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Liked It “Mesmerizing & Literary Odyssey of a group of young Latin American bohemians/writers in search of Self-Expression/Discovery. Told nicely chapter by chapter in the voice of each of the protagonists.” see full review » see other reviews » |
Didn’t Like It “This book was driving me crazy so I finally just stopped reading it! A bunch of young people pretending/striving to be poets and sleeping with each other. I gather if I had stuck with it, the book would have improved. Oh well.” see full review » see other reviews » |
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“Mesmerizing & Literary Odyssey of a group of young Latin American bohemians/writers in search of Self-Expression/Discovery. Told nicely chapter by chapter in the voice of each of the protagonists.”
Wilson B Sanchez wrote this review Thursday, October 29 2009. ( reply | permalink ) Was this review helpful? Yes | No
“This is one of Bolaño's masterpieces (along with 2666). I approached this book with huge expectations, because of the hype around Bolaño, and I wasn't disappointed.”
Andre wrote this review Monday, October 19 2009. ( reply | permalink ) Was this review helpful? Yes | No
“Yet again my mind is blown away.
Kirk W wrote this review Sunday, October 18 2009. ( reply | permalink ) Was this review helpful? Yes | No
When I finished Bolano's 2666, I was mostly incoherent, incapable of even communicating what it was about that book that so astounded me. I still have not found the words. Having finished The Savage Detectives, I am afraid I might have to resort to similar language. I must say that I have rarely encountered a novel that affected or transported me like this one did. Like Bolano's 2666, one is completely stunned upon closing the covers, unable to articulate to oneself why one was so impressed by the novel, why one can only describe it with the words, "Holy shit."
What characterizes and distinguishes this novel, like 2666, is that it defies categorization and classification, that it resists all attempts by the reader to impose terms of meaning on it. A celebration of reality, it contains elements of every genre in a stark and vivid style. Occupied with the lives of two poets who rebel against the status quo and engage in plenty of questionable behavior, the novel itself also defies the structures that would seek to stifle it. It breathes with aesthetic energy and life.
The structure of the novel itself deserves to be noted. It begins and ends from the perspective of a single character in the form of diary entries. However, for much of it the novel features monologues delivered by a host of characters in the form of police reports, one could say. Through these the reader struggles to construct a coherent understanding of how the two poets - Arturo Belano and Ulises Lima - developed. As the number of perspectives collapse and fragment upon each other, as the reader tries to cling to all of the shards, everything starts to transform into a cubist maze of mirrors, in which one is always lost.
Although I often became confused with the development of the characters throughout the novel, mainly because of the fact that the identity of the narrator shifts constantly among dozens if not hundreds of characters, that fact does not in any way hinder or reduce my appreciation for this astonishing and rich book from one of the greatest writers of our time. the story unfolds in a way that few do as the reader attempts to connect the pieces of the puzzle together. Like a police officer reading criminal reports, one must attempt to construct everything in the midst of many settings and many characters, shifting with no warning whatsoever. Ultimately, one cannot help but wonder if Bolano intended to reflect reality by using this form. As in reality, it is impossible to truly understand the nature of what we experience.
As we can never fully grasp the characters due to the narrative form, they do appear to the reader to be flat. Nevertheless, Bolano does succeed in depicting them as human beings and the richness with which he describes what transpires in their lives in the avant-garde movement in Mexico City. The reader may never fully know who the characters are but that does not prevent him or her from sympathizing and caring about them. The same style of Dickensian cast that filled 2666 appears here.
Many of the people who have reacted negatively to this novel have contended that all of the pages that constitute it amount to nothing. They fail to realize that Bolano aims in his fiction to reflect - not to marginalize - reality and weaves his stories in such a way that they operate in a super-realistic (but simultaneously surreal) style. His novels capture the profundity and triviality, the richness and the voidness, that characterize human existence each and every day. Each moment for Bolano amounts to everything and nothing, a theme that this novel strongly reflects as it builds its theme of the ultimate futility of life and aesthetic endeavor. If something seems pointless in the novel, it is merely because it has been inadequately observed - or because one is applying the wrong attitude toward it, searching for a meaning where there was never meant to be one along the lines demanded.
Many have also complained that this novel seems to contain nothing but endless hedonism, filled as it is with sex, violence, drug use, and general debauchery. Yet again, in using these devices, Bolano is not attempting to irritate or stimulate the moral eyeballs of his readers. Instead, what he is seeking to do is illuminate reality for what it is. That his characters engage in the behaviors does not speak about Bolano so much as it does about the human condition and mankind's ultimate delusions in its existential void. More often than not, also, Bolano also reaches his aesthetic peak during such scenes.
It goes without saying that Bolano's writing style remains strong as always. Roberto Bolano, who stunned me with 2666, does not disappoint with this novel, although the former, in my opinion, was better. His verbal vivacity, his wit, his fluid language, and his shocking poise are just as evident here as they were in his final novel. Reading him is certainly a refreshing journey; his style is inimitable.
A book that I encourage all to read, The Savage Detectives once again proves that Bolano was one of the greatest novelists of all time, one whose loss truly does deprive the literary world of a fantastic giant.
Yet again, Bolano gives a literary high that no one else can, a high that I will never forget. Few authors truly blow one away, in the trite metaphor. This one does. And one never forgets the state of one's hair when the wind has passed.”“One of two favorites from RB. 2666 is also a monumental accomplishment. The movement of Visceral Realsim is discussed a perhaps auto-biographical statement from an author that "created" the infrarealism movement in poetry. The book portrays the lives of many poets of the movement as drug addicted, debauched theives and whores. Visceral to a point, but the genius of Belano lies in his ability to make the reader connect with these seedy poets. Their lives are drug from the gutter and allowed to inderact with the reader on satisfyingly personal level.”
Brian C wrote this review Sunday, October 18 2009. ( reply | permalink ) Was this review helpful? Yes | No“This book was driving me crazy so I finally just stopped reading it! A bunch of young people pretending/striving to be poets and sleeping with each other. I gather if I had stuck with it, the book would have improved. Oh well.”
arobichaud wrote this review Saturday, October 17 2009. ( reply | permalink ) Was this review helpful? Yes | No
“Tension, gratuitous amounts of spontaneous sexual encounters, many contradictions, funny, contentious, fiction, love, coming of age, intense, enjoyed the first section but didn't like the second and third sections”
Dave H wrote this review Tuesday, September 29 2009. ( reply | permalink ) Was this review helpful? Yes | No“I'm about 400 pages into this one. I admire Bolano's dedication to poetry and poets. He incorporates poetry real and fictional into this text, and refers to hundreds of poets from many languages. There are multiple narrators in this novel, and so far I liked the seventeen year old poet who narrates the first section (of about 150 pages) the best. I'll know more as I read on, but this is a long and dense work, and so far Bolano has avoided giving away where the novel is going, what he's "trying to say" with and through this work. He keeps building without giving away the final vision of what is being constructed. I don't know how to rate this one yet.”
Greg G wrote this review Tuesday, August 11 2009. ( reply | permalink ) Was this review helpful? Yes | No
“An On the Road type story full of great sex scenes, lots of drugs, and musings on poetry. It is quite thick and by the end, I almost missed the characters. However, it is so rambling and there are so many story lines, that I am not sure if I would have finished it if I hadn't read it over the summer. ”
Nicole G wrote this review Friday, July 10 2009. ( reply | permalink ) Was this review helpful? Yes | No
“Totally overrated book about boring poets being boring while they look for their boring friends. Read Bolano's "2666" instead.”
Leif wrote this review Tuesday, June 23 2009. ( reply | permalink ) Was this review helpful? Yes | No
