By Night in Chile

Urrutia returns to find Chile embroiled in political turmoil. He resolves that it is time to be practical and stand for his country. Following the presidential election of the socialist politician, Salvador Allende, Urrutia commiserates with Farewell at the latter’s house. Farewell, now 80, is showing his age and has stopped making advances on Urrutia. Farewell tries and fails to reach by phone Neruda and Nicanor Parra (Chile’s second-most famous poet). Urrutia and Farewell drink for hours before Farewell passes out and Urrutia returns home.

Fatalistic about the country’s political direction, Urrutia buries himself in the Greek classics. Starting with Homer, he reads his way through the entire Greek canon as Chile normalizes relations with Cuba and nationalizes major industries, Neruda wins the Nobel Prize for literature, and politicians left and right are assassinated. Inflation and shortages plague Chile, the government expropriates estates (including Farewell’s Là-bas), and violence rocks the country. Urrutia reads Thucydides’s History of the Peloponnesian War. Finally, Urrutia reads Aristotle and Plato as one of Allende’s cabinet members is assassinated, half a million march in support of Allende, General Pinochet leads a successful coup, and Allende dies, apparently by suicide. Finally at peace, Urrutia stops reading.