Monsieur Pain, Roberto Bolaño

        Monsieur Pain is a Parisian Mesmerist, paranoid loner, and a WWI veteran. This story is a mystery that opens and closes before we (or Monsieur Pain) are able to fully comprehend it, yet we are given an answer at the end. An answer that only raises more questions about the essence of the mystery that precedes it.
        Pain is riding downhill, often looking back at his youth. He's watching himself slide into poverty and not making any effort to stop. He's pulled into the mystery by a woman (whom he secretly loves) pleading that he try his occult healing practice on her old friend's husband, who lays in a pertpetual hiccup fit that threatens to kill him. I'll spare you the details from here, it's worth discovering as you go.

        The strongest element of this novella was not its overall mystery (which, as I said, is unending to this day), but its moment to moment occurences. Throughout most of the story, Pain is wandering the streets of Paris, following some whim or idea or nothing at all. He finds himself in strange places seemingly out of time, and Bolaño does an incredible job of handing you all the fear and paranoia straight from Pain's thoughts, including a couple of chilling moments that may be a thrill to read in a dark room. Descriptions of the darkened streets, the winding hospital corridors, twisted night clubs and junk warehouses pull you into his world.

        And through these strange places, Pain is haunted by images of his old life creeping in, like some unseen hand is trying to lure him, placing references to his old mentor and colleagues, alive and dead, whom he hasn't seen for many years.

        It's a short, strong story that may not work for you, but it's worth a try. It didn't leave me with much immediately, but the questions still occur to me, more and more as the months go by.