I have read a couple of Bolaño's books before, but hadn't known he was a wargamer (as I am) until I saw a Patti Smith photo of some of his games (in "Year of the Monkey"). Not only did he play but he had even written a book about a wargamer! Has anyone else ever done that?! Wargaming and literature don't usually intermingle, especially with an author in the stature of Bolaño.
"The Third Reich" was quite an interesting novel. I even pulled out my copy of the "Rise and Fall of the Third Reich" to follow his character's moves in the chapters where he played the game (as best as I could, I have an older edition of the game with unnumbered hexes). But you certainly don't need to know anything about wargaming to enjoy this book. I wondered about the motivation of the narrator at times, and didn't like him all that much, but Bolaño makes him intriguing and the book compelling with interesting and quirky characters.
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En El Tercer Reich Roberto Bolaño da voz a diversos personajes, disponiéndolos en una suerte de tablero en el que se libra la guerra más antigua de todas: la del nazismo, la de la decadente cultura occidental, la del ser humano contra sí mismo. Se conoce por «juego de guerra» aquel que recrea y simula un enfrentamiento armado a cualquier nivel, sujetándose a reglas para el desarrollo del mismo. El alemán Udo Berger es campeón de esta disciplina en su país. Los juegos de guerra son al tiempo su profesión y su obsesión; ocupan su vida e invaden su pensamiento a todas horas. Incluso durante el viaje que realiza con su novia Ingeborg a la Costa Brava, donde él había veraneado en su infancia, se hace instalar una gran mesa en la habitación del hotel para pensar en las estrategias de su nuevo juego, El Tercer Reich. Una noche, sin embargo, Udo e Ingeborg conocen a otra pareja de alemanes, Charly y Hanna, que les introducirán a un mundo oculto tras las playas y el sol. Un mundo poblado por personajes de dudosa reputación, pasados oscuros y futuros aún más enigmáticos.

Somehow weird and kafkaesk - I had this constant feeling of there being a secret message hidden message that I just didn´t get. Also had the constant feeling that the protagonist just not behaves like he should regarding his age. Mixed feelings overall! ( )

I hang around a lot of board gamers. Grognards, train gamers, heavy euro gamers... folks who would look at you over their glasses if you mentioned Monopoly (full disclosure: I would, too). There's a certain toxic quality to this group, an underlying aggression and self-aggrandizing instinct which might come from focusing too steadily on a single perspective, their own. The authenticity of Bolaño's writing around Avalon Hill's Rise and Decline of the Third Reich (later reimplemented by Advanced Third Reich, then by GMT Games as A World At War) makes me think he must have played at least for a little while, though he tends to parallel gaming with Academia a little too much for me to believe he has ever attended a convention.

How right he gets the culture of a grognard doesn't matter at all, of course, but Bolaño's instinct to draw Udo's particular cloud of evil from that arena shows off his great talent for finding metaphor. He was primarily, after all, a poet.

I highly recommend this sneaky little novel. It is no less important than Bolaño's heavier works, though maybe a little rougher around the edges. I would love to put it together with Hawkes' The Blood Oranges in a class titled: "What I Learned Over Summer Vacation."

Finally, for anyone interested in a recent take on the current version of the game played in this novel I HIGHLY recommend the following essay. It is both humorous and poignant and shows what a phenomenon The Third Reich has evolved into: https://boardgamegeek.com/thread/940888/life-altering-game-deserves-kind-session... ( )

I hang around a lot of board gamers. Grognards, train gamers, heavy euro gamers... folks who would look at you over their glasses if you mentioned Monopoly (full disclosure: I would, too). There's a certain toxic quality to this group, an underlying aggression and self-aggrandizing instinct which might come from focusing too steadily on a single perspective, their own. The authenticity of Bolaño's writing around Avalon Hill's Rise and Decline of the Third Reich (later reimplemented by Advanced Third Reich, then by GMT Games as A World At War) makes me think he must have played at least for a little while, though he tends to parallel gaming with Academia a little too much for me to believe he has ever attended a convention.

How right he gets the culture of a grognard doesn't matter at all, of course, but Bolaño's instinct to draw Udo's particular cloud of evil from that arena shows off his great talent for finding metaphor. He was primarily, after all, a poet.

I highly recommend this sneaky little novel. It is no less important than Bolaño's heavier works, though maybe a little rougher around the edges. I would love to put it together with Hawkes' The Blood Oranges in a class titled: "What I Learned Over Summer Vacation."

Finally, for anyone interested in a recent take on the current version of the game played in this novel I HIGHLY recommend the following essay. It is both humorous and poignant and shows what a phenomenon The Third Reich has evolved into: https://boardgamegeek.com/thread/940888/life-altering-game-deserves-kind-session... ( )