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A review by theuncultured
The Savage Detectives by Roberto Bolaño
5.0
I bought the book and, as is my norm, read it years after the date of purchase. The copy was sent half-eaten with the middle chunk so unintelligible that even the poetic eye would not have known what to do with it. The second copy I ordered was better, not perfect, but readable. I had to pry 50-something pages apart with my own hands at one point, but I didn’t mind doing so because the first quarter of the book was so delicious that I wanted to work for it; I wanted to earn Bolaño’s translated words. A readable mess anyway was better than an unreadable one.
What can I say that has not been violently and passionately declared by others about The Savage Detectives? This book is a valley of people and places that I fell in love with too fast, my obsession growing hard and furious from the start. I wouldn't go as far as to compare it to an unhealthy one-sided relationship but it came close. The first few pages lured me in like a charming stranger in the night and I found it hard to find life outside of the book for a while. I was completely transformed and dissociated from my reality. All I wanted to do was read and sleep so I could read some more in the morning. I had no idea that the entire premise of the book was about a quest (I am still skeptical on that supposed plot), a pursuit to locate a poetess, the poetess, responsible for creating this pathetic yet absolutely charming movement called “Visceral Realism”. But then what? Talking to her? Grilling her? Blaming her for the trail of madness she’s created and abandoned, thus leaving a group of disheveled and washed out poets to fend for themselves and their subjectively brilliant poetry? In any case the visceral poets follow her to the ends of Mexico - perhaps to find life and meaning in their journey and investigation, or perhaps to avoid getting murdered by a clearly delusional and violent pimp, or maybe to simply write a book about a bunch of poets raising hell in Mexico City (I would definitely read this).
The detectives, I mean poets, aren’t boring. As a matter of fact I’ve derived great joy from following them around and reading about their lives from people who’ve met them. Bolaño’s manner of narration using this perspective is brilliant and one of its kind. I hate to say it, because it’s been said so many times before, but I couldn’t separate it from On the Road (although clearly Bolaño’s classier than Kerouac) but the comparison doesn’t arrive from a lack of plot, or cars driven in the middle of sad and lonely deserts, but from an energy that surrounds meeting people, especially literary personalities, and delving into their lives and their mannerisms until they begin to correspond with your own. The stars felt the same, the lines on the faces a memory of ones all over the world who go through life tattered and broken and yet in continuance pursuit of something bigger than themselves. The leftover feeling of this wild Mexican ride is not really knowing who is who and who means what but who really cares about deeply understanding this chaos? It’s gorgeous without any clear explanation.
This is a beautifully written book and I was sad to end it, aside from the middle part that ached and aged my soul. The Savage Detectives is a piece of Latin literature that will forever behold me or anyone who ever comes into contact with it, I know it in my heart. It will drag them into a world full of real people and real pain and bring them closer to a humanity that they never knew they lacked.
What can I say that has not been violently and passionately declared by others about The Savage Detectives? This book is a valley of people and places that I fell in love with too fast, my obsession growing hard and furious from the start. I wouldn't go as far as to compare it to an unhealthy one-sided relationship but it came close. The first few pages lured me in like a charming stranger in the night and I found it hard to find life outside of the book for a while. I was completely transformed and dissociated from my reality. All I wanted to do was read and sleep so I could read some more in the morning. I had no idea that the entire premise of the book was about a quest (I am still skeptical on that supposed plot), a pursuit to locate a poetess, the poetess, responsible for creating this pathetic yet absolutely charming movement called “Visceral Realism”. But then what? Talking to her? Grilling her? Blaming her for the trail of madness she’s created and abandoned, thus leaving a group of disheveled and washed out poets to fend for themselves and their subjectively brilliant poetry? In any case the visceral poets follow her to the ends of Mexico - perhaps to find life and meaning in their journey and investigation, or perhaps to avoid getting murdered by a clearly delusional and violent pimp, or maybe to simply write a book about a bunch of poets raising hell in Mexico City (I would definitely read this).
The detectives, I mean poets, aren’t boring. As a matter of fact I’ve derived great joy from following them around and reading about their lives from people who’ve met them. Bolaño’s manner of narration using this perspective is brilliant and one of its kind. I hate to say it, because it’s been said so many times before, but I couldn’t separate it from On the Road (although clearly Bolaño’s classier than Kerouac) but the comparison doesn’t arrive from a lack of plot, or cars driven in the middle of sad and lonely deserts, but from an energy that surrounds meeting people, especially literary personalities, and delving into their lives and their mannerisms until they begin to correspond with your own. The stars felt the same, the lines on the faces a memory of ones all over the world who go through life tattered and broken and yet in continuance pursuit of something bigger than themselves. The leftover feeling of this wild Mexican ride is not really knowing who is who and who means what but who really cares about deeply understanding this chaos? It’s gorgeous without any clear explanation.
This is a beautifully written book and I was sad to end it, aside from the middle part that ached and aged my soul. The Savage Detectives is a piece of Latin literature that will forever behold me or anyone who ever comes into contact with it, I know it in my heart. It will drag them into a world full of real people and real pain and bring them closer to a humanity that they never knew they lacked.