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A review by spenkevich
The Savage Detectives by Roberto Bolaño
5.0
A book so good I had to get it tattooed onto me.
‘Youth is a scam’
Roberto Bolaño (1953-2003) created a very special novel with The Savage Detectives. The novel is constantly moving, grinding slowly across the years steady and sure as a freight train, carrying the baggage of our existence towards the inevitable finality of life. During the course of my reading, people would misinterpret the title and tell me they enjoyed a good crime thriller and inquire into the plot of the book I clutched lovingly in my hands. While this is no ‘whodunnit’ novel, it is still an investigation of sorts formed primarily through a series of interviews that leave the truth up to the reader to deduce. These various perspectives provide anything from glowing reports to unflattering dismissals of the major characters as their lives intertwine. These perspectives form an ever-expanding collage of lost souls floating across Europe and the Americas. They occasionally collide and leave their mark upon one another and redirecting the course of their lives for better or for worse.
The novel begins with the youth and youthful aspirations of young Hispanic poets. As is the common folly of youth, they believe firmly in their still-forming convictions and have yet to embrace the truths of their own mortality, thus believing in an impenetrable immortality that they will construct of themselves by etching their mark upon the literary scene and politics of Mexico. As the timeline expands, we see often these lofty ideals falter, the bonds of friendship fizzle and their efforts fail, and the reader is reminded of their own mortality and the uncertainties that lie ahead of them. That sharp flint which we would plunge into the beating heart of the world is chipped through our battles for selfhood and dulled by the temoltous seas of life – seas comprised of changing tides and hostile currents that toss us about at will, shattering dreams, friendships and romances upon the rocks. Not only is it the personal lives of the characters, but the whole of Mexico itself is thrashed and ravaged as time marches on. The sad state of the characters are representative of the state of their nation, and vice versa. We are all connected through each other, and through our homeland. We can all be dragged down together if we are not careful.
Life is fragile and our goals are even more fragile. Yet, still we have to press on. We must adapt and produce in order to not be effaced from the memory of the world. Many of these characters are able to, and we are treated to the advice and stories of those who make it in the literary scene. However, it is those who never reach the peak that are ultimately the heroes of this novel. Through poetry, they attempt this immortality, this cup of eternal life they so seek. If it is not through poetry, then they strive towards criticism and translations. Is reaching for immortality through the arts the answer? Inaki Exhevarne offers this discouraging impression on the arts and criticism:
This ultimately makes one feel awkward even writing a review of this book, as it acknowledges that I too must become a permanent fixture in the trail of bones. The only way out is to hitch a ride on the Work, to be the name attached to the eternal manuscript even though we still must face Death.
Despite all this bleakness, Bolaño offers a bright outcome. It is curious that a novel about poets is relatively devoid of poetic works. There are a few samples of older, famous pieces, including an extensive reference to Theodore Sturgeon’s short story When You Care, When You Love, but the reader never gets to sample the actual poetry of the Visceral Realists. Then, the true poetry is the actual lives of the characters. Life itself is the poetic beauty in the world, and it is through our interactions with others that we find immortality. Those we encounter become our readers, and through their stories and perspectives they carry on our legacy. They interpret our proverbial footprints in the sand for all those who would seek them.
Felipe Müller's recounting 0f the Sturgeon story told to him by Belano gives us a glimpse into the sort of immortality granted by the encounters with others. It is an exercise in infinity. The number of people we encounter is constantly growing, hurtling towards an infinite number of people our simple existence affects. Many of the characters stories in Savage Detectives have only small references to the major players, Belano and Ulises, but even they take something away from these encounters that will pass through them and their actions into the people they subsequently interact with. We occasionally play a large role in the lives of others, but even our smallest roles can be told. Think of the cashier you annoyed by buying cigarettes in all change (guilty), or the waiter you left an extra generous tip to. They may have later told of the small encounter later (especially in the case that you annoyed or enraged them, but hey, if Bolaño is accurate, it’s just a step towards immortality or at least unflattering notoriety). Each individual perspective is unique from everyone else’s of a person, Each encounter bounces off, sometimes revealing positives and sometimes revealing flaws, and the summation of these perspectives, this penumbra of those around us, form the picture of a person. The more perspectives, the more accurate and clear the image. In a way, it is like pixels in a picture. The novel could have been told from a perspective closer to Ulises and Belano, but through all the various perspectives we get a well rounded idea of who they are, and also learn the lives and aspirations of all those they meet.
Bolaño does a magnificent job creating a diverse cast of characters whose eyes the reader can peer through. The voices don’t ever become stale, however when compared to more chameleon-like writers such as David Mitchell of which I’ve been gushing over for months now and can’t help but use as a yardstick for all other authors, a bit more diversity in the voices would have been a nice touch. Still, the effect is pulled off expertly and there are a number of unique voices to soak up. Quim offers a truly surreal depiction of the world around him, Barbara is hilariously vulgar, the optimism of the hippy hitchhiker and the amazing chapter of Heimito told in an obfuscating style that reminded me of Faulker’s Benjy. The rotation of these voices keeps the novel fresh and exciting, and the multiple vantage points on key situations, such as the duel, help pull the reader into the situation and make them feel as if they were there in three dimensions smelling the surf and feeling the sand beneath their feet.
If I may, I’m going to switch from intellect to inebriate for a moment (intellect being a term I’ve shamelessly and unwarrantedly bestowed upon myself, but it made for some fun word play). This novel came at the right time in my life, and allowed me to examine the bonds that tie us to reality. A novel like this makes one question their lives, their choices, and really evaluate themselves and value those around them. It may be a bit clichéd now, but this novel felt to me similar to how [b:On the Road|70401|On the Road|Jack Kerouac|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1658929891l/70401._SY75_.jpg|1701188] did to me as an impressionable teen. I credit many of the traits of my silly-puddy teenage personality to my experience with that novel. One look at my young college days at MSU, arriving at parties with a cigarette between my lips, guzzling a jug of wine while wearing a flannel shirt and drunkenly ranting about Buddhism, poetry, and the inescapable sadness that provides the true beauty of life, and I might as well have the books title tattooed on my spine. It worked at the time, but this is the sort of life we have to let go of lest we become pathetic. Savage Detectives takes this sort of ideals and displays them further on down the road. The book is rather sad in that it shows how fickle people are towards their goodtime friends. Once Ulises and Belano take off, the ‘tight knit’ group relatively forgets them. Some could care less when they return. The ephemeral moments we with could last forever are just a brilliant burning flame that will be extinguished. We can keep it in our heart and immortalize it through epic retellings, but we can’t expect time to stand still. If we do, it will trample us on its march to the future. I miss my old friends, but I have good ones now too, just a lower number of them due to societal constraints on my time. In the past few years I’ve left behind my home, my friends and family, to live several hours away and have noticed how true this book is. There are good friends I’ve now lost touch with, and people that I’m sure have forgotten me. We all have lives and responsibilities, and when someone isn’t immediately present, it is understandable that current issues will elbow their way into the vacant spot. The reading of this book in a GR group made a sort of ‘metagroup’ considering the ideas expressed in the book, and made me really value the discussions and friendships that have been formed on this site. Thank you everyone. There was a time when I took trains around the Midwest and crashed on couches in Tennessee, but now those are just stories that I hope when others tell them that I appear as a positive and amiable figure in. The Kerouac days are over, but what Road was to my youth, Savage Detectives is to my present state in my mid-twenties. I hope to learn from this book and always remember that our immortality comes through our interactions with others. I want to live to the fullest, and to strive to be a positive figure in the stories that will one day be told. If you made it this far, thank you for listening to me vomit up some overly sentimental ramblings. Don’t judge too harshly?
Savage Detectives is an incredible investigation into the lives of the Visceral Realist, a group based upon actual people in Bolano’s life. It paints a well-rounded portrait of these key figures and reminds us that life is always fluctuating, for better or for worse, as it inches closer to our inevitable deaths. This book comes together quite nicely. He leaves us with an empowering message that the world outside our window is ours to shape. It is a world of infinite possibility. Just don’t let it shape you. Also, it was moving to see the mother of Visceral Realism defend the later generations like a lion to her cubs. Despite all the frailties of friendship, the human bond will not break or shake in the face of death, and we see good always strive to conquer evil. We all end up as the bones that the eternal Works will step over, but even bones have their story to tell. May we all face the stars and the depths of eternity together. Everything that begins as comedy ends as as bittersweet memories
Best enjoyed with a bottle of Tecate or Modelo on a hot summer's day.
5/5
(my original posting of this review years ago was 4 out of 5, but as time goes on this one has grown so much in my heart that I had to give it the full five).
Thanks to everyone in the Cabbage Detectives group led by Don Juan Ian. I would encourage anyone to please read their wonderful reviews, as each perspective brings this novel into clearer focus.
In no particular order:
Ian
Ifer
Kris
Scholar Mike
Mary
Ja(y Rubin)son
Sean
Praj
And more to come...
‘Youth is a scam’
Roberto Bolaño (1953-2003) created a very special novel with The Savage Detectives. The novel is constantly moving, grinding slowly across the years steady and sure as a freight train, carrying the baggage of our existence towards the inevitable finality of life. During the course of my reading, people would misinterpret the title and tell me they enjoyed a good crime thriller and inquire into the plot of the book I clutched lovingly in my hands. While this is no ‘whodunnit’ novel, it is still an investigation of sorts formed primarily through a series of interviews that leave the truth up to the reader to deduce. These various perspectives provide anything from glowing reports to unflattering dismissals of the major characters as their lives intertwine. These perspectives form an ever-expanding collage of lost souls floating across Europe and the Americas. They occasionally collide and leave their mark upon one another and redirecting the course of their lives for better or for worse.
The novel begins with the youth and youthful aspirations of young Hispanic poets. As is the common folly of youth, they believe firmly in their still-forming convictions and have yet to embrace the truths of their own mortality, thus believing in an impenetrable immortality that they will construct of themselves by etching their mark upon the literary scene and politics of Mexico. As the timeline expands, we see often these lofty ideals falter, the bonds of friendship fizzle and their efforts fail, and the reader is reminded of their own mortality and the uncertainties that lie ahead of them. That sharp flint which we would plunge into the beating heart of the world is chipped through our battles for selfhood and dulled by the temoltous seas of life – seas comprised of changing tides and hostile currents that toss us about at will, shattering dreams, friendships and romances upon the rocks. Not only is it the personal lives of the characters, but the whole of Mexico itself is thrashed and ravaged as time marches on. The sad state of the characters are representative of the state of their nation, and vice versa. We are all connected through each other, and through our homeland. We can all be dragged down together if we are not careful.
Life is fragile and our goals are even more fragile. Yet, still we have to press on. We must adapt and produce in order to not be effaced from the memory of the world. Many of these characters are able to, and we are treated to the advice and stories of those who make it in the literary scene. However, it is those who never reach the peak that are ultimately the heroes of this novel. Through poetry, they attempt this immortality, this cup of eternal life they so seek. If it is not through poetry, then they strive towards criticism and translations. Is reaching for immortality through the arts the answer? Inaki Exhevarne offers this discouraging impression on the arts and criticism:
’For a while, Criticism travels side by side with the Work, then Criticism vanishes and it's the Readers who keep pace. The journey may be long or short. Then the Readers die one by one and the Work continues on alone, although a new Criticism and new Readers gradually fall into step with it along its path. Then Criticism dies again and the Readers die again and the Work passes over a trail of bones on its journey toward solitude. To come near the work, to sail in her wake, is a sign of certain death, but new Criticism and new Readers approach her tirelessly and relentlessly and are devoured by time and speed. Finally the Work journeys irremediably alone in the Great Vastness. And one day the Work dies, as all things must die and come to an end: the Sun and the Earth and the Solar System and the Galaxy and the farthest reaches of man's memory. Everything that begins as comedy ends in tragedy.’
This ultimately makes one feel awkward even writing a review of this book, as it acknowledges that I too must become a permanent fixture in the trail of bones. The only way out is to hitch a ride on the Work, to be the name attached to the eternal manuscript even though we still must face Death.
Despite all this bleakness, Bolaño offers a bright outcome. It is curious that a novel about poets is relatively devoid of poetic works. There are a few samples of older, famous pieces, including an extensive reference to Theodore Sturgeon’s short story When You Care, When You Love, but the reader never gets to sample the actual poetry of the Visceral Realists. Then, the true poetry is the actual lives of the characters. Life itself is the poetic beauty in the world, and it is through our interactions with others that we find immortality. Those we encounter become our readers, and through their stories and perspectives they carry on our legacy. They interpret our proverbial footprints in the sand for all those who would seek them.
Felipe Müller's recounting 0f the Sturgeon story told to him by Belano gives us a glimpse into the sort of immortality granted by the encounters with others. It is an exercise in infinity. The number of people we encounter is constantly growing, hurtling towards an infinite number of people our simple existence affects. Many of the characters stories in Savage Detectives have only small references to the major players, Belano and Ulises, but even they take something away from these encounters that will pass through them and their actions into the people they subsequently interact with. We occasionally play a large role in the lives of others, but even our smallest roles can be told. Think of the cashier you annoyed by buying cigarettes in all change (guilty), or the waiter you left an extra generous tip to. They may have later told of the small encounter later (especially in the case that you annoyed or enraged them, but hey, if Bolaño is accurate, it’s just a step towards immortality or at least unflattering notoriety). Each individual perspective is unique from everyone else’s of a person, Each encounter bounces off, sometimes revealing positives and sometimes revealing flaws, and the summation of these perspectives, this penumbra of those around us, form the picture of a person. The more perspectives, the more accurate and clear the image. In a way, it is like pixels in a picture. The novel could have been told from a perspective closer to Ulises and Belano, but through all the various perspectives we get a well rounded idea of who they are, and also learn the lives and aspirations of all those they meet.
Bolaño does a magnificent job creating a diverse cast of characters whose eyes the reader can peer through. The voices don’t ever become stale, however when compared to more chameleon-like writers such as David Mitchell of which I’ve been gushing over for months now and can’t help but use as a yardstick for all other authors, a bit more diversity in the voices would have been a nice touch. Still, the effect is pulled off expertly and there are a number of unique voices to soak up. Quim offers a truly surreal depiction of the world around him, Barbara is hilariously vulgar, the optimism of the hippy hitchhiker and the amazing chapter of Heimito told in an obfuscating style that reminded me of Faulker’s Benjy. The rotation of these voices keeps the novel fresh and exciting, and the multiple vantage points on key situations, such as the duel, help pull the reader into the situation and make them feel as if they were there in three dimensions smelling the surf and feeling the sand beneath their feet.
If I may, I’m going to switch from intellect to inebriate for a moment (intellect being a term I’ve shamelessly and unwarrantedly bestowed upon myself, but it made for some fun word play). This novel came at the right time in my life, and allowed me to examine the bonds that tie us to reality. A novel like this makes one question their lives, their choices, and really evaluate themselves and value those around them. It may be a bit clichéd now, but this novel felt to me similar to how [b:On the Road|70401|On the Road|Jack Kerouac|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1658929891l/70401._SY75_.jpg|1701188] did to me as an impressionable teen. I credit many of the traits of my silly-puddy teenage personality to my experience with that novel. One look at my young college days at MSU, arriving at parties with a cigarette between my lips, guzzling a jug of wine while wearing a flannel shirt and drunkenly ranting about Buddhism, poetry, and the inescapable sadness that provides the true beauty of life, and I might as well have the books title tattooed on my spine. It worked at the time, but this is the sort of life we have to let go of lest we become pathetic. Savage Detectives takes this sort of ideals and displays them further on down the road. The book is rather sad in that it shows how fickle people are towards their goodtime friends. Once Ulises and Belano take off, the ‘tight knit’ group relatively forgets them. Some could care less when they return. The ephemeral moments we with could last forever are just a brilliant burning flame that will be extinguished. We can keep it in our heart and immortalize it through epic retellings, but we can’t expect time to stand still. If we do, it will trample us on its march to the future. I miss my old friends, but I have good ones now too, just a lower number of them due to societal constraints on my time. In the past few years I’ve left behind my home, my friends and family, to live several hours away and have noticed how true this book is. There are good friends I’ve now lost touch with, and people that I’m sure have forgotten me. We all have lives and responsibilities, and when someone isn’t immediately present, it is understandable that current issues will elbow their way into the vacant spot. The reading of this book in a GR group made a sort of ‘metagroup’ considering the ideas expressed in the book, and made me really value the discussions and friendships that have been formed on this site. Thank you everyone. There was a time when I took trains around the Midwest and crashed on couches in Tennessee, but now those are just stories that I hope when others tell them that I appear as a positive and amiable figure in. The Kerouac days are over, but what Road was to my youth, Savage Detectives is to my present state in my mid-twenties. I hope to learn from this book and always remember that our immortality comes through our interactions with others. I want to live to the fullest, and to strive to be a positive figure in the stories that will one day be told. If you made it this far, thank you for listening to me vomit up some overly sentimental ramblings. Don’t judge too harshly?
Savage Detectives is an incredible investigation into the lives of the Visceral Realist, a group based upon actual people in Bolano’s life. It paints a well-rounded portrait of these key figures and reminds us that life is always fluctuating, for better or for worse, as it inches closer to our inevitable deaths. This book comes together quite nicely. He leaves us with an empowering message that the world outside our window is ours to shape. It is a world of infinite possibility. Just don’t let it shape you. Also, it was moving to see the mother of Visceral Realism defend the later generations like a lion to her cubs. Despite all the frailties of friendship, the human bond will not break or shake in the face of death, and we see good always strive to conquer evil. We all end up as the bones that the eternal Works will step over, but even bones have their story to tell. May we all face the stars and the depths of eternity together. Everything that begins as comedy ends as as bittersweet memories
Best enjoyed with a bottle of Tecate or Modelo on a hot summer's day.
5/5
(my original posting of this review years ago was 4 out of 5, but as time goes on this one has grown so much in my heart that I had to give it the full five).
Thanks to everyone in the Cabbage Detectives group led by Don Juan Ian. I would encourage anyone to please read their wonderful reviews, as each perspective brings this novel into clearer focus.
In no particular order:
Ian
Ifer
Kris
Scholar Mike
Mary
Ja(y Rubin)son
Sean
Praj
And more to come...