THE INSUFFERABLE GAUCHO
Roberto Bolaño

I've started reading more South American literature, and this is my first Roberto Bolaño. My way in came when I heard that the title story, The Insufferable Gaucho, was a retelling of Jorge Luis Borges's The South. I was intrigued by the idea of two writers, separated by a generation, returning to one of Argentina's most enduring literary figures: the gaucho.

In Borges’s original, an urban man gets swept up in a romantic fantasy of the old plains, drifting toward a tragic, heroic death. Bolaño has a postmodern take: his protagonist, Manuel Pereda, is an aging lawyer who flees Buenos Aires during the 2001 financial crash, retreats to his family’s run-down ranch on the pampas, and decides to play at being a gaucho

Except the wild, noble frontier Pereda imagined turns out to be stubborn, modern, and slightly absurd. Instead of a reverent homage to Borges, Bolaño gives us an irreverent conversation across the decades—poking gentle fun at the grand illusions Argentina tells itself.

WHY READ IT?

It takes an old myth, drags it into modern reality, and manages to be funny and sad at the same time. It’s sharp, playful, and the exact kind of story that makes you want to track down everything else Bolaño wrote.

BUY THE BOOK → Bookshop.org (coming soon)

THE JOURNEY → Forty Minutes a Gaucho