Engagement in Play: The Pleasure of Digressing and the Poetry of Broken Lances in Roberto Bolaño's Novels

Abstract

In this paper, I analyze, with reference to Johan Huizinga and, especially, Roger Caillois, the narrative of Roberto Bolaño. In his novels, Bolaño both uses and transgresses the different aspects of play proposed by Caillois, such as Agôn, Alea, and Ilinx. Thus, play is a leading function in the experience of fun, com- petition, enigma and transgression in the novels of Bolaño, which fact largely explains the correlation that the Chilean novelist has drawn between pleasure, life and poetry