one of Latin America’s most sexually conservative countries, and the youth of Chile are bumping and grinding to a reggaetón beat. At the Bar Urbano disco, boys and girls ages 14 to 18 are stripping off their shirts, revealing bras, tattoos and nipple rings.

The place is a tangle of lips and tongues and hands, all groping and exploring. About 800 teenagers sway and bounce to lyrics imploring them to “Poncea! Poncea!”: make out with as many people as they can.

And make out they do — with stranger after stranger, vying for the honor of being known as the “ponceo,” the one who pairs up the most.

Chile, long considered to have among the most traditional social mores in South America, is crashing headlong into that reputation with its precocious teenagers. Chile’s youths are living in a period of sexual exploration that, academics and government officials say, is like nothing the country has witnessed before.

And along with the news, we have a series of photos that show what Chile's children-- these are children by almost anyone's definition-- are up to. And we learn in one of the captions to the photos:

The parents of most adolescents today never received formal sex education, and sex education materials were destroyed during Gen. Augusto Pinochet's dictatorship. A new sex curriculum was introduced in 1993, but sexual educators say they are struggling to keep up with the avalanche of sex information on the Internet.

Maybe it's appropriate to blame it all on Henry Kissinger. I hope the Grey Lady sells some papers on it.

It Can't Happen Here

It Can't Happen Here is the title of a 1935 novel by Sinclair Lewis. It raises the question whether a rightwing, fascist political party can come to power in the US. It used to be that the very idea was preposterous, unthinkable, impossible. I'm no longer so sure of that, and acknowledging the frightening possibility has changed my reading of stories about events in other countries in frightening, perplexing, alarming ways.

A short synopsis of It Can't Happen Here may help:

It features newspaperman Doremus Jessup struggling against the fascist regime of President Berzelius "Buzz" Windrip, who resembles (to some extent) the flamboyantly dictatorial Huey Long of Louisiana and Gerald B. Winrod, the Kansas evangelist whose far-right views earned him the nickname "The Jayhawk Nazi". It serves as a warning that political movements akin to Nazism can come to power in countries such as the United States when people blindly support their leaders.

Hmmm. This isn't the only novel with this theme. The most recent may be Philip Roth's 2004 novel The Plot Against America:

The novel follows the fortunes of the Roth family during the Lindbergh presidency, as antisemitism becomes more accepted in American life and Jewish-American families like the Roths are persecuted on various levels.

The President Lindbergh of the book is, well, a fascist, a Nazi sympathizer decorated earlier by Nazis. And his presidency fosters nationalism, isolationism, anti-semitism and racism as if those were aspects of US patriotism.

The New York Times review described the book as "a terrific political novel" as well as "sinister, vivid, dreamlike, preposterous and, at the same time, creepily plausible."

Preposterous. Because it couldn't happen here, right? Or could it? I used to believe it couldn't happen here. I don't know what we call the trend of the last 7 years, but we cling desperately to the idea that that couldn't really happen here, not really, why, our country is constructed in a way that prevents that from happening, right? I mean, we have the Constitution and a democracy and checks and balances, don't we? Hah.

But what if you believe it could happen? Just assume for the sake of this discussion, that it could. Let's assume that what is happening now and has been happening for the past seven years (the Patriot Act, the torture, the repression, the throttling of free speech, the lawlessness, the signing statements, the extraditions, the raids on immigrants, the endless, long list of abuse of power) became even more pronounced and even more widespread and even more blatant. Then all of those stories we read about the excesses of nearby, foreign governments but dismissed as not being able to happen in the US, all of those stories might actually be read as cautionary tales, stories about what might happen in the US unless things changed, unless Constitutional government were restored.

Three stories, all from South America in the 1970's illustrate this nicely. They make it clear that horrible injustices that have occurred in other countries aren't so impossible in the US. And we need to think of them differently.

Item 1. Jacobo Timmerman:

In the decade of the 1960s, Timerman established himself as a popular journalist, and, before the decade had come to a close, he was able to found two different weekly news magazines. Later, from 1971 to 1977, Timerman edited and published the left-leaning daily La Opinión. Under his leadership, this paper publicized news and criticisms of the human rights violations of the Argentine government during the early years of the "Dirty War". On 15 April 1977, Timerman was arrested by the military. Thereafter, he was subjected to electric shock torture, beatings, and solitary confinement. These experiences were chronicled in his 1981 book , CellPrisoner Without a Name, Cell Without a Number, and a 1983 movie by the same name. /snip

After his release from prison in September 1979, Timerman was forced into exile and sent to Tel Aviv, Israel.

Item 2. Juan Carlos Onetti:

He went on to become one of Latin America's most distinguished writers, earning Uruguay's National Prize in literature in 1962. In 1974, he and some of his colleagues were imprisoned by the military dictatorship. Their crime: as members of the jury, they had chosen Nelson Marra's short story El guardaespaldas (i.e. "The bodyguard") as the winner of Marcha's annual literary contest. Due to a series of misunderstandings (and the need to fill some space in the following day's edition), El guardaespaldas was published in Marcha, although it had been widely agreed among them that they shouldn't and wouldn't do so, knowing this would be the perfect excuse for the military to intervene Marcha, considering the subject of the story (the interior monologue of a top-rank military officer who recounts his murders and atrocious behavior, much as it was happening with the functioning regime).

Onetti left his native country (and his much-loved city of Montevideo) after being imprisoned for 6 months in Colonia Etchepare, a mental institution. A long list of world-famous writers-including Gabriel García Márquez, Mario Vargas Llosa and Mario Benedetti-signed open letters addressed to the military government of Uruguay, which was unaware of the talented (and completely harmless) writer it had imprisoned and humiliated.

As soon as he was released, Onetti fled to Spain with his wife, violin player Dorotea Mühr.

Item 3. Charles Horman:

In 1972, he settled temporarily in Chile to work as a freelance writer. On September 17, 1973, six days after the US-backed military takeover, Horman was seized by Chilean soldiers and taken to the National Stadium in Santiago, which had been turned by the military into an ad hoc concentration camp, where prisoners were interrogated, tortured and executed. The whereabouts of Horman's body were presumably undetermined, at least according to the Americans, for about a month following his death, although it was later determined that, after his execution, Horman's body was buried inside a wall in the national stadium. It later turned up in a morgue in the Chilean capital.

If you read these three items with the idea that Argentina, Uruguay, and Chile aren't the US and these things just couldn't happen here, they are far away, exotic but commonplace examples of banana republic injustice. They feel like scary fiction, but fiction nonetheless.

But if you assume instead that '70's South America isn't really all that very much different from the present US, or, if you insist, from where the US is headed, the stories become chilling, frightening, and worrisome in a new way. They smell like oppression, abuse, repression, and loss of human rights. Are we protected from these things or not? Are we safe? Are we free?

This is just another reason why we simply cannot afford to continue the current trend in this country. And it's a reason why we have to take the present threats from Bushco and its allies seriously. And it's a reason why we need jealously and vigorously to protect our civil rights.

Chaiten Erupts

This from Reuters:

Covered in thick ash, the Patagonian community of Chaiten was a ghost town on Saturday as a volcano spewed ash a day after its first eruption in thousands of years forced nearly 4,500 people to flee.

Authorities have evacuated most of the southern Chilean town's residents since Friday, sending many by boat to Chiloe Island farther north and to Puerto Montt on the mainland.

Some are staying in guesthouses, while schools have been turned into makeshift shelters packed with stores of bottled water after a blanket of volcanic ash contaminated ground water.

Only a few dozen people remained in Chaiten, whose snow-capped volcano of the same name erupted on Friday, triggering earth tremors and spewing a cloud of ash two miles into the air. There is no record of the volcano erupting in the last 2,000 years, according to Sernageomin, a government mining and geology agency.

Photos here.

Llaima Erupts

On Tuesday the Llaima volcano in southern Chile-- the most active volcano in South America-- erupted, spewing lava and ash, and forcing evacuations. According to IHT:

A column of smoke rose more than 9,300 feet into the sky and television images showed thick smoke and lava emerging from Llaima, one of the most active of the dozens of volcanos in Chile.

The volcano is about 60 miles east of Temuco, in the Araucania region of Chile. Temuco is the childhood home of Pablo Neruda.

It's not clear whether this signals the start of a large eruption, or a smaller event.

9/11, The Sixth Anniversary

There are three 9/11's worth our consideration. 9/11/01 in New York. 9/11/06 in India. 9/11/73 in Chile. Last year, I wrote about Chile and India. And now, six years later, I still don't want to write about New York in the same way that I never liked to write the obligatory essay about what I did during the summer. Frankly, I'd rather think about something else. This isn't necessarily a bad thing. For example, here are the lyrics of the 1998 Cry, Cry, Cry song, The Kid:

I'm the kid who ran away with the circus
Now I'm watering elephants
But I sometimes lie awake in the sawdust
Dreaming I'm in a suit of light
Late at night in the empty big top
I'm all alone on the high wire
Look he's working without a net this time
He's a real death defyer

I'm the kid who always looked out the window
Failing tests in geography
But I've seen things far beyond just the school yard
Distant shores of exotic lands
There're the spires of the Turkish Empire
Six months since we made landfall
Riding low with the spice of India
Through Gibralter
We're rich men

I'm the kid who thought we'd someday be lovers
Always held out that time would tell
Time was talking guess I just wasn't listening
No surprise if you know me well
And as we're walking toward the train station
There's a whispering rainfall
Cross the boulevard you slip your hand in mine
In the distance the train calls

I'm the kid who has this habit of dreaming
Sometimes gets me in trouble too
But the truth is I could no more stop dreaming
Than I could make them all come true

I too am a kid with the habit of dreaming. And when it comes to the constant repetition of words and images and analysis about 9/11 and its aftermath, my mind goes out for a walk. It goes right out the window and it keeps going until it gets somewhere. To be honest, today I really prefer that.

Be well.

"The Real Thing And The Rarest"

Roberto Bolano

The title, "the real thing and the rarest" is what Susan Sontag said about the writer and poet Roberto Bolano (the n has a tilde). Bolano was born in 1953 in Chile. He died at age 50 in 2003. He wrote nine novels, short stories, and poetry. And he lived in the Chilean diaspora of Mexico and Europe before returning to Chile. Unfortunately, like me, you may never have heard of him during his life. What a tremendous loss not reading him would be.

How did I come to hear about him? I'm not sure how I found this April, 2007 article in the Nation. But after reading it, I decided to order a book. My local library system, the Mid-Hudson Library System, to my amazement has actually heard of Bolano and has four of his books in its catalog, but I am impatient when I think I'm on the brink of discovery, so I ordered a copy of Distant Star from my favorite used book resource Abe Books for fast delivery. And wow, what a "discovery" it was! I devoured the book and loved it, so I went ravenously and gluttonously on to By Night In Chile and Last Evenings On Earth.

Bolano's writing is spare, coruscating, smart, simply wonderful. A review by Wayne Koestenbaum in Bookforum speaks of his "addict[ion] to the haze that floats above Bollano's fiction". Francisco Goldman labels it "the high-voltage first-person braininess of a Saul Bellow". Whatever. It fills me with enormous envy. The kind of envy and jealousy that makes it hard to work on my own novel in progress. The kind of envy that makes me wonder about the adequacy and effectiveness of my own prose.

A very brief example. One of the short stories in Last Evenings, "Mauricio ("The Eye") Silva" begins

Mauricio Silva, also known as "The Eye", always tried to avoid violence, even at the risk of being considered a coward, but violence, real violence, is unavoidable, at least for those of us who were born in Latin America during the fifties and were about twenty years old at the time of Salvador Allende's death. That's just the way it goes.

You might give one of your first as yet unborn children or one of your less important extremities for such a beginning.

The story "Last Evenings On Earth" takes place during a vacation trip the narrator, like Bolano, a poet, takes with his father, a former Chilean boxing champion, from Mexico City to Acapulco in 1975, is brilliant, riveting, surprising and my favorite. Something menacing and dark lurks beneath the narration, simmering, but when it finally erupts the story is over. At the conclusion did I say, "Yes!" aloud, or did I just think it loudly?

It's summer and beach reading season in the Northern Hemisphere. In addition to The Dream Antilles, which I always recommend for this purpose, any of Bolano's books would be a just perfect.