Roberto Bolaño: The Savage Detectives

[shaunrandol]

I searched for a thread on Bolano's The Savage Detectives, but could not find one... surprisingly! So if there is one that I missed, please let me know and I'll post this information under the appropriate thread.

Patrick Guyer has just published a review of the novel on The Mantle. Here are the intro paragraphs...

The Savage Detectives is perhaps best described as an inverted mystery novel: the crime is a secret, the detective work is carried out by unseen sleuths asking unheard questions, and the testimonies of a plethora of witnesses paint a rich portrait of the crime scene as an exhilarating collision of reckless youth, poetic abandon, creative drive and tempted fate. The world, quite literally, is the canvas on which author Roberto Bola?o paints this scene. Savage leads the reader by the hand through the seedy Bohemian underside of Mexico City in the mid-1970s and across the Atlantic to France, Spain, Israel, Austria and back, interspersed with stops in Tanzania, Rwanda, Angola and Liberia. During this global trek, Bola?o takes every opportunity to showcase his Pynchon-like erudition and masterful skill as a narrator to convincingly tell his story through the mouths of a small army of characters, all of whom are so compelling and whose personalities are so well etched into the edifice of the plot that many of their own sagas could be stand-alone books.

The crime, it turns out, is the sudden extinguishing of the youthful, creative fire burning in the bellies of one particular group of poets in Mexico City. Solving it takes the reader on a narrative adventure of epic proportions that unfolds across three continents over nearly three decades.

To read the rest of the review, go here: Youth is a Scam (http://www.mantlethought.org/content/youth-scam)

[wyndham]

Just starting it. The sex scenes and lack of plot in the first 80 pages is starting to wear thin. I ended 2666 after the pointless and poorly written scene when the taxi driver is beaten for no reason...However there are little clues that keep you going in this one. The metaphor of the geography and street names of the first 80 pages, it is as if Mexico City is spiralling outwards toward all of Latin America led by the avenue names, Insurgentes, Medellin, Chapultepec, a mix of English, Spanish, Mexican nationalism, native indian...the book almost demands a street map (http://maps.google.com/maps?hl=en&source=hp&q=mexico+city&um=1&ie=UTF-8&hq=&hnear=Mexico+City,+D.f.,+Mexico&gl=us&ei=LQBOS6rzI4a0tgff4sHgDA&sa=X&oi=geocode_result&ct=image&resnum=1&ved=0CA4Q8gEwAA), and then all the characters are from all over Mexico and Latin America...That Bolano has put himself into the story as a, so far, minor character is interesting...one of the brother's name is Moctezuma who has a friend Luscious Skin...the play on name and place, myth and meaning is pretty cool...this spectre that nothing is right and it might having something to do with names, with naming places and people, with being able to trace this all the way back to the Aztecs and the first Europeans who entered here...one of the characters mentions human sacrifice still taking place, the father of the love interest is somewhat maniacal...so far the plot reminds me of the film Y tu mama tambien, and wonder if Bolano influenced this film and filmakers now popular in the West 10 or 20 years later. It is also very funny, but you can only let yourself half laugh because everything is so seedy, being able to laugh at this is essentially what Bolano is pointing out may have led to this in the first place, the lifting of certain taboos...

[Daniel del Real]

so far the plot reminds me of the film E tu mama tambien,


Come on, don't insult Bola?o that bad! That movie is just hideous.

[wyndham]

Come on, don't insult Bola?o that bad! That movie is just hideous.

First 80 pages though is about the same contrasting soci-economic realities, young people screwing...but the novel has all of this toponomy

[wyndham]

Getting interesting, narrator meets up with the girls father and the prostitute Lupe, p.92, right around here, near the alameda park, victoria and Dolores Streets, Mexico City

http://z.about.com/d/gomexico/1/0/U/3/-/-/IMG_9131.JPG

This is just incredible, the father is having sex with the prostitute, one time friend of the daughters, the two daughters live in a doll house in the courtyard of their father's big house where they have sex. doll house, metaphor for authority, sex, economy?transgression?


http://images.travelpod.com/cache/accom_maps/Puerta_Alameda_Condominium_Complex-Mexico_City.gif

[wyndham]

This is pretty good. On p. 101 the narrator goes about stealing books from antiquarian bookdealers in Mexico City, with the help of members of the virtual realists, the poets that were going to revolutionize Mexican poetry. Pretty funny.

"At Lizardi I thought I saw Monsivais. I tried to sidle up next to him to see what book he was looking at but when I reached him he turned around stared straight at me, with a hint of a smile, I think, and keeping afirm grip on his book and hiding the title...provoked i filched a little book by an arab poet called Omar Ibn al-Farid, pbublished by the university, and an anthology of young american poets put out by City Lights..."

Just a few pages earlier he describes the girl's sweat as reptilian. Now he is in Lizardi bookstore.


Jos? Joaqu?n Fern?ndez de Lizardi (1776–1827), Mexican (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mexico) writer and political journalist (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Journalist), best known as the author of El Periquillo Sarniento (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/El_Periquillo_Sarniento) (1816), reputed to be the first novel (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Novel) written in America (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States). -wiki

Ibn al-Farid or Ibn Farid ;Arabic (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arabic), عمر بن علي بن الفارض (`Umar ibn `Alī ibn al-Fārid) (1181-1235) was an Arab (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arab) poet. He was born in Cairo (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cairo), lived for some time in Mecca (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mecca) and died in Cairo. His poetry is entirely Sufic (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sufi), and he was esteemed the greatest mystic poet of the Arabs. Some of his poems are said to have been written in ecstasies. -ibid

The Arabs kept Greek culture alive. Lizardi kept Enlightenment ideals alive in ealry Mexico. City Lights keeping ideals alive?

The reader becomes the Savage Detective in this endeavor.

[Daniel del Real]

Getting interesting, narrator meets up with the girls father and the prostitute Lupe, p.92, right around here, near the alameda park, victoria and Dolores Streets, Mexico City


Ok, now that you're liking it you can stop comparing it with Y tu Mam? Tambi?n. Not Cool

Bola?o said in several interviews what a magical place was La Alameda in his teenage years. He used to skip school go to the libraries El S?tano and De Cristal, where he used to steal books and then go to the Alameda to read them hidden between enormouse trees.

As you can see, many of these pages of Los Detectives Salvajes is autobiographical.

[DB Cooper]

It will be interesting to see, as time passes, if The Savage Detectives is considered Bolonos masterwork, as opposed to 2666. I can definitely see an argument for that.

[Peeping Tom]

It will be interesting to see, as time passes, if The Savage Detectives is considered Bolonos masterwork, as opposed to 2666.

I still haven't decided which one is better, but I'm leaning towards The Savage Detectives, though it could very well change upon re-reading.

As for Bola?o's naming of streets, I'm fascinated with that aspect, though I don't fully know why. It reminds me of when I first tried to read Julio Cortazar's Hopscotch. In the opening section(s) of that novel (reading it the regular way), there is a long listing of the streets of Paris as the narrator searches for La Maga, which is almost mesmerizing.

My take on it is that the naming of streets is a form of searching. In Hopscotch, it is certainly the search for La Maga. In The Savage Detectives, it is the search for ????. That is the mystery for me.

[wyndham]

p. 139

Part. I Lost in Mexico ends with the narrator, the author's double, the lead poet and drug dealer and the whore heading North out of the city by way of calle Oaxaca, named after the state that is actually located south of Mexico City. Very nice twist.

I think this is one of those books where you can not really describe what it is about, it is really addressing mythology via 'visceral realism'...the joke that is not a joke...in the US we are absolutley still living this history, not just border cities but everyone...in part the lust of the novel is what the europeans have brought to the Americas and this is what the narrator was confronting in the first part, this weird collection of names, people, places, histories...and as a 17 year old, in addition to facing this, facing sex, drugs for the first time...and the worse he gets the more he can expose how bad it is...

It's a cinematic scene at the end of Part I with the narrator jumping into the Camaro and speeding out of the calle Colima with the author, the drug dealer and the whore, technology everyone's pimp.

http://www.toywonders.com/productcart/pc/catalog/60152w.jpg



It wouldn't surprise me if the father of the girls was in league with the pimp and the police. I think Bolano has got inside the house so to speak, to kind of address how a nation kind of sinks down the tubes and how one can be a part of it at the same time as realizing how insane it is.

[wyndham]

Part II The Savage Detectives

There is mention early of pyramids below Tlaxcala and of Opus Dei. Along with the mention of human sacrifice and the strange doll house set-up in Part I, it's these little asides that are kind of supra markings in the novel. The boy goes out on horseback alone and on the ride home tells everyone how there must be pyramids under the property out there. No one knows how to take it. He also tells his friend that their Catholic School is owned secretly by Opus Dei.

Tlaxcala is part of a volcanic region, pyramids buried under past eruptions. Maria in Part I was painting volcanoes and in one scene she is wearing a red pajama with a volcano on it. I think the bath house painting the narrator was so impressed with in Part I also had volcanic imagery, possibly the water from the same ancient acqueducts used by the Aztecs, Mexico City after all, built on the Aztec capital and still using parts of its irrigation system. There are Aztec temples in different locations of the city. It was the good Rosario who took the narrator there for a reason. This idea of causality that is mentioned a few times, no accidents or coinicdences, magnetism and fate the same thing.


"Tlaxcala?s two major archeological sites are Xochit?catl and Cacaxtla. Xochit?catl was built between 300 and 400 A.D.[14] (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tlaxcala#cite_note-englishhistoria-13) and probably reached its peak between 600 and 800 A.D. There is evidence that occupation of the sites extends much further back in time than the city. The ceremonial center is situated on a hill with four main structures called ?The Spiral Building,? ?The Volcano Base,? ?The Serpent Pyramid? and ?The Flower Pyramid.? The last is the most important and is topped by two monolithic pillars.[3] (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tlaxcala#cite_note-mexdesherencia-2) This pyramid is the fourth largest in Mexico (by base size) and the Spiral Pyramid is one of the few circular ones to be found"

http://www.uregina.ca/admin/academic/graduate_school/photo_galley/mexico_trip_day3_files/image002.jpg

One of the Tlaxcala pyramids

[wyndham]

Ok, now that you're liking it you can stop comparing it with Y tu Mam? Tambi?n. Not Cool

Bola?o said in several interviews what a magical place was La Alameda in his teenage years. He used to skip school go to the libraries El S?tano and De Cristal, where he used to steal books and then go to the Alameda to read them hidden between enormouse trees.

As you can see, many of these pages of Los Detectives Salvajes is autobiographical.


It doesn't matter if it is like the movie, it is in parts, of course there is just so much more here, but that movie was very impressive for imagery. Hollywood is just opening up to the myth of Mexico in its present form, our two mythologies now becoming apparent to each other and sharing the same past and future. So you are right, it is dangerous to compare the two if you think one is not presenting an adequate idea of the place or propagandizing in a certain way, which of course is impossible for Hollywood not to do.

I don't think hero worship serves any purpose though. It is obvious that the narrator and Bolano are attacking this in the book. Bolano could not stand most contemporary writers, and I am sure he would have a problem with the translation, editing etc. He considered novel writing crap to begin with. Everything that is important about this book is left out of its pages. Maybe if I read Ishiguro correclty I could find the same technique, but in this way this is a very enticing book, the more you can give to it the more it gives you. We are the savage detectives going after any meaning when there is none, only what we imagine.

[Daniel del Real]

It will be interesting to see, as time passes, if The Savage Detectives is considered Bolonos masterwork, as opposed to 2666. I can definitely see an argument for that.

Both are amazing novels, but I have to say that 2666 is superior than Los Detectives Salvajes. In some ways they are total opposites, since in 2666 everybody converge in Mexico, Santa Teresa, and in Los Detectives Salvajes all people living in Mexico go outside for their search circumnstances. Besides I find fascinating the study of evil that Bola?o makes in 2666. There is no such strong thesis in Los Detectives Salvajes.

There is no reason to compare them, after all it's just a matter of taste, but personally, I think 2666 should be the one.

[wyndham]

http://z.about.com/d/arthistory/1/7/1/c/fk200708_17.jpg

Frida Kahlo, Moses

Can't help but think of her imagery when reading some of Savage Detectives, the idea of myth, history, violence, sex...the land as something real. I think in a way Bolano is secretly undermining traditional Latin Am. literature, (and probably Kahlo even),visceral realism as a joke to magical realism etc. He said in interviews that he thought all the famous Latin American writers were sell outs or fascists...I think the only one he really liked, mentioned by Tom, was Cortazar, who moved to France. All the others were either fascists or communists, the same thing...but instead of politicizing things he is or his characters are doing something much braver, living among it while keeping, we hope, some conscience and sense of humor...the political group the visceral realsits is really just a way to sell dope, or vice versa, to get laid, vice versa...the only thing it changes is what it kind of magically, like a text, connects to itself bringing people and places together...so in his stories what is happening, plot and dialog, is extraneous to the actual import and ideas...I read a review where the critic did not like it because there were so many names, name places etc...did not like the literal story...what is really real and happening for the reader and possibly the narrator is the unwritten real novel developing alonside the written real-literal novel...only someone interested in the idea of writing and meaning is going to enjoy this...this other thing is building simultaneously if you wish to find it (detective-all you serious book readers and writers, savage detectives)...this book is like a study on the idea of the novel while being one, a bad one at that, non threatening, transparent, Hollywoodish...yet for those that want to this whole parallel reality is being offered...really questions the author reader relationship...but it does this, unlike Calvino or Borges, without telling anyone it is happening, it is as if we too were faced with the chaos of Ciudad de Mexico, placed in its midst...but we all have this anyway in the temporalzed world, New York, London....so aesthetically the story is pretty trashy and weak, like modern life mirrored in Hollywood as narcisus or prometheus, visceral, technological...but what is engaging about this?...do the metaphors, the asides, this other thing building opposse the real story? it would appear to be this way, waiting for the one moral thing to be done or said or even felt...I think in a way the publishing world and academia may have jumped the gun on Bolano...I think they thought it was safe after Mexican movies became mainstream to push something like Bolano on the English speaking world. They are getting a much different and actually much more powerful writer (akin to Joyce in a way) than they thought they were getting...hence they have pulled back on their coverage...

[lenz]

Come on, don't insult Bola?o that bad! That movie is just hideous.

I'm interested to know why a Mexican would find E tu Mama Tambien hideous. In Canada it is very popular and praised by critics.

[wyndham]

Are Belano and Ulises Lima government agents? This is what one could infer around p. 160. Luscious skin translates as piel deliciosa. Mention of Rimbaud on p.160, reciting a poem about war and the government, Rimbaud became a government agent while and after writing.

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/e/e3/Nezahualcoyotl_statue.jpg/180px-Nezahualcoyotl_statue.jpg
Nezahualcoyotl

"Nezahualcoyotl (Classical Nahuatl (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Classical_Nahuatl_language): Nezahualcoyōtl, pronounced [nesawaɬˈkojoːtɬ] (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:IPA_for_Nahuatl), meaning "Coyote in fast" or "Coyote who Fasts")[1] (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nezahualcoyotl#cite_note-0)(April 28, 1402 – June 4, 1472) was a philosopher, warrior, architect, poet and ruler (tlatoani (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tlatoani)) of the city-state of Texcoco (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Texcoco_(Aztec_site)) in pre-Columbian (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pre-Columbian)Mexico (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mexico)...He is best remembered for his beautiful poetry...he had an experience of an "Unknown, Unknowable Lord of Everywhere" to whom he built an entirely empty temple in which no blood sacrifices of any kind were allowed—not even animal...."-wiki


Page 168., mention of the Templars

"Looks like we have the Templars in Mexico, in the 11-1200's mining Gold and Silver, then for what ever reason abandoned, then later the Spanish ( 15-1700's) reopening these mines, and now in the 21st century a Canadian company doing extensive drilling and testing and reaffirming extensive gold and silver deposits!

Quite a provenance, albeit, a 1000 year time span! But physical evidence non the less..more weight on the scales, that the Templar's were precursors to the Jesuits..." -treasurenet.com

[wyndham]

On p. 185 Joaquin Font infers that Belano may not be completely human, an 'extraterrestrial', or subterrestrial...

[wyndham]

http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2414/2394395853_464a08e7b6.jpg

Central Library, UNAM, National University, Ciudad de Mexico

[wyndham]

September 11

"Belano" was in Chile for the September 11 coup...one more strange name, date, place connecting the myth of the Americas.

[wyndham]

"His words are the words of a tribe that never stops delving into things, investigating..." p.211 referring to Pound

[wyndham]

p. 214 Arturo Belano is compared to a zombie by publisher...the publisher wakes from a 'trance'...wherever Belano and Ulises Lima go, people go into a trance like state, or they emerge in trance scenes...then compare toa scarecrow

"and I saw the hairy back of his neck and for a second I thought I wasn't seeing a person, not a living breathing human being with blood inhise veins like you or me, but a scarecrow..."

then, 'mentally impaired', 'lobotomized'...

Maybe Belano and Bolano were somehow different

[wyndham]

p. 239 Ulises in Paris on teh top floor in his tiny apartment, chambre de bonne, has blankets that startle his friend by smelling like death...touching Ulises was like touching a statue...

are Arturo and Ulises zombies?

[Daniel del Real]

Frida Kahlo: Moses
Can't help but think of her imagery when reading some of Savage Detectives, the idea of myth, history, violence, sex...the land as something real

It also comes to my mind the paintings of Remedios Varo. Actually, if you read Amuleto, a novel that was written after Los Detectives Salvajes, and with a history coming from this same novel, the main character, Auxilio Lacouture, visits her house and ends up working for her in the house.
I really love Remedios Varo's paintings, way more than Frida Kahlo's. I suggest you to take a look at some.


Are Belano and Ulises Lima government agents? This is what one could infer around p. 160. Luscious skin translates as piel deliciosa. Mention of Rimbaud on p.160, reciting a poem about war and the government, Rimbaud became a government agent while and after writing.


As you already now Arturo Belano is Bola?o himself. Ulises Lima represents the figure of Mexican Poet, and co-founder of infrarealism Mario Santiago.


I'm interested to know why a Mexican would find E tu Mama Tambien hideous. In Canada it is very popular and praised by critics.

Being Mexican doesn't exclude me from criticize the bad things we produce here, and for me, that movie sucks. There two teenagers who make a road trip with an older Spanish woman, have sex, and later tells them that she has cancer. That's it! A terrible movie.
Want to check a good one from the same director, Amores Perros is the one.

[wyndham]

As you already now Arturo Belano is Bola?o himself. Ulises Lima represents the figure of Mexican Poet, and co-founder of infrarealism Mario Santiago.


This is interesting. But does this exlcude the possiblity that they are govt agents, or that this might be hinted of in the novel?

p.140 Masonic like handshake

Mario Santiago, killed by bus, 1998
Roberto Bolano, liver failure, 2003

On page 277 as they enter the campsite they find the site with the Blue Star, where Belano is working as a night watchman, who does not endup getting along with the German, Hans.

http://www.mysummercamps.com/camps/images/images/2/51642-medium_bluestar_logo11.jpg

[wyndham]

Interesting, p.291 the names left out of the new mexican poetry book, the visceral realists not in it, the flourishing of poetry in mexico city after Ulises and Belano leave...

visceral realists like the 12 apostles to Ulises Christ figure? On page 277 Belano jokes when trying to get him a job in the fishing village that Ulises can fish, 'the fisher of men'...

@ p.298 gets into the idea of logic, wittgenstien, language, translation and mistranslation...Ulises theory that the camel and the eye of the needle is a mistake in translation, that camell is close to cable rope in translation, but that the accident is often better than the pure logic...

Amadeo Salvatierro, aplay on Mozart and Salieri? lives near the Palace of the Inquisition...this idea of being in the middle of the logic, fascism and communism...

[wyndham]

What a disturbing novel. Finally finished it. The parrallel story didn't take off as I thought it would.

Cesarea Tinajero = Imperial water

Belano and Lima both working for the Israeli's or some secret organization hinted to.

But what a horrible set of characters and circumstances.

[wyndham]

I have found a poem by Mario Santiago and translated it:

History Lesson
by Mario Santiago

The Tower of Babel collapsed/

The Roman Colliseum is smoke
attractive postcards for tourists/

how far to Loren
the miracle of the adventure/

Hollywood's near adventure...

The Tower of Babel
has collapsed/

The phantasm of Robin Hood/

The passing of Juan Si Tierra/

The destruction of Spain at Trafalgar
The Imperial House,
the departure of the sun,
for the Orient and
the Occident/...

The Tower of Babel has collapsed.

[Daniel del Real]

What a disturbing novel. Finally finished it. The parrallel story didn't take off as I thought it would.

Cesarea Tinajero = Imperial water

Belano and Lima both working for the Israeli's or some secret organization hinted to.

But what a horrible set of characters and circumstances.

Cool, now go and get yourself 2666. Unless you prefer to cool down a little bit.

[wyndham]

I may try and read it again.

[altai]

Just finished the novel,
wanted to read this thread to see if anybody had anything interesting to say on the subject.
Windham posted many things, but nothing that makes sense. the poet named Luscious skin in original is "Piel Divina" not deliciosa, I wonder why they translated it like that. Belano and Lima Israeli agents? don't think the novel suggests it in any way. "Y tu mama tambien" is a good movie, btw, at least I enjoyed it. But I don't think it in any way resembles Detectives salvajes, apart from the presence of sexually active youngsters. what I found interesting in the novel is total lack of poetry in it. I mean Bolano is a poet, and the novel is about poets and poetry, but the text itself is pure prose. good prose at that, sometimes brilliant passages. The central part has many passages that play with myths, or strongly relate to the mythical element and by that elevate the novel by engaging some deep eternal questions. Like the one about Belano and a cave. There is a lot of well written psychological observations on the motives of characters, and I can see why it is compared often to Rayuela, but still it's very different from Rayuela in that in Rayuela I can clearly see a certain idea that Cortazar had in mind, a take on human existence, if you will. but I still can't figure out what Bolano wanted to say with Detectives. If it's just an epic story of a generation of poets in Mexico, it's not that great. The main protagonists, Lima and Belano remained a mystery to me. their motives, their pain, their goals, it's all vague and blurry, and nothing to really grasp. Maria and Angelica Font remain a mystery as well. They just fuck and write poetry. There is a tension there, but completely unresolved, I'd say undeveloped. Garcia Madera as well, even though a large chunk of text is written from his point of view, remains kind of undeveloped. The symbolism of mute self sacrificing Cesaria Tinajero remained a mystery to me as well. In the end too many questions, and too few satisfying answers.

[Hamlet]

I have a friend who's a successful writer in NYC, and he came to Bolano very late indeed, he was astounded that he'd never heard of him. But I suppose that's the joy of discovering new talent. I'd like to read Bolano, but it will have to wait as I want to read a few of his books and carefully.... "Savage Detectives" perhaps most of all.

[Cleanthess]

Just finished the novel,
wanted to read this thread to see if anybody had anything interesting to say on the subject.


When I'm looking for insights in English into books like The Savage Detectives my 'go to' bloggers are (other than our fellow forum members of course) :

amateur reader (Tom) at

http://wutheringexpectations.blogspot.com/2012/01/still-my-story-wont-be-as-coherent-as.html

Seraillon at

http://seraillon.blogspot.com/2012/02/lives-of-poets-roberto-bolanos-savage.html

M.A.Orthofer at
http://www.complete-review.com/reviews/bolanor/savaged.htm

I found their reviews provocative and helpful when trying to navigate that challenging book.

And for the Frenchies, this is a very good analysis of Bolano's Book:
http://www.critiqueslibres.com/i.php/vcrit/23557

There is even a fellow named Septularisen posting at that site:
http://www.critiqueslibres.com/i.php/vuser/07f9af6fd111

And for the Portuguese minded:
miguel at
http://storberose.blogspot.com
but this one is for Portuguese books mostly

P.S. Please don't ban me, I'm just trying to provide some information about reliable sources of world literature books analysis, specifically related to the inquiry about some good interpretations of the Savage Detectives book.

[Hamlet]

So for we uninitiated droogs sitting on our rocks, :D what is Bolano concerned with, does he have major themes or smaller themes, or change his observations, is he known for being a stylist or for something else? Does he write about the same sort of things, and where would you start with Bolano, and finish, as far as his novels go?

[Cleanthess]

So for we uninitiated droogs sitting on our rocks, :D what is Bolano concerned with, does he have major themes or smaller themes, or change his observations, is he known for being a stylist or for something else? Does he write about the same sort of things, and where would you start with Bolano, and finish, as far as his novels go?

Bolano wrote a whole lot of books, and I've only read a couple of them, but the ones I read are good (Savage Detectives, Nazi Literature in the Americas, 2666).

Nazi Literature in the Americas is light, amusing fun in the style of Borges' Universal History of Infamy or Marcel Schwob's Imaginary Lives. This kind of book is tailor made for parodic versions of actual people, ironic takes and meanings, and minor revelations and epiphanies. And Bolano doesn't disappoint on his chronicle and short bios of imaginary writers.

2666, is quite engaging. I recommend reading the fourth of its five parts 'The Part about the Crimes', to get the car chase and good bits first, and then read the rest of the novel from the start. However, a detailed or even a summary analysis of a 1000 pages in a sentence or two is not possible. I'll just point out that the fictional crimes committed in Santa Teresa seem to be based on the actual crimes committed in Ciudad Juarez, and that the moment when the Shaman starts channeling spirits during the investigation of the crimes is not to be missed.

And finally we come to The Savage Detectives. The links above include a lot of info about the book, and I don't want to regurgitate their insights. So, let me just elaborate on how this is a book in the tradition of Nabokov's Pale Fire, Jack Hawkes' Blood Oranges or Melville's Confidence Man.

Let me explain. Some books are plotted as fun puzzle games between the author and the readers. Everything on the book, specially dates, literary references, place names, the narrator's voice, the narrator's identities, etc. could be a clue to solving one of the puzzles in the book.

Now, the best of those books: Pale Fire, Savage Detectives portray a sordid reality, and hint at a higher, more mysterious reality hidden in the clues. The failed ones, like Blood Oranges portray a sordid reality and hint at a lower, more disgusting reality hidden in the clues.

So, Pale Fire's apparent plot is a crazy, halitosis-breathed, Slavic languages professor steals the manuscript of a long poem by a famous poet and appends his mad notes to it. Then, hidden in the book are clues to, among others, the ghost of the poet's daughter haunting a barn, the mad professor being an exiled king chased by assassins, and a lot of other wonderful, mysterious things.

Savage Detectives' apparent plot is how two losers go into a Mexican desert with a whore looking for two old lesbians and end up killed by the whore's pimp. But then there are hints to wonderful, mysterious poems (a graphic, wordless poem, about a Moebius depiction of Moby Dick's Queequeg's coffin floating on the sea being one of them); about secret societies trying to keep the reason for the disappearance of one of the Lesbian poets a secret; about apocalyptic dates (2666 years since the construction of the Olmec Great Pyramid of La Venta being one of them); about how in parallel to the savage detectives (the pimp and those who help him to trace the two loser poets) there might be civilized detectives (the readers) who must solve the puzzle before the book's end. And many, many more.
The same goes for Melville's Confidence man, possibly the first one on this line of books plotted as mysteries of literary allusions and hidden clues.

As for The Blood Oranges, the reality of its failure was made clear by the fact that, during an interview, Mr. Hawkes had to reveal the key to the sordid mystery behind the sordid apparent plot: a quotation from the Marquis De Sade about a kind of auto-erotic suffocation using a rope ('cut the rope'), and how the armless murdered character did not commit suicide but was done in by the homosexual narrator. So, at first reading, the key event in the book seemed a murder covered up and committed by the narrator; then, on the second reading, knowing about the De Sade Clue, it would seem an accidental death; and then upon recalling that it was an armless guy, who would have needed help to perform the act while engaging in self-pleasure, we realize it was a murder, after all. Yes, I know, charming, enchanting little book, isn't it?

My point? If you like the puzzle-game kind of book, The Savage Detectives will certainly please you.

[Flint]

Is that the one where someone says "No me vengas con chingaderas, García Madero"?

I wonder how they translated this into English. :)

[Cleanthess]

Is that the one where someone says "No me vengas con chingaderas, García Madero"?

I wonder how they translated this into English. :)
This sounds like a fun exercise.

No me vengas con boludeces Garcia Madero. Argentinian.
No me vengas con pendejadas Garcia Madero. Mexican.
No me vengas con gilipolleces Garcia Madero. Castillian.
No me vengas con pelotudeces Garcia Madero. Colombian.
No me vengas con huevadas Garcia Madero. Bolivian.
No me vengas con pariguayadas Garcia Madero. Dominican.
No me vengas con tonterias Garcia Madero. Spanish.
Don't dick with me Garcia Madero. English.
What a load of bollocks! Garcia Madero. British.
Cut the crap Garcia Madero. American.
Nao me venha com as suas tretas. Portuguese.
Ahou wo suru-na! Garcia Madero-kun. Moonspeak.

[kpjayan]

So for we uninitiated droogs sitting on our rocks, :D what is Bolano concerned with, does he have major themes or smaller themes, or change his observations, is he known for being a stylist or for something else? Does he write about the same sort of things, and where would you start with Bolano, and finish, as far as his novels go?


Daniel will be the right person to give you the answer; he seems to have read all of his works.

There is a thread on Bolano here which should give you some ideas. I've read 4-5 of his books and I consider him a major voice in Latin American literature. 2666 is brilliant, but I recommend Amulet for its shear power in narrative. One Night in Chile is also pretty good.

[Hamlet]

Bolano wrote a whole lot of books, and I've only read a couple of them, but the ones I read are good (Savage Detectives, Nazi Literature in the Americas, 2666).

Nazi Literature in the Americas is light, amusing fun in the style of Borges' Universal History of Infamy or Marcel Schwob's Imaginary Lives. This kind of book is tailor made for parodic versions of actual people, ironic takes and meanings, and minor revelations and epiphanies. And Bolano doesn't disappoint on his chronicle and short bios of imaginary writers.

2666, is quite engaging. I recommend reading the fourth of its five parts 'The Part about the Crimes', to get the car chase and good bits first, and then read the rest of the novel from the start. However, a detailed or even a summary analysis of a 1000 pages in a sentence or two is not possible. I'll just point out that the fictional crimes committed in Santa Teresa seem to be based on the actual crimes committed in Ciudad Juarez, and that the moment when the Shaman starts channeling spirits during the investigation of the crimes is not to be missed.

And finally we come to The Savage Detectives. The links above include a lot of info about the book, and I don't want to regurgitate their insights. So, let me just elaborate on how this is a book in the tradition of Nabokov's Pale Fire, Jack Hawkes' Blood Oranges or Melville's Confidence Man.

Let me explain. Some books are plotted as fun puzzle games between the author and the readers. Everything on the book, specially dates, literary references, place names, the narrator's voice, the narrator's identities, etc. could be a clue to solving one of the puzzles in the book.

Now, the best of those books: Pale Fire, Savage Detectives portray a sordid reality, and hint at a higher, more mysterious reality hidden in the clues. The failed ones, like Blood Oranges portray a sordid reality and hint at a lower, more disgusting reality hidden in the clues.

So, Pale Fire's apparent plot is a crazy, halitosis-breathed, Slavic languages professor steals the manuscript of a long poem by a famous poet and appends his mad notes to it. Then, hidden in the book are clues to, among others, the ghost of the poet's daughter haunting a barn, the mad professor being an exiled king chased by assassins, and a lot of other wonderful, mysterious things.

Savage Detectives' apparent plot is how two losers go into a Mexican desert with a whore looking for two old lesbians and end up killed by the whore's pimp. But then there are hints to wonderful, mysterious poems (a graphic, wordless poem, about a Moebius depiction of Moby Dick's Queequeg's coffin floating on the sea being one of them); about secret societies trying to keep the reason for the disappearance of one of the Lesbian poets a secret; about apocalyptic dates (2666 years since the construction of the Olmec Great Pyramid of La Venta being one of them); about how in parallel to the savage detectives (the pimp and those who help him to trace the two loser poets) there might be civilized detectives (the readers) who must solve the puzzle before the book's end. And many, many more.
The same goes for Melville's Confidence man, possibly the first one on this line of books plotted as mysteries of literary allusions and hidden clues.

As for The Blood Oranges, the reality of its failure was made clear by the fact that, during an interview, Mr. Hawkes had to reveal the key to the sordid mystery behind the sordid apparent plot: a quotation from the Marquis De Sade about a kind of auto-erotic suffocation using a rope ('cut the rope'), and how the armless murdered character did not commit suicide but was done in by the homosexual narrator. So, at first reading, the key event in the book seemed a murder covered up and committed by the narrator; then, on the second reading, knowing about the De Sade Clue, it would seem an accidental death; and then upon recalling that it was an armless guy, who would have needed help to perform the act while engaging in self-pleasure, we realize it was a murder, after all. Yes, I know, charming, enchanting little book, isn't it?

My point? If you like the puzzle-game kind of book, The Savage Detectives will certainly please you.

Ahh, okay, I tend to be a tradtional reader with books, you know A to B, no cheating or short cuts.

I'll have to pick through your post when I have some more time, but Savage Detectives looks quite interesting and came as a recommendation. I gather that Bolano used to steal books from bookshops, such was his determination to be a writer, and he must have lacked funds, as they say, not really a traditional thief.

Why aren't writers ever just normal?
(a rhetorical quip)

[Hamlet]

Daniel will be the right person to give you the answer; he seems to have read all of his works.

There is a thread on Bolano here which should give you some ideas. I've read 4-5 of his books and I consider him a major voice in Latin American literature. 2666 is brilliant, but I recommend Amulet for its shear power in narrative. One Night in Chile is also pretty good.

Thanks for that Kpjayan, it sounds like there's some good reading in there, I think Daniel said a while ago he was very busy, so wont ask him for any input unless he's feeling like killing a few minutes on here. The Amazon reviews are fairly complete, and I've read his Wiki page, actually we're cursed in the this modern information age, it's look at Amazon, and go to Wiki, and all in five minutes... what hope do we al have.

I'm halfway through Under the Volcano at the moment, by Malcolm Lowry, hs bio is interesting, a Brit out in Canada, Vancouver Island, I believe, and although it's a tough read, the introduction states that 3 reads is probably essential. I've followed most of it, picked up on many of the literary references littered throughout, and enyoyed the beautiful and experimental prose, but beyond that, I couldn't do much justice to it here as it would require a Lowry expert to explain it IMHO.

It's definitely a book that we're supposed to have read, on that fatal list of MUSTS ... you know, for quoting at that mythical cocktall party we're rarely if ever at - "... have you read Under the Volcano?"

No.

"Oh really, I really am surprised, you should do so you know, great stylist, so experimental, such muscular writing, such vision...."

Have you read it?

"Erm, oh well.... no, not quite yet, well, to be honest I paddled out to page 30 sweety and sank... that was back at Uni ... 20 years ago... but I hear it's magnificent, tremendous, inspired stuff... I have to go now

--calling out loud!--

any Joyce readers in the room?..."

Just having some fun guys.

[Flint]

This sounds like a fun exercise.

No me vengas con boludeces Garcia Madero. Argentinian.
No me vengas con pendejadas Garcia Madero. Mexican.
No me vengas con gilipolleces Garcia Madero. Castillian.
No me vengas con pelotudeces Garcia Madero. Colombian.
No me vengas con huevadas Garcia Madero. Bolivian.
No me vengas con pariguayadas Garcia Madero. Dominican.
No me vengas con tonterias Garcia Madero. Spanish.
Don't dick with me Garcia Madero. English.
What a load of bollocks! Garcia Madero. British.
Cut the crap Garcia Madero. American.
Nao me venha com as suas tretas. Portuguese.
Ahou wo suru-na! Garcia Madero-kun. Moonspeak.
I am impressed. That is multilingualism!!
Anyway my Spanish edition of the Detectives says "chingaderas".

[Hamlet]

You've nailed the British down very well, unless of course you decide to include "old" before the "bollocks". Another way to go-

[altai]

Bolano wrote a whole lot of books, and I've only read a couple of them, but the ones I read are good (Savage Detectives, Nazi Literature in the Americas, 2666).


Savage Detectives' apparent plot is how two losers go into a Mexican desert with a whore looking for two old lesbians and end up killed by the whore's pimp. But then there are hints to wonderful, mysterious poems (a graphic, wordless poem, about a Moebius depiction of Moby Dick's Queequeg's coffin floating on the sea being one of them); about secret societies trying to keep the reason for the disappearance of one of the Lesbian poets a secret; about apocalyptic dates (2666 years since the construction of the Olmec Great Pyramid of La Venta being one of them); about how in parallel to the savage detectives (the pimp and those who help him to trace the two loser poets) there might be civilized detectives (the readers) who must solve the puzzle before the book's end. And many, many more.
.

hm, the book I read had a different apparent plot. First part is a sort of a portrait of a poet as a young man, second is a kaleidoscope of different 'witness accounts' or testimonials on the biography of two poets, the third one continues the story started in the first one, but they don't look for two old lesbians, they look for a lost poet, no? And they don't get killed by a pimp, rather they kill a pimp. Or am I missing something from your post?
I don't really see the book as a puzzle, I mean in a detective sense of the word, I don't see a mystery apart from certain hints in the book about an 'eternal return'. I see it as a loose collection of more or less interesting snippets, some of them well written some not so, but definitely engaging and opening many themes. But as far as the plot is concerned I can't find much mystery. Well, maybe Ulises Lima's disappearances, his Israel trip, his unexplained pain and motivations. What do you think?

[Cleanthess]

hm, the book I read had a different apparent plot. First part is a sort of a portrait of a poet as a young man, second is a kaleidoscope of different 'witness accounts' or testimonials on the biography of two poets, the third one continues the story started in the first one, but they don't look for two old lesbians, they look for a lost poet, no? And they don't get killed by a pimp, rather they kill a pimp. Or am I missing something from your post?
I don't really see the book as a puzzle, I mean in a detective sense of the word, I don't see a mystery apart from certain hints in the book about an 'eternal return'. I see it as a loose collection of more or less interesting snippets, some of them well written some not so, but definitely engaging and opening many themes. But as far as the plot is concerned I can't find much mystery. Well, maybe Ulises Lima's disappearances, his Israel trip, his unexplained pain and motivations. What do you think?

First, nice to meet you Altai, and thank you for the opportunity to make what I meant clearer, I hope.
Now, to answer some of your questions.

Nope, you did not miss anything. The failure is completely on my side as a writer. You see, I was trying to write a post on the same spirit as the puzzle novels discussed, with hints, misrepresentations, outright fabrications, ambiguous statements and other general misdirections for the reader to figure out. It seems I completely failed at that. Now I know how Jack Hawkes must have felt when he had to explain his 'Blood Oranges' hidden meaning. :(

Now, to defend some of the statements I made. About the lesbian poets being searched for in the desert, Cesarea Tinajero and her partner: on page 101 of my Anagrama edition it reads:

"Nada impide que maricas y maricones sean buenos amigos, se plagien con finura, se critiquen o se alaben, se publiquen o se oculten mutuamente en el furibundo y moribundo pais de las letras.

-Y Cesarea Tinajero, es una poeta maricona o marica? -pregunto alguien. No reconoci la voz.

-Ah, Cesarea Tinajero es el horror - dijo San Epifanio."

Roughly translated by me as:

"Nothing stops faggots and lesbians from being good friends, from plagiarizing each other delicately, from criticizing or praising each other, from publishing or hiding each other in the furious and dying country of Literature.

-And Cesarea Tinajero, is she a lesbian or a dyke poet? -Somebody asked. I did not recognize the voice.

-Ah, Cesarea Tinajero is the worst - said San Epifanio."

Also, remember that Cesarea Tinajero was weak for the other female poet Encarnacion Guzman:

"Encarnacion figura en Caborca mas que por sus meritos como poetisa, por la debilidad de otra poetisa, verdad?, por la debilidad de Cesarea Tinajero que vaya uno a saber que le vio a la Encarnacion " ..."Encarnacion puede que no fuera una buena poeta ..., pero si que fue buena amiga de Cesarea"

"Encarnacion was included in Caborca not for her strengths as a poet but because of the weaknesses of the other poet, right?, because of the weakness Cesarea Tinajero felt for her, I'll never know what Cesarea saw on Encarnacion"..."It's possible that Encarnacion was not a good poet ... but she was a good friend of Cesarea"

And then remember how both Cesarea and Encarnacion stop going to the poetry meetings and later disappear together after Encarnacion is attacked by the other male poets.

I don't want the post to get too long and risk being accused of 'methinks he doth protest too much', again, but at least let me point out that these novels are superficially superficial, but that it pays to go a little deeper and to know that the writers of those novels are miles ahead of us simple readers and they are playfully hiding clues all over the place. I mentioned some of the mysteries in my original post about the novel :

"Everything on the book, specially dates, literary references, place names, the narrator's voice, the narrator's identities, etc. could be a clue to solving one of the puzzles in the book."

place names
Some readers, commenting on the novel, have included maps and Google earth photos of the routes and places where the action takes place, why do you think they did that?

the narrator's voice
Consider the teenage narrator that starts the ball rolling in the novel, Garcia Madero, he's a lot more important than what is seen in the surface narrative, what is his hidden role?

the narrator's identities
Consider the multiple voices narrating the central part of the novel, who are they?

literary references
Consider the quotation from Malcolm Lowry that heads the novel:

"-Do you want Mexico to be saved?
Do you want Jesus to be our king?
-No"

What does it mean?

secret societies
Consider the actual, real secret society mentioned in the novel, what part do they play?

dates
Consider the dates mentioned in the novel, what historical events took place at those dates and how are those related to the novel's apparent plot?

And on and on and on...

It's very easy to be oblivious to what is going on when reading a puzzle novel. I've written somewhere else on the forum how on my first encounter with Nabokov I completely missed every single clue and mystery included on Transparent Things, I did not even guess who was narrating the book; I even missed, despite the big clue given by the title of the novel, that the narrator was a ghost (a 'transparent thing').

[Cleanthess]

Sorry for this almost epanorthosic additional post, but I forgot the best example of Bolano taunting us with the mysteries hidden in his book.
From the Garcia Madero's diaries written on the Sonora desert on January 1st. and 2nd. of 1976:

1 de enero


Today I realized that what I wrote yesterday, I actually wrote today: everything from the last day of December I wrote the first day of January, meaning today; and what I wrote on December 30th. I wrote on the 31th, meaning yesterday. What I write today, I'm actually writing tomorrow, which for me will be today and yesterday and somehow an invisible day too, seriously.

Hoy me di cuenta de que lo que escribí ayer en realidad lo escribí hoy: todo lo del treintaiuno de diciembre lo escribí el uno de enero, es decir hoy, y lo que escribí el treinta de diciembre lo escribí el treintaiuno, es decir ayer. Lo que escribo hoy en realidad lo escribo mañana, que para mí será hoy y ayer, y también de alguna manera mañana: un día invisible. Pero sin exagerar

2 de enero

Leaving the DF. To keep my friends entertained I asked them some delicate questions, that are also problems, enigmas, (...) even riddles. I started with an easy one, what is free verse?
(...)
Let's continue. What is a sestina?
-A Stanza of six lines -said Lima.
-And what else? -said I.

Lima and Belano said something that I didn't understand. Their voices seemed to be floating inside the Impala. Well, there is some other meaning, I said, and I told them.



Salimos del DF. Para entretener a mis amigos les hice algunas preguntas delicadas, que tambien son problemas, enigmas...incluso acertijos. Empece con una facil: Que es el verso libre?


...

Sigamos. Ahora una facil. Que es una sextina?

-Una estrofa de seis versos -dijo Lima

-Y que mas? -dije yo.

Lima y Belano dijeron algo que no entendi. Sus voces parecian flotar en el interior del Impala. Pues hay algom mas, dije yo. Y se lo dije.

Now, let's see what that some other meaning is, and remember they are traveling inside the Sonoran desert, the different addresses mentioned by Bolano may be a clue here :) .

[maidenhair]

Jorge Volpi:

For a Mexican like myself, who also had the opportunity to converse with Bolaño dozens of times, it’s hard to believe that a book as plagued with references to Mexican literary history as The Savage Detectives—in my opinion, a boxing ring in which Bolaño settles accounts with his past—could be read, understood, and enjoyed by a media that totally ignores them. However, that is what happened: his success in the United States was absolute. What does that mean? In the first place, the book is so universal—and so open—that Bolaño’s scholarly winks lose their importance; and perhaps the prejudices and the superficiality of the American reading are huge.
http://www.rochester.edu/College/translation/threepercent/index.php?id=2324

[maidenhair]

Also of interest maybe:
Roberto Bolaño and The Savage Detectives (http://www.google.de/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=macmillan.com%20roberto%20bola%C3%B1o%20and%20th e%20savage%20detectives%20by%20natasha%20wimmer&source=web&cd=1&cad=rja&ved=0CCUQFjAA&url=http%3A%2F%2Fus.macmillan.com%2FuploadedFiles% 2Fcustompagecontents%2Ftitles%2Fbolano-biographicalessay.pdf&ei=a-FhUML3CsXa4QSVpIDICA&usg=AFQjCNG3dkMkLxQFHBbDEPMrGDHsEREk7A)
By Natasha Wimmer (English translator of The Savage Detectives and 2666)

(very probably more helpful than some of the misguiding posts (deliberately or not) on this thread here)

and this:
The Natasha Wimmer Interview (http://quarterlyconversation.com/the-natasha-wimmer-interview)

And lastly, which of Bolaño’s novels is your favorite?
That’s easy—The Savage Detectives. The others all have their own appeal, but The Savage Detectives is just the easiest one to fall for. And I’m not the only one who feels that way. There’s a reason that it made Bolaño a cult figure, and it’s probably no coincidence that it’s also the most autobiographical.



and this:
FULL COVERAGE: ROBERTO BOLANO (http://quarterlyconversation.com/roberto-bolano-full-coverage)

with this interesting short article:
Roberto Bolaño: A naïve introduction to the geometry of his fictions
(http://quarterlyconversation.com/roberto-bolano-the-geometry-of-his-fictions)
and last but not least:
Layout of The Savage Detectives (http://heteroglossia.wordpress.com/2010/12/03/layout-of-the-savage-detectives/)

you are welcome

[maidenhair]

By the way, Monsieur Obelix, I do not understand why one would want to deliberately confuse people and misrepresent authors and their books on a literature forum. That is beyond me, honestly. There is enough confusion already due to the language barrier etc.

[Cleanthess]

By the way, Monsieur Obelix, I do not understand why one would want to deliberately confuse people and misrepresent authors and their books on a literature forum. That is beyond me, honestly. There is enough confusion already due to the language barrier etc.
Not fair, Maidenhair, not fair at all. And I was having so much fun, too... Why did you have to go and write a helpful, informative post and provide links to actual, serious analysis of Bolano's work?
Tell me, where else I'm going to find somebody willing to say this about The Savage Detectives:

"I don't really see the book as a puzzle, I mean in a detective sense of the word, I don't see a mystery apart from certain hints in the book about an 'eternal return'. I see it as a loose collection of more or less interesting snippets, some of them well written some not so, but definitely engaging and opening many themes. But as far as the plot is concerned I can't find much mystery."

(Now, if you'll excuse me, I'm going to quietly sit on my corner and cry while I think about what I've done...). :)

[Hamlet]

Also of interest maybe:
Roberto Bolaño and The Savage Detectives (http://www.google.de/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=macmillan.com%20roberto%20bola%C3%B1o%20and%20th e%20savage%20detectives%20by%20natasha%20wimmer&source=web&cd=1&cad=rja&ved=0CCUQFjAA&url=http%3A%2F%2Fus.macmillan.com%2FuploadedFiles% 2Fcustompagecontents%2Ftitles%2Fbolano-biographicalessay.pdf&ei=a-FhUML3CsXa4QSVpIDICA&usg=AFQjCNG3dkMkLxQFHBbDEPMrGDHsEREk7A)
By Natasha Wimmer (English translator of The Savage Detectives and 2666)

(very probably more helpful than some of the misguiding posts (deliberately or not) on this thread here)

and this:
The Natasha Wimmer Interview (http://quarterlyconversation.com/the-natasha-wimmer-interview)


and this:
FULL COVERAGE: ROBERTO BOLANO (http://quarterlyconversation.com/roberto-bolano-full-coverage)

with this interesting short article:
Roberto Bolaño: A naïve introduction to the geometry of his fictions
(http://quarterlyconversation.com/roberto-bolano-the-geometry-of-his-fictions)
and last but not least:
Layout of The Savage Detectives (http://heteroglossia.wordpress.com/2010/12/03/layout-of-the-savage-detectives/)

you are welcome

Maidenhair, many thanks, I can actually follow your posts. I've struggled with this thread somewhat in terms of comprehension, just a little, and thanks for taking the time to copy in those links btw, that was beyond the call.

Now for that, I think I definitely owe you a cup of coffee and some biscuits.

The next time you wake up and think "...I'd like a coffee and some biscuits!" - as if by magic, they'll be on a silver tray and there for you...

[maidenhair]

(Now, if you'll excuse me, I'm going to quietly sit on my corner and cry while I think about what I've done...). :)

But do me a favour and do not stay there for too long :D

[maidenhair]

Now for that, I think I owe definitely you a cup of coffee and some biscuits. The next time you wake up and think "...I'd like a coffee and some biscuits!" - as if by magic, they'll be on a silver tray and there...

Wow, that would be awesome, thanks in advance for the magic biscuits :D

[Hamlet]

You're welcome. ;)


Cleanthness, don't sit there for too long chap, come back and join the rest of us. It's chilly by that fire door, not a good naughty step, at all.

[altai]

riddles and more riddles, questions, and more questions. Probably, I am not too much into not apparent (at least for me) meaning, and the book didn't turn my world upside down enough for me to dig into these questions. There is a mystery about Garcia Madera's narration. In one of the testimonials, a scholar of real visceralism mentions Garcia Madera's name and says there was no such a person ever. But I don't know, if it's a mystification a la David Lynch I am too lazy to dig the meaning in it. I like simple things, with easily found interesting interpretations, stuff like Ulysses of Joyce. Simple stuff. And if Cesaria Tinajera was a dyke, why not just say it straight. She was a dyke and she left the circle because of her feelings towards another female poet. I mean, I don't care about the whole character, since it never shines in any interesting light throughout the novel. Was she a dyke, or a vampire, it's equally non engaging character for me. But hey, maybe someone will shed some divine light on my this head of mine and the murky book would open up like petals of a tropical flower in the dry season among the yellow scorched leaves of the last year's freshness and I will join the ranks of those who praise Bolano as a new messiah, a torch bearer of sorts propelling the lost generation of Latin writers from the quagmire of magical realism onto the new untouched pastures of perfumed grass fresh in the morning dew.

[Cleanthess]

I will join the ranks of those who praise Bolano as a new messiah, a torch bearer of sorts propelling the lost generation of Latin writers from the quagmire of magical realism onto the new untouched pastures of perfumed grass fresh in the morning dew.

Altai, thank you for your kind, playful and graceful answer to my foolish horsing around.
Good point about magical realism being a quagmire for a generation of Latin American writers. A similar point was recently raised about the nouveau roman being a trap for a generation of French writers by David Bellos, writing for the Independent newspaper about his translation of Georges Perec's Life A User's Manual: 'Here, at last, was a post-Sartre storybook capable of bringing French fiction back from the brink of extinction to which Alain Robbe-Grillet had driven it. '
http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/books/features/book-of-a-lifetime-life-a-users-manual-by-georges-perec-8160312.html
The problem with movements like the nouveau roman and magical realism is that you need to be a particular kind of genius like Claude Simon or Carlos Fuentes to build upon the foundations laid down by the leaders (Robbe-Grillet or Garcia Marquez).
So, yes, we're busy looking for a redeemer (Cesar Aira, Julio Ramon Ribeyro, Roberto Bolano, etc) to play Perec to magical realism.