Literary Tourism in the Confluence of Reading and Walking: A Study of Roberto Bolaño’s “Mauricio (‘The Eye’) Silva”

Abstract

This study analyzes literary pilgrimage or literary tourism as a sociocultural and economic phenomenon through specific examples found in Roberto Bolaño’s narrative. Tracking down or locating reclusive writers (Cesárea Tinajero, Benno von Archimboldi) is one of the main fictional topics in his literature. These pursuits show a distinct relation with the principles of literary tourism—which is defined as planning and undertaking literary-inspired trips consisting of walking tours through places depicted in fictional texts, or visiting sites associated with writers and their books. This article seeks to explain and understand how walking can be an extension or consequence of reading, which means that there is an implied relation between both actions. As proposed here, walking is a symptom of the urgency readers can feel to find meanings and fill in the gaps of their interpretations in order to satisfy the personal and emotional needs they experience through their interactions with literary texts. The first part of the article elaborates a reflection on the centrality of the act of walking in Roberto Bolaño’s stories, and how exile is part of the internal mechanism of the literary (writing and reading). The theoretical foundations of literary-tourism studies are also established in this part in order to facilitate the understanding of the relationship between reading and walking. The second part of the article focuses on Bolaño’s short story “Mauricio (‘The Eye’) Silva,” presenting a detailed analysis of the text to assert what was elaborated in the first part. In addition, the economic aspects of the tourism business are taken into account to conclude the reflections.