Publication
Anagrama (2007), 609 pages
Original publication date
1998 (Spaans)
2000 (Nederlands)
Collections
Genres
Awards
The Morning News Tournament of Books (Short List — 2008)
Best Translated Book Award (Shortlist — 2008)
Premio Herralde (1998)
Publishers Weekly's Best Books of the Year (Fiction — 2007)
The New York Times Notable Books of the Year (Fiction & Poetry — 2007)
San Francisco Chronicle Best Book of the Year (Fiction — 2007)
Description
New Year's Eve, 1975: Arturo Belano and Ulises Lima, founders of the visceral realist movement in poetry, leave Mexico City in a borrowed white Impala. Their quest: To track down the obscure, vanished poet Cesarea Tinajero. A violent showdown in the Sonora desert turns search to flight; twenty years later Belano and Lima are still on the run. La novela narra la b�squeda de la poetisa mexicana Ces�rea Tinajero, por parte de dos j�venes poetas fundadores de un movimiento de poes�a llamado los real visceralistas, el chileno Arturo Belano y el mexicano Ulises Lima.
User reviews
LibraryThing member lriley
An amazing read. There's been a lot of buzz about this recently translated book in the last couple months. Articles appearing in literary journals and mainstream magazines--a front page review in the New York Times Sunday book review section. Bolano--who died in 2003 at the relatively young age of
Set in Mexico City beginning in the early 70's the story is told in three parts--the first narrated by a young poet Juan Garcia Madero who is connected with a group calling themselves Visceral Realists (modeled on an earlier group of poets from the 1920's) of which Ulises Lima and Arturo Belano are its two would be leaders. The group is almost hellbent on breaking with tradition in whatever form tradition manifests itself. They conduct purges on themselves, steal books, live off friends and family, have sex freely and frequently and sound off on the state of society and literature in general. At the end of the first part Belano, Lima and Madero rescue a prostitute from a Mexico City gangster which sets in motion events that will follow Belano and Lima around the globe (South America, Europe, Africa) for the next twenty years.
The second part which takes up well over half the book is composed of 26 chapters and told somewhat in a timeline by a variety (50-60?) of narrators (both friendly and unfriendly) who over the course of those intervening years run into Belano and/or Lima in this place or that--seeing them in various situations as unemployed or as itinerant workers--undocumented aliens living hand to mouth--starving or sick at times--dealing drugs--pursuing life according to their not always quite understandable ideas--pursuing literature as always--almost hopelessly--"it was as if they were there but at the same time they weren't there." Lima goes to Israel--is befriended by an Austrian thug--returning to Vienna with him he becomes involved in several muggings and later on stabs a rival of the same Austrian in a fight and is deported. He disappears for a couple years in Nicaragua during the revolution eventually returning to Mexico and eventually running into the Mexican nobelist Octavio Paz who is well aware of a one time plot Lima (Paz knowing his face but not his name) had taken part in to kidnap him. They discuss this in part and shake hands afterwards--going their own respective ways. Belano for his part works all over Europe particularly in Spain--continuing his literary endeavors and challenging one of his critics to a duel with sabres which they fight out on a deserted nudist beach until they both collapse from exhaustion. He is often sick--can only eat certain things and often thinks of suicide. He eventually finds his way to Africa as a free lance reporter in the middle of a civil war in Liberia--and that is where we last see him choosing between following a guerrilla group into an impossible situation or going back to safety he chooses the impossible.
The third and shortest part takes us back to where the first part left off--or back to Garcia Madero's narration. Lima, Belano, Garcia Madero and the prostitue Lupe on the run from their pursuers (the Mexico City gangster and a policeman friend) in the deserts of Northern Mexico. At the same time they are also searching for the whereabouts of a Mexican poetess from the first group of 1920's visceral realists--Cesarea Tinajero--who disappeared back into that region some 40 years or so prior. Going from one town to another searching the archives of town halls and libaries for any information about her whereabouts--finally finding her still alive in a remote village they set off with her down a dusty road only to run into the gangster and his policeman friend. In the altercation that follows Belano kills the gangster with a knife and Tinajero saves Lima's life but is shot dead by the policeman who is also shot in a wrestling match by his own gun and eventually bleeds to death.
All in all this is an extraordinary book written from a multiple of viewpoints that is almost breathtaking. Bolano's prose is always objective and clear. This is a not a tearjerker in any sense. These people are determined to followed their own paths fame or fortune be damned. Some of what they become involved with might make an ordinary soul cringe but they never really divert very far from their original path. Bolano's prose is also unique and very lucid. Intriguing in the continual glimpses into his main characters lives there is always though something left unsaid leaving the characters an aura of mystery. After reading this I felt almost as if I'd read an odyssey--or say as much as one could say the same after reading Joyce's Ulysses. Anyway highly recommend.
Show More
50--of a liver disease that had plagued him for years--living and writing those last years feverishly almost as if on borrowed time. Up until now we've only had a series of shorter works. Having read By night in Chile and Distant Star--both very good I could already attest to his talent and vision. The Savage Detectives though more than surpasses both of those books. The Savage Detectives may will be seen in the future as a masterpiece of Latin American fiction on a par with Vargas Llosa's Conversation in the Cathedral--keeping in mind also that another of Bolano's works 2666 is expected in the near future. Set in Mexico City beginning in the early 70's the story is told in three parts--the first narrated by a young poet Juan Garcia Madero who is connected with a group calling themselves Visceral Realists (modeled on an earlier group of poets from the 1920's) of which Ulises Lima and Arturo Belano are its two would be leaders. The group is almost hellbent on breaking with tradition in whatever form tradition manifests itself. They conduct purges on themselves, steal books, live off friends and family, have sex freely and frequently and sound off on the state of society and literature in general. At the end of the first part Belano, Lima and Madero rescue a prostitute from a Mexico City gangster which sets in motion events that will follow Belano and Lima around the globe (South America, Europe, Africa) for the next twenty years.
The second part which takes up well over half the book is composed of 26 chapters and told somewhat in a timeline by a variety (50-60?) of narrators (both friendly and unfriendly) who over the course of those intervening years run into Belano and/or Lima in this place or that--seeing them in various situations as unemployed or as itinerant workers--undocumented aliens living hand to mouth--starving or sick at times--dealing drugs--pursuing life according to their not always quite understandable ideas--pursuing literature as always--almost hopelessly--"it was as if they were there but at the same time they weren't there." Lima goes to Israel--is befriended by an Austrian thug--returning to Vienna with him he becomes involved in several muggings and later on stabs a rival of the same Austrian in a fight and is deported. He disappears for a couple years in Nicaragua during the revolution eventually returning to Mexico and eventually running into the Mexican nobelist Octavio Paz who is well aware of a one time plot Lima (Paz knowing his face but not his name) had taken part in to kidnap him. They discuss this in part and shake hands afterwards--going their own respective ways. Belano for his part works all over Europe particularly in Spain--continuing his literary endeavors and challenging one of his critics to a duel with sabres which they fight out on a deserted nudist beach until they both collapse from exhaustion. He is often sick--can only eat certain things and often thinks of suicide. He eventually finds his way to Africa as a free lance reporter in the middle of a civil war in Liberia--and that is where we last see him choosing between following a guerrilla group into an impossible situation or going back to safety he chooses the impossible.
The third and shortest part takes us back to where the first part left off--or back to Garcia Madero's narration. Lima, Belano, Garcia Madero and the prostitue Lupe on the run from their pursuers (the Mexico City gangster and a policeman friend) in the deserts of Northern Mexico. At the same time they are also searching for the whereabouts of a Mexican poetess from the first group of 1920's visceral realists--Cesarea Tinajero--who disappeared back into that region some 40 years or so prior. Going from one town to another searching the archives of town halls and libaries for any information about her whereabouts--finally finding her still alive in a remote village they set off with her down a dusty road only to run into the gangster and his policeman friend. In the altercation that follows Belano kills the gangster with a knife and Tinajero saves Lima's life but is shot dead by the policeman who is also shot in a wrestling match by his own gun and eventually bleeds to death.
All in all this is an extraordinary book written from a multiple of viewpoints that is almost breathtaking. Bolano's prose is always objective and clear. This is a not a tearjerker in any sense. These people are determined to followed their own paths fame or fortune be damned. Some of what they become involved with might make an ordinary soul cringe but they never really divert very far from their original path. Bolano's prose is also unique and very lucid. Intriguing in the continual glimpses into his main characters lives there is always though something left unsaid leaving the characters an aura of mystery. After reading this I felt almost as if I'd read an odyssey--or say as much as one could say the same after reading Joyce's Ulysses. Anyway highly recommend.
Show Less
LibraryThing member GingerbreadMan
It’s hard to even know where to begin an attempt at a review of this 750 page, polyphonic Behemoth of a book. So let me just start off with saying it’s a much faster and easier read than this summary might imply. It has a really nice flow, a fantastic variety of voices, a good sense of humour
Basically, this is a book about Arturo Belano and Ulises Lima, their highly unsuccessful but very avant-garde literary movement the viscerrealismo, their friends and their restless travels around South America and Europe. Or rather a book around Belano and Lima, for we never meet them as subjects. The voices doing the telling always belong to other people, and in many of the stories, memories and anecdotes, Lima and Belano play very minor parts. In a few cases they are not even there.
The book’s first part is the diary of seventeen year old García Madero, written in the autumn of 1975 when he drops out of university to become a poet in the group formed by Lima and Belano. These diary pages are just oozing with sturm und drang, sexual awakenings and teen angst, and are both funny and moving. And ending with a real cliff hanger too!
The massive middle section then gives us glimpses of what happened to Lima, Belano and the people around them between 1976 and 1996, as a horde of voices tell stories. An old writer misses the poet Cesarea, who got lost in the desert many years ago, but gets an interesting visit by two young men who promises to find her. A Mexican exchange student is having a bad conscience for ripping Lima off during his Paris days by exaggerating food prices. A secretary hides in a bathroom as the military occupies the university. A jealous boyfriend in Tel Aviv is developing a strange sympathy for the surprise visitor clearly unhappily in love with his girlfriend. The father of two sisters, both viscerrealismo poets is moving further and further into psychosis in a Mexico City asylum, a photographer in war ridden Liberia meets Belano under horrible circumstances. To mention a few in a zillion.
The final part is again García Madero’s diary, telling of the wild hunt and escape in the Sonora desert in the first months of 1976, and about some events that might just be the starting point of the restless travelling Lima and Belano spend the following thirty years pursuing.
Overall, most of the stories are much more everyday than one would expect. There are few tall tales here, and many anecdotes or memories have no obvious punch-line. But the book is constantly interesting nevertheless, moving and funny, and leaves me with a pleasant mix of questions and answers. Don’t let the bulk deter you, these are 750 pages well spent.
Show More
and I really liked it. Bear that in mind, as I –probably- do a poor job of presenting it here below.Basically, this is a book about Arturo Belano and Ulises Lima, their highly unsuccessful but very avant-garde literary movement the viscerrealismo, their friends and their restless travels around South America and Europe. Or rather a book around Belano and Lima, for we never meet them as subjects. The voices doing the telling always belong to other people, and in many of the stories, memories and anecdotes, Lima and Belano play very minor parts. In a few cases they are not even there.
The book’s first part is the diary of seventeen year old García Madero, written in the autumn of 1975 when he drops out of university to become a poet in the group formed by Lima and Belano. These diary pages are just oozing with sturm und drang, sexual awakenings and teen angst, and are both funny and moving. And ending with a real cliff hanger too!
The massive middle section then gives us glimpses of what happened to Lima, Belano and the people around them between 1976 and 1996, as a horde of voices tell stories. An old writer misses the poet Cesarea, who got lost in the desert many years ago, but gets an interesting visit by two young men who promises to find her. A Mexican exchange student is having a bad conscience for ripping Lima off during his Paris days by exaggerating food prices. A secretary hides in a bathroom as the military occupies the university. A jealous boyfriend in Tel Aviv is developing a strange sympathy for the surprise visitor clearly unhappily in love with his girlfriend. The father of two sisters, both viscerrealismo poets is moving further and further into psychosis in a Mexico City asylum, a photographer in war ridden Liberia meets Belano under horrible circumstances. To mention a few in a zillion.
The final part is again García Madero’s diary, telling of the wild hunt and escape in the Sonora desert in the first months of 1976, and about some events that might just be the starting point of the restless travelling Lima and Belano spend the following thirty years pursuing.
Overall, most of the stories are much more everyday than one would expect. There are few tall tales here, and many anecdotes or memories have no obvious punch-line. But the book is constantly interesting nevertheless, moving and funny, and leaves me with a pleasant mix of questions and answers. Don’t let the bulk deter you, these are 750 pages well spent.
Show Less
LibraryThing member RossWilliam
I work in a bookstore so naturally when "2666" came out it sparked my interest. I did my due diligence on Bolano since it was the first I had heard of him. When I came across "Savage Detectives" I thought it would be a better place to start, less of a commitment, 900 pages was a bit to many for me
"Savage Detectives" turned out to be epic, enthralling, and impossible to put down. Books one and three are a single narrative thread told almost in the form of a diary or memoir. Book two is the longest of the three and breaks from the single narrative into a whole host of narratives that shift time and place at will. It takes some getting used to but once you are in the flow you won't turn back. The detail is beautiful and each of the characters have such a unique voice yet they all come together to form one fantastic story. This book is not to be missed. It had me running to buy all of his other books.
Show More
at the time."Savage Detectives" turned out to be epic, enthralling, and impossible to put down. Books one and three are a single narrative thread told almost in the form of a diary or memoir. Book two is the longest of the three and breaks from the single narrative into a whole host of narratives that shift time and place at will. It takes some getting used to but once you are in the flow you won't turn back. The detail is beautiful and each of the characters have such a unique voice yet they all come together to form one fantastic story. This book is not to be missed. It had me running to buy all of his other books.
Show Less
LibraryThing member DRFP
Ultimately a novel that promises much but delivers little. The book is a literary labyrinth with no exit, that leads no where. There is much talk of impending doom but nothing matching this is witnessed in the novel. Much of the novel is devoted to the Visceral Realists but only a single example of
If those are issues the novel sets up and fails to deliver on then there are other fundamental problems with The Savage Detectives. Most glaring of all is the fact that the principle characters are kept at arms length. Belano and Lima are never established as characters we really know. Their vague, shadowy existence works fine in the first part of the novel but by the end of the story they're still extremely vague. It makes for very detached reading. This problem is compounded by the massive second section of the novel, the bulk of the book, which contains a vast array of characters who feature for so brief a time there is little reason to care for their stories and to get emotionally involved. This is not such a problem at the start of the second section, as characters from the first part feature heavily as interviewees; but as the novel progresses these characters disappear and we're left reading accounts from individuals we know and care nothing about.
This is perhaps a symptom of the novel's biggest problem - that it is simply too long. The second section is some 450 pages long and, in my opinion, ought to be half that length. That would alleviate a lot of the problems I've mentioned above. One shot characters could be cut or their interviews drastically reduced and it would tighten up the novel significantly. It's only as the novel goes on and on that you expect, or at least hope for, a worthwhile climax. When that doesn't come you're likely to be left feeling rather miffed.
I think 2666 is a fantastic novel but this story disappoints. What the novel lacks is a solid centre - the kind that, however abstract, Santa Teresa provided 2666. Bolaño's prose is still lovely, there's no questioning his ability to write, but after this and Amulet I'm beginning to question his ability as a novelist. Was 2666 a fluke? I'll have to read more of his works to find out, but I think I'll be reading them with slightly reduced expectations from now on.
Show More
anything concrete from the fictional movement is presented here. The search for Cesárea Tinarejo is a massive anti-climax.If those are issues the novel sets up and fails to deliver on then there are other fundamental problems with The Savage Detectives. Most glaring of all is the fact that the principle characters are kept at arms length. Belano and Lima are never established as characters we really know. Their vague, shadowy existence works fine in the first part of the novel but by the end of the story they're still extremely vague. It makes for very detached reading. This problem is compounded by the massive second section of the novel, the bulk of the book, which contains a vast array of characters who feature for so brief a time there is little reason to care for their stories and to get emotionally involved. This is not such a problem at the start of the second section, as characters from the first part feature heavily as interviewees; but as the novel progresses these characters disappear and we're left reading accounts from individuals we know and care nothing about.
This is perhaps a symptom of the novel's biggest problem - that it is simply too long. The second section is some 450 pages long and, in my opinion, ought to be half that length. That would alleviate a lot of the problems I've mentioned above. One shot characters could be cut or their interviews drastically reduced and it would tighten up the novel significantly. It's only as the novel goes on and on that you expect, or at least hope for, a worthwhile climax. When that doesn't come you're likely to be left feeling rather miffed.
I think 2666 is a fantastic novel but this story disappoints. What the novel lacks is a solid centre - the kind that, however abstract, Santa Teresa provided 2666. Bolaño's prose is still lovely, there's no questioning his ability to write, but after this and Amulet I'm beginning to question his ability as a novelist. Was 2666 a fluke? I'll have to read more of his works to find out, but I think I'll be reading them with slightly reduced expectations from now on.
Show Less
LibraryThing member Niecierpek
Brilliant. It may be the best creative autobiography I have read in my life, with Arturo Belano, and perhaps Garcia Madero too, as alter egos of the author. And, certainly a humorous and slightly mocking look at the literary world, poetry, poets, their critics and publishers, in Mexico in the last
Show More
quarter of the last century. Or, is it a quixotic search for true poetry and truth? And, everything else aside, isn’t it just a great novel with a multitude of voices, some of them truly remarkable? Take that ‘mother of Mexican poetry’, the Chilean immigrant who won the pools, or the lawyer whose speech is peppered by Latin locutions, or Quim or even Salvetierra- all great characters. Or, it can be just terrific writing and lots of fun. The beauty of it is that it is all of the above and much more at the same time. Just brilliant. Show Less
LibraryThing member poetontheone
Several friends have told me that Bolaño's sprawling odyssey could be described as a more literary On the Road, but after reading it I gravitate towards the opinion that it could be vulgarly summarized as a literary and maybe even Rimbaudian, though distinctly Mexican, Lord of the Rings. Trying to
Show More
compare this to works that are altogether different sounds stupid, and it is, but we often do when we read a novel so greatly original and stunning. Unlike Kerouac, Bolaño's novel is painstakingly structured, moving from the first person perspective of García Madero's encounters mainly with two visceral realist poets, to a staggering multiplicity of voices also linked by the same thread of Arturo Belano and Ulises Lima. Each voice is marvelously distinct and alive, always conversational, and thus comparing the author to Tolkien is ludicrous, because here there is nothing fantastical. Each narrative is weighted with a humanity that is ruled by nuanced emotion and small events that reveal a poetic vastness. Auxilio Lacouture's narrative of hiding from riot police for days in a small bathroom stall immediately springs to mind. The, very literally, careful composition alongside the poetic strength of this novel is staggering, especially considering its length. Certainly one of the most important novels of the last twenty five years. Show Less
LibraryThing member nog
It has all the ingredients (which are amply on view in the glowing reviews) of a novel of ideas, of unusual structure, of wistful longing, of grail searches, etc, etc, etc. But the result is less than the sum of the ingredients. It's hard for me to imagine how this could have been better. Maybe,
I didn't think that the characters were fleshed out enough to make me care what was happening to them. And what the heck is visceral realism? Why do I care if they find this woman? Gee, it's all so mysterious. I get it.
I went back after reading it to the reviews -- now why is this a great novel? I'm still puzzled. None of the reviews could convincingly frame its greatness with specific insights -- there's a lot of surface gloss that impressed them. Doesn't make me want to read more of this author. Sort of a waste of my time.
Show More
just maybe if it had been shorter, without all the chaff in the middle.I didn't think that the characters were fleshed out enough to make me care what was happening to them. And what the heck is visceral realism? Why do I care if they find this woman? Gee, it's all so mysterious. I get it.
I went back after reading it to the reviews -- now why is this a great novel? I'm still puzzled. None of the reviews could convincingly frame its greatness with specific insights -- there's a lot of surface gloss that impressed them. Doesn't make me want to read more of this author. Sort of a waste of my time.
Show Less
LibraryThing member Praj05
How to solve the Savage Detective riddle?
Three visceral realists, an abused prostitute, a sphinx-like poet and a hounding masochistic pimp. Savage Detectives is a segmented nostalgia of barefaced narratives, miscellaneous testimonies and a thrilling road trip. It comes across as an intricate
1.The most important thing about riddles are that they are meant to be tricky. The best plan is to break it into manageable chunks.
Juan Garcia Madero, initiates with personal journal entries on his path to the mysterious visceral realist underground poetic society head by Lima and Belano, boycotted commercial poets or “sold out peasant poets”. Madero comes across as a typical bemused teen, dropping out of law school to pursue his literary passions with knack of memorizing every damn poetic definition. From what it seems like his entry into the realists clique, Madero was rather happy fucking Maria Font, Rosario and Lupe more than his poetic aspirations.
The authentications of witnesses spanning from 1976 to 1996, travels through three continents depicting the oddities and escapades of Lima and Belano encompassing an enormous second section. It gets irksome at time since most of the characters and testimonies overlap at regular intervals.
2.Clear-cut clues can be deceptive. Therefore locate veiled clues, segregate them and analyze them individually to deduce the answer.
Who are these Visceral realists? A semi-mythic vague literary antiestablishment of youthful, muddled and oversexed poets with a purist school of thought raging against Mexico’s dominant political monopoly over literature.
Cesárea Tinajero,an avant-garde elusive poet whose enigmatic works and illusionary poetry mesmerized the visceral realists bequeathing a god-like status. The book concludes in the arid dunes of Sonora desert casting a menacing gloom that creeps throughout the pages.
3.Think outside the box. What is easily perceived may be a futile termination.
It is an elegy of a dying art. Poetry is on the verge of literary oblivion. A constricted yet revolutionary form of prose over years has failed to garner appreciation at large. Bolano himself clarified his move to writing fiction from poetry as he felt responsible to financially securing his family. The eccentric and adventurous portrayal of Lima and Belano espoused the ordeal of poetic realism in a politically charged milieu and ideas that flutter from the minds of desperate adolescent readers.
“O Captain!My captain”. Be wise not stupid, says John Keating in ‘Dead Poets Society’. Ever wondered what happened to the group after graduation? Every youthful aspiration fades in time. The secret societies, drama clubs at schools, literary cliques at the universities disintegrates when the desperate intellect dissolves in monetary overtures Youth is defrauding. Yes it is indeed! It nurtures delusions of power, pompous self-assuring probabilities of achieving the impossible and spurning a web of reckless endeavors that seem utterly tempting. It is a phase to be fearless with i-give- a-damn-to-authoritative fuckers-and-screw-fucking-rules stance. And we still crave it.
"The whole visceral realist thing was a love letter, the demented strutting of a dumb bird in the moonlight, something essentially cheap and meaningless."
Required tools:
Well-oiled grey cells.
Patience and adherence to Bolano’s flurry of intertwined mysteries.
Caution:
If overwhelmed with Part II of the volume either hurl choicest abuses whilst gaping at the book or a caffeine overdose. Both seem to work fairly well.
Quick tips:
Meticulously follow Juan Garcia Madero. Overlooking a couple incidents in between would not hurt either. Who said there were rules to read a book? The only way to decipher a Bolano cryptogram is to stalk the grungy, over-sexed character all the way through the plot for the bozo will certainly get fucked where it hurts the most.
Three visceral realists, an abused prostitute, a sphinx-like poet and a hounding masochistic pimp. Savage Detectives is a segmented nostalgia of barefaced narratives, miscellaneous testimonies and a thrilling road trip. It comes across as an intricate
Show More
brainteaser that has passed the test of time by how artistic and diagnostically zealous youth can be. This is my third Bolano manuscript and I dearly yearn to pen an Ode to this bohemian soul. However, conferring that privilege to Thomas Pynchon after Mason & Dixon seems a better prospect.1.The most important thing about riddles are that they are meant to be tricky. The best plan is to break it into manageable chunks.
Juan Garcia Madero, initiates with personal journal entries on his path to the mysterious visceral realist underground poetic society head by Lima and Belano, boycotted commercial poets or “sold out peasant poets”. Madero comes across as a typical bemused teen, dropping out of law school to pursue his literary passions with knack of memorizing every damn poetic definition. From what it seems like his entry into the realists clique, Madero was rather happy fucking Maria Font, Rosario and Lupe more than his poetic aspirations.
The authentications of witnesses spanning from 1976 to 1996, travels through three continents depicting the oddities and escapades of Lima and Belano encompassing an enormous second section. It gets irksome at time since most of the characters and testimonies overlap at regular intervals.
2.Clear-cut clues can be deceptive. Therefore locate veiled clues, segregate them and analyze them individually to deduce the answer.
Who are these Visceral realists? A semi-mythic vague literary antiestablishment of youthful, muddled and oversexed poets with a purist school of thought raging against Mexico’s dominant political monopoly over literature.
Cesárea Tinajero,an avant-garde elusive poet whose enigmatic works and illusionary poetry mesmerized the visceral realists bequeathing a god-like status. The book concludes in the arid dunes of Sonora desert casting a menacing gloom that creeps throughout the pages.
3.Think outside the box. What is easily perceived may be a futile termination.
It is an elegy of a dying art. Poetry is on the verge of literary oblivion. A constricted yet revolutionary form of prose over years has failed to garner appreciation at large. Bolano himself clarified his move to writing fiction from poetry as he felt responsible to financially securing his family. The eccentric and adventurous portrayal of Lima and Belano espoused the ordeal of poetic realism in a politically charged milieu and ideas that flutter from the minds of desperate adolescent readers.
“O Captain!My captain”. Be wise not stupid, says John Keating in ‘Dead Poets Society’. Ever wondered what happened to the group after graduation? Every youthful aspiration fades in time. The secret societies, drama clubs at schools, literary cliques at the universities disintegrates when the desperate intellect dissolves in monetary overtures Youth is defrauding. Yes it is indeed! It nurtures delusions of power, pompous self-assuring probabilities of achieving the impossible and spurning a web of reckless endeavors that seem utterly tempting. It is a phase to be fearless with i-give- a-damn-to-authoritative fuckers-and-screw-fucking-rules stance. And we still crave it.
"The whole visceral realist thing was a love letter, the demented strutting of a dumb bird in the moonlight, something essentially cheap and meaningless."
Required tools:
Well-oiled grey cells.
Patience and adherence to Bolano’s flurry of intertwined mysteries.
Caution:
If overwhelmed with Part II of the volume either hurl choicest abuses whilst gaping at the book or a caffeine overdose. Both seem to work fairly well.
Quick tips:
Meticulously follow Juan Garcia Madero. Overlooking a couple incidents in between would not hurt either. Who said there were rules to read a book? The only way to decipher a Bolano cryptogram is to stalk the grungy, over-sexed character all the way through the plot for the bozo will certainly get fucked where it hurts the most.
Show Less
LibraryThing member irissurlalune
I was floored. A novel about poets, poetry, literature, passionate youths and idealists. The two main protagonists aren't given a voice; readers are apprised of their wanderings through the testimonies of their friends, enemies, and acquaintances. Bolaño treads nimbly through scores of different
Show More
voices and various narratives effortlessly and follows all these diverging trajectories while managing to keep a tight reign on the main story line through the sheer charisma of his main characters. Ultimately I realized that I had been transformed into one of the Savage Detectives, eagerly following clues page after page, in search of vanished poets. Show Less
LibraryThing member railarson
The release of an English translation of Chilean author Roberto Bolaño’s novel The Savage Detectives went head-to-head with the appearance of Denis Johnson’s Tree of Smoke: A Novel for 2007’s literary news of the year. Lucky for us, Bolaño’s novel turned out to be every bit as great as
Long known and respected by Latin American readers, Bolaño was a bit of mystery for most English monolinguists who, if hip to his writings at all, had to subsist on a few slim volumes published by New Directions.
With the heavyweight house of Farrar, Straus and Giroux picking up the mantle and feature-length articles in the New Yorker and The New York Review of Books touting the novel’s many charms, Bolaño was the toast of the literary world—four years after his death in Spain of liver failure.
The Savage Detectives begins in the Mexico City of the mid-1970s where a young poet, Juan Garcia Madero, is invited to join a mysterious fraternity of writers calling themselves “visceral realists.” To call the group a movement is a bit of a stretch as no one, Garcia Madero especially, knows (or is willing to say) exactly what visceral realism is. This doesn’t stop the group’s leaders, Ulises Lima and Arturo Belano (a thin, thinly disguised Bolaño) from conducting purges that would make a Maoist nervous.
The writers prowl the streets and back alleys of Mexico City, constantly writing, having sex, getting drunk, and ultimately running afoul of a killer pimp and his corrupt police buddies. Of course, this encapsulation does rough injustice to Bolaño’s kaleidoscope of richly drawn characters, some of which, like rare desert flowers bloom once, fade, and are never seen again.
The middle of the book picks up after the poets have returned from the desert where they had been searching for the mysterious poet who started the original visceral realism movement in the ’20s. For the next 400 pages, we see Lima and Belano through the eyes of people who cross paths with them in a 20-year span ending in 1996. This fractured faux-oral biography plays with the notion of identity while giving the disorienting, yet thrilling, feeling of looking at the pair through a many-faceted diamond.
The final third returns to the Sonoran desert to tell the story of what happened to Lima, Belano, Garcia Madero, and wayward prostitute Lupe on their search for the elusive Cesárea Tinajero.
To paraphrase Garcia Madero: When it was all over, I felt like I knew every inch of that f'ing country. Even more, I felt I was born there.
Show More
the hype.Long known and respected by Latin American readers, Bolaño was a bit of mystery for most English monolinguists who, if hip to his writings at all, had to subsist on a few slim volumes published by New Directions.
With the heavyweight house of Farrar, Straus and Giroux picking up the mantle and feature-length articles in the New Yorker and The New York Review of Books touting the novel’s many charms, Bolaño was the toast of the literary world—four years after his death in Spain of liver failure.
The Savage Detectives begins in the Mexico City of the mid-1970s where a young poet, Juan Garcia Madero, is invited to join a mysterious fraternity of writers calling themselves “visceral realists.” To call the group a movement is a bit of a stretch as no one, Garcia Madero especially, knows (or is willing to say) exactly what visceral realism is. This doesn’t stop the group’s leaders, Ulises Lima and Arturo Belano (a thin, thinly disguised Bolaño) from conducting purges that would make a Maoist nervous.
The writers prowl the streets and back alleys of Mexico City, constantly writing, having sex, getting drunk, and ultimately running afoul of a killer pimp and his corrupt police buddies. Of course, this encapsulation does rough injustice to Bolaño’s kaleidoscope of richly drawn characters, some of which, like rare desert flowers bloom once, fade, and are never seen again.
The middle of the book picks up after the poets have returned from the desert where they had been searching for the mysterious poet who started the original visceral realism movement in the ’20s. For the next 400 pages, we see Lima and Belano through the eyes of people who cross paths with them in a 20-year span ending in 1996. This fractured faux-oral biography plays with the notion of identity while giving the disorienting, yet thrilling, feeling of looking at the pair through a many-faceted diamond.
The final third returns to the Sonoran desert to tell the story of what happened to Lima, Belano, Garcia Madero, and wayward prostitute Lupe on their search for the elusive Cesárea Tinajero.
To paraphrase Garcia Madero: When it was all over, I felt like I knew every inch of that f'ing country. Even more, I felt I was born there.
Show Less
LibraryThing member Joycepa
A picaresque novel with not one but two such journeying protagonists, on a search—a quest—for an elusive Mexican female poet who they—Arturo Belano and Ulises Lima, young poets—consider one of the progenitors of their particular “poetic movement”, the visceral realists. The structure
The first part of the book is an detailed description of the bohemian life of the young poets of the 70s. Mostly, they’re broke and on the take. Many living when they can off lovers. Some truly odd characters show up, as I suppose is the case with most artistic communities—there’s always a somewhat lunatic fringe (sometimes more than somewhat) and Mexico City’s literary scene was no exception.
The second part of the book follows Lima and Belano on their journeys through Paris, Barcelona, Israel and Africa, where their general poverty leads them into the underbelly of Europe and lands Belano in genocidal Africa. Again, it’s all done through interviews with people who knew them, however briefly, and very well done.
The last part of the book is the closing chapter narrated by García Madero. It’s not long in comparison to what has come before, but it finally ties together the entire book and more or less explains what has happened between the beginning and end. And that’s important, because this is a real puzzler of a book—it is at once interesting and outright boring, fascinating and yet off-putting, and seemingly without any rationality until the end.
Bolano was Chilean and was at least partially involved in the early struggles against the Pinochet coup. Like most Latin American writers of any type, he was deeply influenced by the politics of Latin America, if only to rebel against the whole idea. Yet, the politics of the literati is never so clearly laid out as in this book, as, throughout the Mexico City narratives, the number of different “movements” are brought out in perfect seriousness (in the narrative—I’m not so sure Bolano wasn’t somewhat tongue-in-cheek in reality). The names grow ever more hilarious: visceral realists, Mexican actualist avante garde, postism, stridentists peasant poets—all scorn the shabby mundane world of Mexican politics almost as much as they scorn one another.
I really struggled with this book, but in the end I’m glad I finished it, because oddly enough, it’s left quite an impression on me. Bolano was heralded as the greatest talent to come out of Latin America since García Marquez, primarily because he broke with forms such as magical realism; he was an “infrarealist.” I can not comment about that claim, but The Savage Detectives is certainly a departure from any book written in the modern era by a Latin American author with whom I’m familiar, and I’ve read quite a few.
I’m not sure to whom I’d recommend this book—it’s not to everyone’s tastes by a long shot. But if you’re in the mood for something truly different and don’t mind spending possibly months wading through it, then The Savage Detectives is worth a try.
Show More
takes the form of a large number of narrative interviews, all recounted in the first person by dozens of voices, some of whom recur throughout the first 2/3 of the book. The book begins and ends with the diary entries of García Madero, a young poet who describes, in entries that date from November 2, 1975 to February 15, 1976, first how he met Belano and Lima (who are the author and his best friend, Mario Santiago) and then his adventures with them in Mexico City and beyond. In between are other people, who describe from their points of view their relationship with either one or both of the two poets. The narratives do not always follow a linear time line, sometimes relapsing to 1976 from points more forward in time.The first part of the book is an detailed description of the bohemian life of the young poets of the 70s. Mostly, they’re broke and on the take. Many living when they can off lovers. Some truly odd characters show up, as I suppose is the case with most artistic communities—there’s always a somewhat lunatic fringe (sometimes more than somewhat) and Mexico City’s literary scene was no exception.
The second part of the book follows Lima and Belano on their journeys through Paris, Barcelona, Israel and Africa, where their general poverty leads them into the underbelly of Europe and lands Belano in genocidal Africa. Again, it’s all done through interviews with people who knew them, however briefly, and very well done.
The last part of the book is the closing chapter narrated by García Madero. It’s not long in comparison to what has come before, but it finally ties together the entire book and more or less explains what has happened between the beginning and end. And that’s important, because this is a real puzzler of a book—it is at once interesting and outright boring, fascinating and yet off-putting, and seemingly without any rationality until the end.
Bolano was Chilean and was at least partially involved in the early struggles against the Pinochet coup. Like most Latin American writers of any type, he was deeply influenced by the politics of Latin America, if only to rebel against the whole idea. Yet, the politics of the literati is never so clearly laid out as in this book, as, throughout the Mexico City narratives, the number of different “movements” are brought out in perfect seriousness (in the narrative—I’m not so sure Bolano wasn’t somewhat tongue-in-cheek in reality). The names grow ever more hilarious: visceral realists, Mexican actualist avante garde, postism, stridentists peasant poets—all scorn the shabby mundane world of Mexican politics almost as much as they scorn one another.
I really struggled with this book, but in the end I’m glad I finished it, because oddly enough, it’s left quite an impression on me. Bolano was heralded as the greatest talent to come out of Latin America since García Marquez, primarily because he broke with forms such as magical realism; he was an “infrarealist.” I can not comment about that claim, but The Savage Detectives is certainly a departure from any book written in the modern era by a Latin American author with whom I’m familiar, and I’ve read quite a few.
I’m not sure to whom I’d recommend this book—it’s not to everyone’s tastes by a long shot. But if you’re in the mood for something truly different and don’t mind spending possibly months wading through it, then The Savage Detectives is worth a try.
Show Less
LibraryThing member BooksOn23rd
A fantastic trip. This book starts as the diary entries of a young poet who joins an avant-garde poetry collective and then the book turns into something almost indescribable, taking the reading from Mexico to South America to Europe and Africa and back, finally ending in the Sonora desert. Full of
Show More
amazing characters and places and a free, adventurous feel, this book is my favorite read from 2007. A great and thrilling ride. -Matthew Show Less
LibraryThing member CBJames
This week, after 497 pages, I finally gave up on Roberto Bolano's The Savage Detectives. Enough is enough. My policy here is not to review books I haven't actually completed, but after 497 pages, I feel entitled to my opinion.
At first I loved it. In the opening section of the novel a young man,
There are no examples of Visceral Realist poetry in the first section of the book. This began to bother me. The Visceral Realists argue about poetry all the time. They attack Octavio Paz at nearly every turn, but they never write any poetry themselves. The reader begins to suspect that this might be the point. Amateur Reader, who keeps the wonderful blog Wuthering Expectations, suggested this in his comment to last week's Sunday Salon:
Is The Savage Detectives not about the sinister assumptions of Modernist poetry? Is not Bolaño undermining Modernism, leaving a void of meaning?
I can see Am. Reader's point. This is probably a good way to read The Savage Detectives. But I think Samuel R. Delany did this better in his epic Dhalgren. I also think Gertrude Stein did it pretty darn well in a single line: "A rose is a rose is a rose."
The first part of The Savage Detectives ends with young Madero, Bolano and Lima escaping from a gun fight into the night. Honestly, that's the end of the fun stuff. The second section, the one I didn't finish, is a series of interviews with various people connected with the Visceral Realists. While the first part of the book took place in 1975, the second section covers 20 years, 1976 to 1996. We get brief glimpses of Bolano and Lima as the witnesses tell their stories. Some only advance rumors. The two spent time in Barcelona, Paris, Israel, while the rest of the Visceral Realists tried to get bits of work published here and there. Some of the witnesses are interesting, but after nearly 300 pages enough already. The book just wasn't going anywhere. That's okay. Entropy works as a theme for me. I loved The Crying of Lot 49 and Dhalgren which don't go anywhere either, but they were fun to read.
There is an example of Visceral Realist poetry in the second section. It turns out to be made up of pictures. A box on a straight line, followed by a box on a wavy line, followed by a box on a jagged zig-zag. The characters explain it for us. A ship on a calm ocean, followed by a ship on a wavy ocean, followed by a ship on a stormy ocean. That's it? That's what you've got? Turns out Visceral Realists are about as clever as moody 9th graders. I was a moody 9th grader. I've got old journals full of stuff just as "good" as that. To be fair, there is some discussion about the poem that explains there is more to it than just a ship on some waves, but not much more.
The third part of The Savage Detectives does go back to Bolano and Lima and how the plot that led to the shootout in the opening section finally comes to an end. But I don't care anymore. If they live, if they die, if they fly to the moon, it makes no difference to me.
But I am going to keep the book. I have this feeling that it may be like A Confederacy of Dunces and Dahlgren. But both of those are books I disliked the first time around. I had to try them three times before they clicked, and I enjoyed them. So I'm going to put The Savage Detectives in a box down in the basement. Ten or fifteen years from now, once the hoopla currently bubbling around Roberto Bolano has died down, I'll probably come across the box while looking for something else. It might just be the right time for me to give The Savage Detectives another go.
At first I loved it. In the opening section of the novel a young man,
Show More
Juan García Madero, arrives in Mexico City to attend university. He soon falls in with a group of Bohemian poets who call themselves Visceral Realists. Madero becomes fascinated with Arturo Bolano and Ulises Lima, the founders of Visceral Realism, and drops out of school to follow them. Arturo Bolano and Ulises Lima reminded me of Arthur Rimbaud and Paul Verlaine, probably because I just recently read Edmund White's biography of Rimbaud. Though Bolano and Lima are not lovers the two have a fiery relationship and are just as socially unacceptable as Rimbaud and Verlaine were. It makes for entertaining reading. If I had met them at 17, I might have become a Visceral Realist myself.There are no examples of Visceral Realist poetry in the first section of the book. This began to bother me. The Visceral Realists argue about poetry all the time. They attack Octavio Paz at nearly every turn, but they never write any poetry themselves. The reader begins to suspect that this might be the point. Amateur Reader, who keeps the wonderful blog Wuthering Expectations, suggested this in his comment to last week's Sunday Salon:
Is The Savage Detectives not about the sinister assumptions of Modernist poetry? Is not Bolaño undermining Modernism, leaving a void of meaning?
I can see Am. Reader's point. This is probably a good way to read The Savage Detectives. But I think Samuel R. Delany did this better in his epic Dhalgren. I also think Gertrude Stein did it pretty darn well in a single line: "A rose is a rose is a rose."
The first part of The Savage Detectives ends with young Madero, Bolano and Lima escaping from a gun fight into the night. Honestly, that's the end of the fun stuff. The second section, the one I didn't finish, is a series of interviews with various people connected with the Visceral Realists. While the first part of the book took place in 1975, the second section covers 20 years, 1976 to 1996. We get brief glimpses of Bolano and Lima as the witnesses tell their stories. Some only advance rumors. The two spent time in Barcelona, Paris, Israel, while the rest of the Visceral Realists tried to get bits of work published here and there. Some of the witnesses are interesting, but after nearly 300 pages enough already. The book just wasn't going anywhere. That's okay. Entropy works as a theme for me. I loved The Crying of Lot 49 and Dhalgren which don't go anywhere either, but they were fun to read.
There is an example of Visceral Realist poetry in the second section. It turns out to be made up of pictures. A box on a straight line, followed by a box on a wavy line, followed by a box on a jagged zig-zag. The characters explain it for us. A ship on a calm ocean, followed by a ship on a wavy ocean, followed by a ship on a stormy ocean. That's it? That's what you've got? Turns out Visceral Realists are about as clever as moody 9th graders. I was a moody 9th grader. I've got old journals full of stuff just as "good" as that. To be fair, there is some discussion about the poem that explains there is more to it than just a ship on some waves, but not much more.
The third part of The Savage Detectives does go back to Bolano and Lima and how the plot that led to the shootout in the opening section finally comes to an end. But I don't care anymore. If they live, if they die, if they fly to the moon, it makes no difference to me.
But I am going to keep the book. I have this feeling that it may be like A Confederacy of Dunces and Dahlgren. But both of those are books I disliked the first time around. I had to try them three times before they clicked, and I enjoyed them. So I'm going to put The Savage Detectives in a box down in the basement. Ten or fifteen years from now, once the hoopla currently bubbling around Roberto Bolano has died down, I'll probably come across the box while looking for something else. It might just be the right time for me to give The Savage Detectives another go.
Show Less
LibraryThing member papalaz
First off let me give a big tip of the hat to Larry Riley for bringing this gem to my attention. I respect Larry's opinion and overcame an antipathy to recent Latin American literature that had developed as I read more and more magical realism coming from that continent. How glad am I that I did?
This is not a good book, this is a great book. It is a magisterial book. Bolano wrote, in The Savage Detectives, a truly post modern Latin American novel that escapes the magical realist stranglehold. In fact it is possible to argue that the book is actually about the struggle to find a non-magical realist modus for Latin American literature. In a very real way this text is about the writing of this text. And it succeeds brilliantly. Bolano uses his book to solve his problem and in so doing puts Latin American literature in a much healthier state to face the 21st century.
If my use of the term post-modern has put anyone off let me use a different reference. In the same way as Sterne's Tristram Shandy was post-modern before modernism so Don Quixote was post modern before its time and Don Quixote is clearly deep in the DNA of The Savage Detectives. Both Tristram Shandy and Don Quixote were playing with the form of the novel before there was any generally accepted form for the novel. For Sterne and Cervantes anything was possible and allowed and it is fascinating that neither of them aspired to hide the fact that the novel is a novel from the reader, In fact the very fact that they are novels is clear and it is in that sense that they are both "post-modern before modernism".
The Savage Detectives is structured like a sandwich with a very thick filling. Perhaps it is more like a book within bookends. In three parts (perhaps rather it is the literary equivalent of a painted triptych): it starts with a serial narrative that introduces the reader to the transgressive notion of a poetic movement known as the Visceral Realists (how far from magic realism can you get?) based on a previous movement of the same name and ends with a serial narrative that ends (or does it) with the destruction of the mother of the original Visceral Realist movement (how Joycean in its recirculation). The central section, the section actually entitled The Savage Detectives, consists of a huge number of what seem to be extracts from interviews with various people who have been impacted by Bolano's Quixote and Sancho Panza as they spend 20 years questing for the mother (the mother lode, if you will) of Visceral Realism.
At no time are we offered any examples of the Visceral Realist modus save for two strange, almost concrete poems that are hilariously everyday. And that is as it should be for we are experiencing the new modus as it is being made. I have no intention of regaling you with the plot such as it is but Bolano covers 20 years of cultural history across Latin America and Europe as our knight and his squire travel on their quest (in case you were wondering the magnificent Rocinante also features, magically transformed into a Chevrolet Impala). The true beauty of this novel lives in the voices and characters of the central section (40 or 50 of them) and the ways in which they betray themselves and the flaws of their cultures as seen by our protagonist (and the author).
I cannot leave this glowing review without mentioning the translator - Natasha Wimmer - who produces a text so seamless, so engaging and so natural that I forgot that I was reading a translation at all. I have no doubt that she has done Bolano's original text a great service.
Show More
Very. This is not a good book, this is a great book. It is a magisterial book. Bolano wrote, in The Savage Detectives, a truly post modern Latin American novel that escapes the magical realist stranglehold. In fact it is possible to argue that the book is actually about the struggle to find a non-magical realist modus for Latin American literature. In a very real way this text is about the writing of this text. And it succeeds brilliantly. Bolano uses his book to solve his problem and in so doing puts Latin American literature in a much healthier state to face the 21st century.
If my use of the term post-modern has put anyone off let me use a different reference. In the same way as Sterne's Tristram Shandy was post-modern before modernism so Don Quixote was post modern before its time and Don Quixote is clearly deep in the DNA of The Savage Detectives. Both Tristram Shandy and Don Quixote were playing with the form of the novel before there was any generally accepted form for the novel. For Sterne and Cervantes anything was possible and allowed and it is fascinating that neither of them aspired to hide the fact that the novel is a novel from the reader, In fact the very fact that they are novels is clear and it is in that sense that they are both "post-modern before modernism".
The Savage Detectives is structured like a sandwich with a very thick filling. Perhaps it is more like a book within bookends. In three parts (perhaps rather it is the literary equivalent of a painted triptych): it starts with a serial narrative that introduces the reader to the transgressive notion of a poetic movement known as the Visceral Realists (how far from magic realism can you get?) based on a previous movement of the same name and ends with a serial narrative that ends (or does it) with the destruction of the mother of the original Visceral Realist movement (how Joycean in its recirculation). The central section, the section actually entitled The Savage Detectives, consists of a huge number of what seem to be extracts from interviews with various people who have been impacted by Bolano's Quixote and Sancho Panza as they spend 20 years questing for the mother (the mother lode, if you will) of Visceral Realism.
At no time are we offered any examples of the Visceral Realist modus save for two strange, almost concrete poems that are hilariously everyday. And that is as it should be for we are experiencing the new modus as it is being made. I have no intention of regaling you with the plot such as it is but Bolano covers 20 years of cultural history across Latin America and Europe as our knight and his squire travel on their quest (in case you were wondering the magnificent Rocinante also features, magically transformed into a Chevrolet Impala). The true beauty of this novel lives in the voices and characters of the central section (40 or 50 of them) and the ways in which they betray themselves and the flaws of their cultures as seen by our protagonist (and the author).
I cannot leave this glowing review without mentioning the translator - Natasha Wimmer - who produces a text so seamless, so engaging and so natural that I forgot that I was reading a translation at all. I have no doubt that she has done Bolano's original text a great service.
Show Less
LibraryThing member rcruz
Bolano's Los Detectives Salvajes is in all probability the best and most sophisticated Latin American novel in a generation. It breathed new life into the repetitive and cliched post-boom mainstream. Bolano, a long term contrarian, responds to Cortazar's Hopscotch, and denounces the magical realism
Show More
establishment. The novel is as much a character study, as an exercise in nostalgia for the avant-garde, as a social denounce, as a literary mystery, and a study in the literary vocation and the life of exile. It is exciting and exhilarating reading, inhabited by the kind of misfits one likes to keep company with. Show Less
LibraryThing member Jannes
Humongous, somewhat demanding, and very worthwhile. I overuse the epithet "epic", but this time it really is appropriate. Has awoken a lust for Latin American litterature beyond Borges, García Márquez and Vargas Llosa.
Read, read - you won't be sorry.
Read, read - you won't be sorry.
LibraryThing member jawalter
"I've been cordially invited to join the visceral realists. I accepted, of course."
It's an opening with a lot of promise. Who are the visceral realists? Why have they extended this invitation to the narrator? Why was he so eager to accept, and what will be the ramifications?
And yet, the book, for
In spite of all this, the book is still a compelling read, abandoning Madero for most of the book to pursue Arturo Belano and Ulises Lima, never quite catching up to them. The book is ultimately a series of ghosts: visceral realism, Belano, Lima, and finally Cesarea Tinajero. It's the books' fervent, and ultimately futile, quest to explore and understand these ghosts that gives it its propulsive force.
It's an opening with a lot of promise. Who are the visceral realists? Why have they extended this invitation to the narrator? Why was he so eager to accept, and what will be the ramifications?
And yet, the book, for
Show More
the most part, fails to follow through on any of this. We do meet most of the visceral realists, but their movement is never explained, probably because almost none of them seem to have any idea what it means, either. The only piece of visceral realist poetry we're actually given is little more than a series of simple line drawings. And our narrator turns out to be almost completely inconsequential to the book itself (in the book's best joke, when we finally meet a scholar who has studied the visceral realists, he has never heard of Juan Garcia Madero, and declares with confidence that he was never a member of the group).In spite of all this, the book is still a compelling read, abandoning Madero for most of the book to pursue Arturo Belano and Ulises Lima, never quite catching up to them. The book is ultimately a series of ghosts: visceral realism, Belano, Lima, and finally Cesarea Tinajero. It's the books' fervent, and ultimately futile, quest to explore and understand these ghosts that gives it its propulsive force.
Show Less
LibraryThing member theageofsilt
The previous reviews on this site, I think, are accurate. It is not an easy book. The main characters, Belano and Lima, are revealed only when described by others. They are elusive -- everywhere in the world, on a road in the remote reaches of Mexico, on a beach in Israel, in Paris and Spain and,
Show More
somehow, never quite there. Much of the book is funny - I particularly enjoyed the discussions of technical terms of poetry as they flee down back roads in Mexico from an armed pimp and his policeman henchman. I enjoyed being part of their violent, chaotic, self-absorbed, cosmopolitan, literary, crazy world from the safety of my bedroom. Show Less
LibraryThing member mrsrallymonkey
Half fascinating and half entirely disengaging. On the one hand, I appreciated the innovative composition and the strong and scattered character voices. On the other hand, Bolano's single-minded focus on poetry quickly became boring and a little self-indulgent, and at the beginning of the second
Things came together--mostly--in the end, and I find myself--again, partially--strongly affected by the stories. However, I do wish a) it had been shorter, and b) Bolano had been a little more discriminating about what he'd chosen to include as part of the narrative. I think I might have been able to take more from it if there hadn't been so much of it to take.
Show More
section (after the end of Garcia Madero's diary) the mess of discontinuing character narratives made me really want to start flipping through pages. Things came together--mostly--in the end, and I find myself--again, partially--strongly affected by the stories. However, I do wish a) it had been shorter, and b) Bolano had been a little more discriminating about what he'd chosen to include as part of the narrative. I think I might have been able to take more from it if there hadn't been so much of it to take.
Show Less
LibraryThing member miriamparker
I devoured the beginning of this novel. Just couldn't get enough of it, loved the voice, the earnest but mocking tone of young writing and young love. And then part II started and I completely lost interest. I'll give it 4 stars for an amazing first 100 pages. But I had to subtract one for the
Show More
skimming that I did to get to the end.... Show Less
LibraryThing member Narboink
This is an interesting, if somewhat daunting, precursor to Bolaño’s magisterial epic, “2666.” Having read “2666” first, I wasn’t as enamored with “The Savage Detectives” as I might otherwise have been; the conventions of the detective genre had already been exposed as fraudulent,
Show More
the brutal style had already been perfected, the thematic nightmare of inevitable destruction had already been explored… I had already been to Santa Teresa. That said, the two books should rightly be read together and the effect of reading each one is haunting in its own right. “The Savage Detectives” is sometimes painfully slow, it’s true; however, it seems to be written in a way that is deliberately so. This is not a book that is meant to be read and then written off. It stays with you. This is the kind of book that grows over time and is best understood with repeated readings. (By the way, Natasha Wimmer is a brilliant translator. I probably wouldn’t have read this book if anyone else had translated it into English.) Show Less
LibraryThing member xevver
This is a hard book for me to review. There is no real point to this book. The plot, what little there is, doesn't become apparent until the last one-hundred pages. It was the kind of book that I dreaded opening the cover. Yet when I did, I couldn't put it down. The author's writing style had me
Show More
turning page after page. It's what I loved about the book and what I'll remember. Show Less
LibraryThing member michaelbartley
a excellent book, a study of the desire to create to go beyond the know, it is hard at times to follow lack on a real plot many characters
LibraryThing member librarianbryan
Spiralling wonderfulness of my youth's astral light cascading like a galactic waterfall over midnight blue sky. I am diffuse.
LibraryThing member jcmontgomery
I have not finished the book. I've tried, but haven't succeeded thus far. I am planning on going back to finish it when I am better prepared. This story requires an active reader, not a passive one - and at this particular moment in my hobby, I want to not have to think so hard in order to enjoy a
The rating I am giving is how I feel up until the point of abandonment.
Show More
book.The rating I am giving is how I feel up until the point of abandonment.
Show Less
Language
Original language
Spanish
ISBN
8433966634 / 9788433966636
Physical description
624 p.; 5.25 inches
Pages
624