Character typology, ambiguous narrative pact and contiguity of narrative universes in Roberto Bolaño's Nocturno de Chile

Abstract

The consecration of the novel as the literary genre par excellence, since the realism of the 19th century, has accustomed us to the presence of invented characters. The referential character, common in many literary genres from Antiquity to Romanticism, suffered a kind of concealment, marginalization and disappearance for a century. With postmodern literature, this same character seems to be revitalized, if not the protagonist, in various literary subgenres, including the postmodern historical novel, autofiction, fictionalized history, fictionalized biography, etc. Even in novels that are difficult to assign generically, the reader comes across characters whose names denote, or perhaps just evoke, something known in the extraliterary universe. What's more, the typology of characters can be extremely complex, consisting of a typological variety that goes far beyond the invented and referential ones. The novel I propose to analyze here, Nocturno de Chile, by Roberto Bolaño, is an excellent example of the typological variety of characters. In this sense, after trying to propose a taxonomy of them, I will suggest some interpretative hypotheses about some of the author's onomastic choices and question current interpretations about one of the characters. The concluding remarks will be dedicated to some reflections on the repercussions that these choices may have on the narrative pact proposed in this novel and, more generally, in post-modern literature.