The Savage Detectives: A Novel
by Roberto Bolano
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Book Reviews of The Savage Detectives: A Novel
Book Review: Disappointing
Summary: 2 Stars
So many Names, are they all of Spanish and Latin American writers? So many diary enties of disparate individuals, are they to relate a story?
Roberto Bolanao's manner of narration is a series of diary entries.They are by different people at differnt places and are not chronological.Nor do they tell a story chronologically.Several of them have but a fleeting connection with the presumed protagonists of the story. Some of them despite a casual reference to one of the protagonists could well stand by themselves as short stories.Some entries are totally irrelevant. From this labyrinthine maze we have to disentangle the story of Arturo Belano and
Ulysees Lima. In fact there are three of them, including Luscious Skin.They are poets and call themselves,"Visceral Realists" as opposed to the"Stridentalists". They are opposed to Octavio Paz also.What do those terms connote? We don't know.
Luscious Skin-what a name!- is a homosexual.Bolano gives a steamy description of Homo love-making in the entry of Luis Sebastian of March 1983.
All the three are rootless and make a living by peddling marijuana. Luscious Skin loses his life in a Police Narco-raid.
Ulysees Lima is deeply in love with Claudia but she does not reciprocate it. He therefore cries in his sleep.
Arturo Belano is the hero. He participates in the rescue of the dancer cum prostitute,Lupe,from her pimp whom he stabs to death.He rescues a boy from a deep mountain chasm. He goes to Africa, feels a strong death wish but recovers from it and yet joins a doomed Govt. expedition against rebel forces in Liberia. He is a likeable character.
But the most loveable figure is the half-mad, rich patriarch, Joaquim Font.His two daughters, Maria and Angelica, also poets, are mere foil to the other 'Visceral Realists'.
The elderly Amadeo and two youngsters examine the so called poetry of Cesarea Tinajero which consisted of a word, a straight line, a wavy line and a jagged line with a small rectangle appended to the lines. They read several meanings into this "poem". That is like viewing a modern painting where the viewer can read his own meaning into it.
At the end one is inclined to ask whether the struggle with 647 pages of this work is worthwhile.
Book Review: Stellar Performance
Summary: 5 Stars
Roberto Bolano's The Savage Detectives is the story of a group of young poets in Mexico in the early 1970's. The book is written in three parts. The first part is the story of the Visceral Poet group, young poets and writers living in Mexico City, all Hispanics from various countries. The founders of the group are Ulises Lima and Arturo Belano, who named the group after an earlier set of visceral poets in the 1920's. That group centered around a female poet, Cesarea Tinajero, who disappeared mysteriously.
In the first part, we meet the various characters through the eyes of a 17 year old, who thinks he might be a poet. This young man, Juan Garcia Madero, spends his days reading and writing and discussing literature with the group members. He also discovers his sexuality, and much of the section deals with his sexual awakenings and various partners.
The second part is written forty years later, and is written as a series of short interviews with various people who have encountered either Lima or Belano over those years. Through these vignettes, we discover what has happened to these poets over the succeeding decades. The story winds through several countries and continents. Each person knows a bit of their stories, and the reader is able to slowly piece together their lives.
The third part is a flashback to the road trip that Belano, Lima, Madero and a prostitute take to try to find Cesarea and what caused her to disappear. The events of that trip fuel the rest of the book, although the reader only realises this in retrospect.
The Savage Detectives is a book that will be considered important for years, and will probably become a classic. Many readers might pick it up thinking it is a mystery, and they might be disappointed. But those readers that stick around for the ride will be entranced as they enter Bolano's world. This is definately a book that will bear rereads, and is recommended for readers who appreciate cutting edge literature and exposure to the literature of other countries.
Book Review: Overlong saga of two losers
Summary: 2 Stars
This book came with rave reviews on the cover -- blurbs stating it was a modern classic et etc (I'll leave to another time my opinions about the corruption and dishonesty in the "blurb" industry where so much mutual back-scratching goes on)... Well, I found it interesting enough to finish but cannot concur about its so-called classic status.
The plot follows the adventures of two young men, a Mexican and a Chilean who call themselves the founders of some kind of progressive poetry movement called "visceral realism." The two, Arturo Balano ( who is evidently the author's alter ego) and Ulises Lima, drift from Mexico to Spain to Israel to Rome to Africa and back over the course of about 20 years. They sell drugs, do drugs, fall into various relationships, beg, starve, live in caves, rob helpless old men and women, do various odd-jobs and occasionally write something. We're never told what visceral realism is or stands for, if anything. In general, these two seem to be drifters (an unkinder way of putting it might be losers) and I found it increasingly difficult to sympathize with them or even know why the hell I should be interested.
One problem is that we never hear from them in their own voices. We see them through the eyes of a broad spectrum of other characters -- lovers, friends, associates and chance encounters. Many of these secondary characters are also deeply mentally disturbed. One character goes by the picturesque name of "Luscious Skin." Some of these vignettes are interesting but then the character disappears and never returns.
Maybe I'm just too old a fogey to get involved in the lives of these drifters, who after all belong to my own generation. That's possible. Some books appeal mostly to the young. I did in fact meet some South Americans in my kibbutz volunteering days in the 1970s who were a bit like these guys -- long-haired, politically extreme left with uncertain personal cleanliness habits -- and I didnt like them much then either.
So if you're an old fogey like me, this book may not be for you.
Book Review: Brilliant and essential reading for Bolano Fans
Summary: 5 Stars
Here is a helpful note, if someone is recommending Bolano to you to read: read The Savage Detectives first, and then read 2666. The development in Bolano's writing mastery from The Savage Detectives, which is without a doubt brilliant, to 2666 is amazing. I read 2666 first so when I read SD, I was constantly aware of the difference in writing style/development/mastery from SD to 2666, though the awareness did not hurt my appreciation of The Savage Detectives.
SD is Bolano practice of the Spanish picaresque style where bohemian romantic ways are reduced to decadence, degeneracy and frequently madness in Europe, North America, South America and Africa. This is a cosmopolitan voice and writer who lives(d) in the world, rather than indigenously and speaking from a place of contained experience. Bolano's familiarity with the world, cities, their characteristics and detail is stunning in SD. His access to the world and his examination of it and the transient people who move about it is the riveting accomplishment of this work that also hinges on wonderful narrations, that convey the narrative and characterize the speaker and protagonists; and a structure deeply dependent upon motifs and leitmotifs that allow his themes and metaphors to reverberate with rich meaning. This is a very organically structured novel that lays the bed for the more complex structure of 2666.
Furthermore, the seeds of 2666 are in SD, the wandering, the random life influences that bring change, the very segmented narration and the Bolano characters' obsessions with quests, to investigate and understand people, things or circumstances that contribute meaning or no meaning and purpose to the characters' lives.
SD book is an original. The voice of Bolano is a big one and will last. He mixes Artaud, Celine, Burroughs, Kerouac, Baudelaire and Rimbaud in his own bohemian world. Yet his voice is new. SD book is amazing, a romantic road trip involving poets, artists, and bohemes and is as good as it gets, until you read 2666.
Book Review: A poetic manifold
Summary: 4 Stars
In my quest to increase my reading this summer I searched many top ten book lists. The one book that was constantly on the lists was Roberto Bolano's "The Savage Detectives" so I rolled the dice and picked it up not really knowing the plot or setting. I'm happy to say that I was pleasantly surprised with just how good this book turned out to be. The book is divided into three sections. The first section in entitled "Mexicans lost in Mexico" which follows the life and times of a young poet named Juan Garcia Madero who has just joined a group of poets who call themselves the "Visceral realist". He does his best to fit in with is colleagues but finds himself in danger when he gets mixed up with a prostitute and her pimp. The second section is the bulk of the book and is entitled "The Savage Detectives" which is much like reading a manifold of short stories than run into each other. The lives and personal accounts of dozens of different characters(most of which are poets) span the length of The Savage detectives and it's a truly fascinating read. Each character has a philosophy, an insight, and they each leave their unique signature on the book as a whole. Kind of like a big collage with each one adding a piece. The last section, "The Sonora Desert" is the conclusion of the events that unfolded in "Mexicans lost in Mexico" and is an enjoyable noirish thriller which keeps you guessing on the conclusion. Bolano's "Detectives" is deserving of all the praise it has been reserving. The way Bolano can write with so many different styles and view points is something that I haven't seen before. Bolano created a vast array of intriguing characters and was able to weave them together without making the story convoluted or pointless(even though it doesn't always follow a linear plot). Granted, it did take me a few hundred pages to begin to fully appreciate it but it's one of those books that rewards you for patience and commitment. "Detectives" is a beautiful and mesmerizing book.