Nov. 10 (Bloomberg) -- The most ambitious novelists sometimes drive themselves over the deep end, producing behemoths of such vastness and difficulty that nobody much wants to read them.

The most famous example is ``Finnegans Wake,'' the 1939 novel for which James Joyce more or less invented a new language. The most recent is Thomas Pynchon's 2006 doorstop, ``Against the Day'' -- or it was until the much-anticipated publication in English of ``2666'' by the Chilean master Roberto Bolano, who died, at 50, in 2003.

Bolano's astronomical reputation was sealed in the English- speaking world with the posthumous 2006 appearance of ``The Savage Detectives.'' He was still working on ``2666'' at his death. Those readers who make it to page 893, where the text abruptly ends, and find themselves on the verge of the big plot development that promises to tie the whole baggy monster together, may assume ``2666'' is unfinished. But according to his American editor Bolano intended his story to end -- or rather, not to end -- that way.

``2666'' is really five back-to-back novels, loosely connected. The first one, ``The Part About the Critics,'' is a shaggy-dog story in which four literary scholars try to track down their obsession, a highly reclusive German author named Benno von Archimboldi. The last one, ``The Part About Archimboldi,'' fills in the life that eludes the critics.

Bolano views his academics with amused contempt, as minor human beings whose literary passion masks their absence of talent. Their busy lives, as they hop from conference to conference and bed to bed, are insignificant things.

Santa Teresa

His great novelist, in contrast, is a (literally) towering figure (``in this day and age he likely would have played basketball'') whose biography hits the high points of 20th- century history. Born in 1920, Archimboldi serves with Hitler's army on the Eastern front, allowing Bolano to haul Stalinism and the Holocaust (and the historical resonance his huge ambitions demand) into an otherwise contemporary story.

The second and third novels are both brief, and both stray from the major themes of art and death. They take place mainly in ``Santa Teresa,'' which is Bolano's name for Ciudad Juarez, the northern Mexican city which is also the setting for the fourth novel, ``The Part About the Crimes'' -- the longest of the five, the most original, easily the most controversial and the one on which the reputation of the entire enterprise will almost surely rest.

Police Reports

Since 1993, hundreds of young women and girls have been murdered in Ciudad Juarez. ``The Part About the Crimes'' is a fictional chronicle of the deaths. Detached in tone, it reads like a series of police reports detailing, case by case, the post-mortem evidence of rape and torture. These 280 somber pages leave no doubt as to Bolano's mastery (or Natasha Wimmer's exceptional skill as a translator).

The effect is of a long, horrific drone, amid which a few other stories (involving investigators, reporters, suspects) materialize, gather strength for a while and then dissipate like clouds. As I forced myself to keep reading, I found myself wondering some of the same things that occurred to me a few years ago during gum surgery -- questions like ``What did I ever do to deserve this?'' and ``My god, why isn't it over yet?''

I finally had to skip to the last section, ``The Part About Archimboldi,'' and then return. It was a good strategy, since some of what appears arbitrary in ``The Part About the Crimes'' turns out to fit snugly into the structure of the whole, and beginning to grasp the larger scheme makes the relentless harshness easier to take.

Academic Manna

Joyce predicted that ``Finnegans Wake'' would ``keep the professors busy for centuries arguing over what I mean.'' The enigmatic ``2666'' should prove another gold mine for the academics Bolano regards as insects. But in fact what troubles me most about the book (aside from its ugliness) is its obstinate refusal to yield meaning, to let on to its author's intentions. There's a line, though maybe not a very distinct one, between artistic ambiguity and intellectual stinginess.

On the other hand, ``2666'' could be an exemplary novel for a world inundated with information but desperately short on analysis. Brutality, blankness -- is this the mirror of our age?

``2666'' is from Farrar, Straus and Giroux (893 pages, $30).

(Craig Seligman is a critic for Bloomberg News. The opinions expressed are his own.)

To contact the writer of this column: Craig Seligman at cseligman@bloomberg.net.

Last Updated: November 10, 2008 00:01 EST