2666 ways to read a book, write a novel, screw a colleague and go insane

Roberto Bolano's final novel, 2666, is what I'm reading.

On the surface, it's a mess, but that's not a surprise. He never finished it, since his heroin use left him with a rotting gut or something and he died at age 50 without managing to complete his magnus opus.

Ne'ertheless, I'm enjoying it more than I've enjoyed a novel in a while. It's immense, with lot of characters and many goings-on. It's divided into five parts, and I'm reading the third now.

There's this underlying sense of total horror throughout the book that really unnerves me. There's nothing comfortable about reading 2666. And I'm pretty sure it's one of those books that you either like a lot or hate outright. So far I'm in the former category, because it's hit a nerve.

It takes place all over the world, but the characters keep returning to a single city, Santa Teresa, based on Ciudad Juarez, where hundreds of young women have been raped and killed throughout the years.

I'm curious to see where this leads, and whether Bolano managed to wrap things up more or less well before his death.