Roberto Bolaño Monsieur Pain / Monsieur Pain

"El mayor regalo de Bola o es hacernos sentir la magnitud de la oscuridad sin que consigamos ver exactamente qu esconde". --Will Blythe, The New York Times Book Review En la primavera de 1938, monsieur Pierre Pain, acupuntor y seguidor convencido de las teor as mesm ricas, recibe el cometido de tratar el hipo de un sudamericano abandonado a su poca suerte y escasos medios en un hospital de Par s. Lo que a priori parec a un extra o caso de fi ebre alta, no obstante, se presenta ante sus ojos como un entramado de proporciones inimaginables y abre la puerta a preguntas cuyas respuestas Pain tendr que desvelar. Qu identidad se oculta tras ese rostro pobre y agonizante? Qui n, qui nes o qu podr an desear su muerte? Y qu provecho sacar an de ella? Enfrentado a una red compleja y oscura, el mesmerista habr de lidiar con sus pasiones m s ntimas y el implacable fantasma de la soledad, con el nfimo atisbo que a la humanidad le resta de dignidad y con la tristeza que, ola tras ola, trago tras trago, todo lo anega ENGLISH DESCRIPTION Occult sciences, C sar Vallejo, WWII, hopeless love, and a final "Epilogue for Voices" Monsieur Pain is a hallucinatory masterwork by the great Roberto Bola o . In this work, Bola o takes us into an odd, dark, but comic underworld in this strangely tender noir novel. Paris, 1938. The Peruvian poet C sar Vallejo is in the hospital, afflicted with an undiagnosed illness, and unable to stop hiccuping. His wife calls on an acquaintance of her friend Madame Reynaud: the Mesmerist Pierre Pain. Pain, a timid bachelor, is in love with the widow Reynaud, and agrees to help. But two mysterious Spanish men follow Pain and bribe him not to treat Vallejo, and Pain takes the money. Ravaged by guilt and anxiety, however, he does not intend to abandon his new patient, but then Pain's access to the hospital is barred and Madame Reynaud leaves Paris.... Another practioner of the occult sciences enters the story (working for Franco, using his Mesmeric expertise to interrogate prisoners)―as do Mme. Curie, tarot cards, an assassination, and nightmares. Meanwhile, Monsieur Pain, haunted and guilty, wanders the crepuscular, rainy streets of Paris...