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| 1948830329
| 9781948830324
| 1948830329
| 4.16
| 79
| 2017
| Sep 21, 2021
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really liked it
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�We never stop reading, although every book comes to an end, just as we never stop living, although death is certain.� --Roberto Bolaño Roberto Bolaño ( �We never stop reading, although every book comes to an end, just as we never stop living, although death is certain.� --Roberto Bolaño Roberto Bolaño (1953-2003) lived life like a novella, brief yet full of lasting power. That legacy lives on in Javier Serena’s Last Words of Earth which delivers a multi-faceted portrait of an expatriate writer, Ricardo Funes—a writer blatantly based on Bolaño—who achieves monumental success only as his life begins to be pulled like a rug from under him from illness. Bolaño fans are sure to appreciate this novella that furthers the self-mythologizing the great Chilean author bestowed upon readers, yet those unfamiliar with his works will not find the doors to enjoyment closed as the book successfully stands on its own feet. Told from various perspectives that nods to journalist Mónica Maristain's Bolaño: A Biography in Conversations, the first half rotating between his friend Fernandez Vallés and wife Guadalupe (loosely based on ) and the second half being Funes� own reflections on life, Serena illuminates a nuanced impression of Funes that examines him from all sides from tragic and depressed to heroic and headstrong. With prose that mimics the great master himself and in beautiful translation by Katie Whittemore, Last Words on Earth is a moving examination of a writer who truly believes in art as a bastion against life and an avenue for immortality. �Ricardo was exceptional because he lived his life as if his sole objective was to relish everything he did, in order to remember it later...he loved telling stories so much that he seemed to put a greater or lesser value on every experience according to the shine it would add to his biography.� This is a true treat for Bolaño fan, packed full of allusions to his works and a playful homage to his own biographical details. The book title itself is a play on the short story collection Last Evenings on Earth, the titular story appearing in a similar narrative when Funes vacations in Acapulco with his father in this book. Funes (possibly a reference to the character from the Jorge Luis Borges story ) is very attached to his poet friend from his youth, Domingo Pasquiano with whom he was part of a rogue literary circle calling themselves the Negationists, a reference to the real-life friendship with Mario Santiago Papasquiaro. Papasquiaro might be better known to readers as Ulises Lima from Bolaño’s The Savage Detectives, which appears in this book as Trafico DF, a novel Funes writes to create a �mythologized adolescence� of the Negationists and Paquiano as well as dramaticized exiles across Europe very much akin to the travels of Belano and Lima in Savage Detectives. �The reason I wrote Pasquiano as a warrior with feats worthy of being sung, a man who launched off down the most uncertain paths and spurned mere contemplation, was because he had always been capable of living firmly in the present...he was astonished by the rapid expansion of the map I used to plot the action and the scattered toy soldiers standing in for people from my past.� Even the scene where Vallés first meets Funes feels like an allusion to the story Dentist. So much of Funes biography mimics Bolaño, such as his time working as a night watchman for a park, his infidelities and a illness that takes him away from us all just as he begins to become famous (though this book chooses lung cancer instead of liver failure, fitting for the mythologizing as Bolaño preferred to be photographed always smoking to keep up an edgy bad-boy look despite his declining health). Unfortunately the book doesn’t put much emphasis on his poetry, which Bolaño preferred to be known for, though those interested can find it collected in The Unknown University. Papasquiaro (circled left) and Bolaño (circled right) with the Infrarealists, the basis for Pasquiano and Funes and their Negationist group. What this book captures best is the self-mythologizing Bolaño created in his novels. �Ricardo had always liked keeping up a healthy sense of mystery,� his wife says, and much of the book concerns the way he blended fact with fiction to create an idealized and heroic portrait of himself and his friends much the way Bolaño himself did through his self-stand-in characters of B or Belano. What is true and what is invented is beside the point with Funes and Bolaño, it is the belief in something beautiful that matters and they create a whole mythology so enticing you want to believe it is strictly biography �in order to justify his ambition to live an epic life.� �Don’t try to figure out what deserves an encyclopedia entry and what doesn’t...he talks about what he writes as if it had really happened, and he writes what actually happened as if it were made up: he stirs it all together until there’s not an uncontaminated ingredient in the pot.� There is a penchant for the epic with Funes that really captures the spirit of his inspirational figure perfectly. So much so that even a reader unfamiliar with the real author will likely succumb to the magic and choose to believe in the folktale figure over the actual because it is the perfect expression of living poetry. Anaïs Nin wrote �we write to taste life twice, in the moment and in retrospect,� and for Funes the dramatic life is lived so that it will be tasted all the more sweetly in the retrospect of his fiction, elevated and dripping with purpose. �I wanted to write books about characters who raised themselves up as heroes, like statues on horseback, sabers drawn and pointing in life’s true direction, the models I hoped would ultimately inspire my children.� The tragedy of the folktale, though, is that it only shows the sides that inspire and never the full figure. Funes success comes late, and late enough to make it a romanticized literary death, but the reality of his life is that he spent much of it in deep depression over being refused access to the immortality he so wished for. �I tried to live an epic, frenetic life,� he laments, �but my story went off-script and now there was nothing but blank chapter after blank chapter in which the only plot was an increasingly frayed nostalgia for a time so far in the past that it could have been a mirage.� He is always either writing �as if I were locked in battle with some kind of monster only I could see�, or wandering in a deep fog of self-loathing and writers block. His stories fail to win prizes, editors reject his manuscripts, and he sees his sands of time running out without having left his mark. Yet he has Guadalupe, and if there is a hero of this novel it is her for her dedication and support in his darkest days. Unfortunately Guadalupe is written rather one-dimensionally with all her thoughts always on Funes, sort of rationalized by the fact that her segments are written to be her thoughts on him, but it would have been nice to get a bit more rounded impression of her. �It was a contradiction: he was disdainful of literature and spurned the hallowed figure of The Author, no matter how talented, and yet he never stopped writing, not even when he had more than enough money and prestige and less and less time to live.� This book also captures the gleeful way Bolaño elevates literature as the most important conquest of life while simultaneously mocking it for not mattering. Funes is enigmatic, moody, ready to sacrifice all for authorhood yet hating his peers that do the same (aside from Pasquiano). Yet what he chose to use his immortality for was to also immortalize his friends through his books, knowing his success meant them lasting in his pages. �Pouring your soul into a book is gambling with your legacy,� he says, �just like roulette.� When fame comes, it is too late to matter much yet it isn’t the fame that seems to matter to him but knowing his words made it across the terrible seas of life to the shores of a welcoming reader. Which is something I find so beautiful about books, we can all share it yet feel it as individually powerful, and a voice long in the grave can still touch our hearts. Last Words on Earth is a really fun and interesting portrait of a writer, but it also is a good reminder that the parts people show to the world are not the full picture. And that even the collected impressions of a person never add up to the total sum of that person. This book was a raucous feast of Bolaño fanboying but the overall takeaway is more centered on the musings of artistic life and the tolls it can take on ourselves and those around us. Serena has certainly understood the assignment here and uses his deep wealth of knowledge to create a novella that is less Bolaño fan-fiction and more continuing the spirit of Bolaño mythology that he enjoyed as well as a beautiful epic of a life’s pursuit of art. Life is short, beautiful and fleeting, and Funes burning each of Pasquiano’s poems after reading them is a well served metaphor for this. May all our short sparks in the darkness light up the room so beautifully the memory will live on brighter than the flame. 3.75/5 Bolaño with Papasquiaro. �Who doesn’t know what we all know from the moment we are born: that you will feel the premature hands of Death tighten around your neck much earlier than you imagine, that the days and years pass with increasing speed, as if instead of a parceling out of equal portions of time, each portion propelled the next, a whirling vortex gaining strength from inertia, so that the final stretch of your life becomes but a brief interval that ends in a flash of dust?� ...more |
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Oct 25, 2021
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Nov 04, 2021
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Oct 25, 2021
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| 0330510509
| 9780330510509
| 0330510509
| 3.90
| 7,209
| Feb 13, 1996
| 2010
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really liked it
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â€�A novel about order and disorder, justice and injustice, God and the Void.â€� In the final narrative of Roberto Bolaño’s Nazi Literature in the Americas â€�A novel about order and disorder, justice and injustice, God and the Void.â€� In the final narrative of Roberto Bolaño’s Nazi Literature in the Americas—a literary joke that is executed with such deadpan precision it becomes a transcendent work of brilliance—we read the life story of RamÃrez Hoffman, member of the Chilean Air Force, poet and cold-blooded murderer of the regime. Later expanded into the novella, Distant Star, this section includes a scene where Hoffman presents a private art exhibit consisting of countless photos of the women he tortured and murdered. It is clearly an act of evil and an indication that art has moral boundaries not to be crossed lest you become evil. However, if one were to find these photos and display the same exhibit in, say, a Human Rights museum, as a overwhelming warning against evil, would the framing remove the art from proximity of being evil and instead turn the same elements into an aesthetic battering ram against evil? This is precisely what Bolaño has done with Nazi Literature in the Americas, an encyclopedia chronicling the lives and works of fascist artists and the literary outlets that gave them a platform. The joke is, however, that none of them are real yet Bolaño never breaks character and presents the entire book in deadpan seriousness as if it were a highly researched academic work. While 20 pages in it may seem like beating a dead horse of a joke, but as life upon life pile up in this compilation his execution and framing break through the doors of mere playfulness into artistic genius and genuine literary might. Owing obvious influences in Jorge Luis Borges and Juan Rodolfo Wilcock—Bolaño openly admits in an interview with Spanish literary journal Turia to being influenced by A Universal History of Iniquity and The Temple of Iconoclastsâ€�Nazi Literature is a conjuring of literary oddities, madmen and monsters (and one character that is referential to Fernando Pessoa through the use of many heteronyms) that reveal the dark underbelly of an artform that aims to shape public opinion and convey ideologies. â€�When I’m talking about Nazi writers in the Americas,â€� Bolaño says in The Last Interview and Other Conversations, â€�in reality I’m talking about the world, sometimes heroic but much more often despicable, of literature in general.â€� While neither celebrating or openly mocking these writers (though the occasionally humor in this impressively consistent tongue-in-cheek novel allows you to assume the latter), Bolaño reminds us that evil lurks in every corner and just because an author can write a good story doesn’t mean their ideology or personhood is worth enabling. This book is an excellent microcosm of the Bolaño cannon as a whole, being a hotbed of indicators to his penchant towards in-literary-universe expansion, metarepresentation of novels within novels, and exploration of themes such as the pull of proximity to power and the shadowy evils residing in human nature. Here you will find the names of fake novels and literary journals that will show up in other Bolaño novels as well as characters that make appearances elsewhere, such as the Romanian General Eugenio Entruscu who appears here in the Epilogue for Monsters catalogue of secondary figures as well as crosses paths with Benno von Archimboldi in 2666, the PI Romero who appears in The Savage Detectives and Distant Star along with, most notably, RamÃrez Hoffman. Hoffman appears in Distant Star under the name Alberto Ruiz-Tagle/Wieder, which is a larger aspect of Bolaño’s expansion technique that his English translator, Chris Andrews discusses at length in his book Roberto Bolaño's Fiction: An Expanding Universe. The name change on one hand represents how Hoffman/Ruiz-Tagle was an enigmatic character (â€�in fact, he had always been an absent figureâ€� -- Distant Star) going under many aliases (his section in Nazi Literature is narrated by Bolaño himself whereas in Distant Star it is filtered through the memories of Arturo B, who, as the authors in-novels alter-ego interacting with the author-himself, forms sort of a surreal meta extravaganza) but also how Bolaño tends to blur the lines of his own fiction as a way of exploding and expanding it. This is similarly done in the story Prefiguration of Lalo Cura in The Return, which gives an alternate backstory to the one presented of Lalo Cura in 2666 or how the story of Bolaño’s own father differs significantly in Cowboy Graves: Three Novellas from anything else he ever wrote about him (usually a boxer). While Bolaño has claimed in interviews and essays that all of his work exists in a singular literary universe, evidence shows this statement is facetious but likely as a further element to his unique style of self-mythologizing and mythmaking that is so central to his work. There is a very distinct Bolaño flair to his self-referential works that separate it from autofiction or purely fictional narratives. The sheer volume of fictional books and poems that appear in this novel are fascinating and certainly indicative of his influence in Borges. There is a sort of double-distancing, as Andrews puts it, in the way that these stories are surveyed much in the way literary joker Borges would essentially write reviews of fake novels, â€�accessible only through the filter of a summary.â€� Bolaño is able to convey the idea of what registers as a fully-fledged novel through a brief synopsis that discards any need for particulars, assuring you the story works as intended. Borges himself joked about why write a novel when you can just make the same point in a single sentence about a novel that doesn’t even need to exist, or as he writes in The Garden of Forking Paths â€�the better way to go about it is to pretend that those books already exist, and offer a summary, a commentary on them.â€� These sorts of short assessments of fake novels appear in many of his works, often a brief aside about a sci-fi novel a character has written to further investigate some moral or existential perspective on life. What is interesting is that many of the characters contained in this volume »å´Ç²Ô’t appear to be very successful. These episodic lives often end in tragedy and a few short books that »å´Ç²Ô’t receive many sales. Yet, by collecting them, it appears that their life left an impact on the movement. This is particularly fascinating as Bolaño rarely tells you if the books they wrote were good or not, but usually what the critics thought or if public opinion drove up sales, alluding to the idea that our established literary canons are one of popularity and not necessarily quality. A frequent theme in his work is the duality of literature as if it were the most important and life-affirming aspect to be found in life while also lampooning it as overwrought and unimportant. He frequently pokes fun at canonization as a temporary privilege, such as the prophecy in Amulet references authors such as Marcel Proust disappearing from public knowledge in the near future. Whether the lives collected here matter or not is irrelevant. I enjoyed buddy reading this book with Kenny, and it is certainly a masterful part of the Bolaño canon. He reminds us that evil is everywhere, even in art, and shows characters that are very human yet double as an example of evil as a force of nature (particularly Hoffman). The fictional characters interact with several real figures and works, which boosts the impression that this could be real while also being an avenue for the author to name-drop all his favorites and show off his enviable grasp of world literature. I have yet to read anything, even his posthumously published scene sketches, that have not left an impact on me or charmed me. Certainly one of my favorite authors and this book is such a joy because you can feel his excitement to emulate and surpass his own literary heroes in creating this work. Like Hoffman’s photographs, this book collects moments and members of evil and displays them to remind us what vileness may lurk in any corner. 4/5 ...more |
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| 0811215865
| 9780811215862
| 0811215865
| 3.93
| 13,429
| 1996
| Dec 01, 2004
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it was amazing
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Is there a limit of ethics in creating art, and when has it gone too far? Distant Star, the 1996 novella by the late, great Roberto Bolaño addresses t
Is there a limit of ethics in creating art, and when has it gone too far? Distant Star, the 1996 novella by the late, great Roberto Bolaño addresses this question and more as art and violent politics intertwine under Pinochet’s cruel dictatorship. This little novella is a powerhouse and depending on the day and what I’ve been drinking I might even say it is my favorite of his books (By Night In Chile on other nights). Told from narrator Arturo B., Bolaño’s literary stand-in that appears in several of his novels, Distant Star pieces together the life of Alberto Ruiz-Tagle, a little-known poet who would later re-emerge as airforce pilot Carlos Wieder writing poetry in the sky from his plane. The romantic image of patriotism and poetry give way to a horrific truth of the murder and mayhem of Pinochet’s Chile and Arturo must watch from exile and contemplate the horrors of his country. While this is the story of Arturo B. and Wieder, it is also â€�partly the story of the Chilean nation. A story of terror.â€� Devastating, dark, and full of Bolaño’s signature blend of noir and gallows humor, Distant Star is a miniature masterpiece and brilliant reflection on the inherent political nature of art. In an essay by Enrique Vila-Matas it is claimed that Bolaño was asked by publisher Jorge Herralde is he had any manuscripts ready for publication, to which Bolaño assured him he did and would get it right over to him. No such manuscript existed, but Bolaño quickly expanded upon the RamÃrez Hoffman story that concluded his earlier book Nazi Literature in the Americas--a collective theme on literature under authoritarianism made up of brief biographies influentially indebted to Juan Rodolfo Wilcock. While there are varying accounts to the validity of this--Bolaño’s entire life is shrouded by incongruous biographical accounts only enhanced by the way the author self-mythologized and secured his immortality as a sort of a legendary literary figure more so than flesh-and-blood man--Distant Star was completely quickly using the chapter from the previous book as its groundworks and went on to become his breakout success. The duality of the story version and novella version fit perfectly into Bolaño’s whole mythos, with the technique of expanding previous popping up in different works appearing through his short stories or the way Amulet is a life-story of a minor character in The Savage Detectives and includes a retelling of the same event that appeared in the latter novel. The variants on stories self-create an effect similar to classical myths and fairy tales and their numerous versions. As the book opens after a brief preface asserting that this book does indeed take place in the same literary universe as Nazi Literature and is being dictated by Arturo as an updated version of the earlier story because he â€�was not satisfiedâ€�, we find Arturo a young college student eager for poetry and the affections of the Garmendia sisters. The sisters, however, have their eyes on Alberto Ruiz-Tagle. A self-proclaimed autodidact, Arturo thinks he is too much of a rich dandy and a certain jealousy is born. The innocence of youthful poet rivalry is quickly shattered a few pages in as the disappearances under Pinochet begin and the Garmendia sister’s are brutally murdered. Some time later, while in prison, Arturo will see a poem written in the sky and so launches the story of who and what Ruiz-Tagle became as military poet persona Carlos Wieder. Something that I particularly adore about Bolaño is the way that he makes literature seem like the most important aspect of life while simultaneously showing it as fleeting and meaningless. Around the time I read this during a good drunk evening with friends, I took a marker and wrote above my kitchen door “Literature is what matters because it doesn’t,â€� very much inspired by Bolaño himself. I have since painted over it and moved but I would be willing to bet at the right angle in the right lighting the line may appear like the ghost of a former resident still wallowing in the self-imposed agonies of youth. In Bolaño we often visit the horrors of Pinochet but in a way that still keeps literature central to the tales. While this is a story of murder, as Wieder is definitely a sadistic killer, the focus is on the way it influences his art more so than anything. The image of a plane writing poetry in the sky--curiously often writing lines from disappeared female poets--is romantic but also weirdly tied up with the violence and political atmosphere that comes with the military aspects of the plane. Where does art and propaganda collide? Wieder, now famous for his aerial art, hosts an art exhibit in his own home expecting his further experiments of the political to further make him an avant-garde legend. What is revealed is nothing less than pure evil and terror as, in a powerful scene, his crimes are fully on display quite literally as if to make an artistic statement. The braggadocio of presenting photos of all the women he has executed in the name of Pinochet and thinking it is art might be one of Bolaño’s most amazing moments. Wieder’s father stands there, unable to see beyond his pride for his son to understand why everyone is escaping in horror, having been confronted with their complicity in these murders by serving in the same government or military. This image of the father is so moving, as if trying to still love his son, or his country in the wake of all that has gone wrong and all the sins committed and blood spilled and lives forever destroyed in the name of power. What is important here is that the monsters often do not see themselves as monsters, but as great artists or leaders who only did what they felt others were too weak to achieve. This sense of simply being “betterâ€� than others is similar to the ethical questions Raskolnikov is trying to understand when he commits his murder in Crime and Punishment. While Raskolnikov is tortured internally for not being able to live up to this, here we find being able to murder and make light of it is not the hallmark of strength but the essence of evil. â€�What you have to understand is that Carlitos Wieder looked down on the world as if he were standing on top of a volcano; he saw you and me and himself from a great height, and, in his eyes, we were all, to be quite frank, pathetic insects. This is how he was.â€� Wieder honestly believed actual murder could be made into art, and Bolaño reminds us that there are some lines we cannot cross. Better to fade away into oblivion, as Arturo decides to do than â€�immerse myself in literature’s bottomless cesspools,â€� if being an artist means denying your own humanity as Wieder has attempted. There is an impressive control of time, as this novella spans several decades in 90 pages while managing to make the characters age authentically and events only a few dozen pages prior seem like aged photographs in the mind near the end. Characteristic of Bolaño, the novel launches into a noir-like plotline when Arturo is tracked down by a detective to see if he can identify Wieder as the writer of neo-fascist articles that appear in right wing magazines around the world. The final 20 pages of this book are extraordinary, with Bolaño pushing us to the precipice of terror using a tone that seems straight out of a horror novel instead of a poet drama. In the end in the pursuit of justice we only find more violence piled onto violence in the name of justice. While one feels better than the political violence, Arturo asks us to consider what violence we can accept and what does that say about us. Distant Star is simply amazing and one of my favorite books by an author who is most likely my all-time favorite. As is his style, this is a meditation on Bolaño’s whole generation of youth brought to the butchery of political violence and oppression, looking back with smoldering anger at the world that snuffed out the beauty he believed in so strongly. This would make an excellent entry point for any readers who have yet to read this Chilean genius and those who have already read his most notable, larger works will find that he is just as satisfying in his smaller works. 5/5 â€�When asked to clarify what she meant by “the music of the Spanishâ€�, she replied: “rage, sir, sheer, futile rage.â€�â€� ...more |
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| B0DT1LK5NB
| 3.58
| 3,887
| Sep 01, 2002
| 2012
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really liked it
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Nothing lasts, the purely loving gestures of children tumble into the void. I hope this book is in my pocket at the moment of my death. Cancer, most li Nothing lasts, the purely loving gestures of children tumble into the void. I hope this book is in my pocket at the moment of my death. Cancer, most likely, or perhaps the cacophony of a horrific car crash. Certainly not old age, given my lifestyle, though it is a nice dream. Possibly a snap moment of gratuitous violence or any other aberration from the mundane that a solipsistic individual would register as the utter apocalypse. Whatever the circumstances, I can only hope that my blood soaks into the pages of this beautiful work as I am ejected from this world, as I pass from present to past tense, and I move from a reality of the physical to one of prose. Because once we are gone all that remains are the stories, anecdotes like metaphors that build towards an impression of personality which seem like fiction due to the undeniable degree of exaggeration or polishing in order to drive home a more perfect point. Antwerp by Roberto Bolaño is the immaculate lovechild of the novella and the prose poem, a surrealistic mosaic impression of the world built through page-length chapters of prose that tell a story, somewhat, the way a poem provides an abstract account of reality. Set mostly in Barcelona, Antwerp dances in disjointed scenes of campgrounds, hotel rooms, ghettos and bars following the lives of those surrounding the character Roberto Bolano as he wanders about and writes. There is murder, there is intrigue, there is loneliness and there is silence. �Silence is love just as your raspy voice is a bird.� Bolaño wrote that �the only novel that doesn’t embarrass me is Antwerp,� much like how he says his poetry makes him �blush less� than his prose. Antwerp, written when he was 27 but not published until the year before his death, seems to be the coming-of-age moment in his writing. Although it would be another decade before he would switch from poetry to novels, this wonderfully avant-garde work of his feels like the growth spurt of his brilliance as he dares to dream and experiment. '[A]ll his rules about plot only apply to novels that are copies of other novels,' and Bolaño dares to make something that is both is and isn't a novel with these 56 prose segments. The stories diverge and scatter with a dreamlike quality to them, events often appearing in a collection of juxtaposed fragments. Memories flash like lightning across the sky, blinking on and off to light the darkness and disappear again. Everything is slippery and elusive. This has been my second reading of the book, the first being the slightly different draft that appears in The Unknown University under the earlier title People Walking Away. I tend to prefer the earlier title, because isn’t that much of what life inevitably is? People scattering like shrapnel each towards their own horizon. Their shadows lingering last like children called home for bedtime, stretched out long and grand before vanishing forever. 4.5/5 Of what is lost, irretrievably lost, all I wish to recover is the daily availability of my writing, lines capable of grasping me by the hair and lifting me up when I'm at the end of my strength. (Significant, said the foreigner.) Odes to the human and the divine. Let my writing be like the verses of by Leopardi that Daniel Biga recited on a Nordic bridge to gird himself with courage. ...more |
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Apr 02, 2016
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Paperback
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| 0374531552
| 9780374531553
| 0374531552
| 4.21
| 45,694
| 2004
| Nov 11, 2008
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it was amazing
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â€�Every hundred feet the world changes.â€� â€�Only poetry isn’t shit,â€� Roberto Bolaño writes in his mammoth fragmentary novel, 2666. The self-mythologizing â€�Every hundred feet the world changes.â€� â€�Only poetry isn’t shit,â€� Roberto Bolaño writes in his mammoth fragmentary novel, 2666. The self-mythologizing author figured himself a poet first and foremost, claiming the impetus for his many novel’s prolifically written in the final decade of his life was to give people a reason to want to read his poetry (having money to take care of his children after his early death was, likely, another part), yet the scale and scope of this book is a sort of poetry all of its own. It is a big book that leaves a piece of itself within you once you’ve read it that fills the space where a piece of yourself seems to have been worthily sacrificed to be devoured by the novel. For that reason it is impossible to truly separate this novel from yourself when recalling it, as the reading process and your own life feels pertinent to your impressions on the novel. This was a book that made me consider what it would mean to be poetry, quite literally in the way Henry David Thoreau meant when he wrote â€�my life has been the poem I would have writ,â€� and experiencing this book was recognizing the poetry of life in action. This is a complex, multilayered novel that looks at violence and the perpetrators of it to better comprehend evil in a world that is still filled with beauty if we only dare to identify it amidst the darkness, and it is a novel that you will absorb into yourself in gratifying ways that make you feel a part of something meaningful. â€�Metaphors are our way of losing ourselves in semblances or treading water in a sea of seeming.â€� I read this novel in the autumn of 2015 during a time I spent more or less living on the road as a delivery driver around the midwest. Forgoing a cursory overview of my life at that time as a young, I’ll simply say a lot of aspects of my life were not going well and things weren’t great. It’s times like these I find a solace in literature and assuage my anxieties with artistic outpourings, and this is a period that would be misguided to romanticize yet was still an extravaganza of learning and living many avenues of art. Diving into creating and reading is the best way I've found to escape the gnashing teeth of your own suidcide ideation and so 2666 was a constant companion with me for a few months, much in the way Crime and Punishment was during a similar hard time years previous. I can’t think of this book without thinking of my good friend, Mike Puma, a former Å·±¦ÓéÀÖ reviewer who passed away this year. After years of him telling me I needed to read this book, he finally convinced me when we learned there was to be a . The play was funded by a monk who won the lottery and wanted to give it all to theater and have his favorite book produced, a detail that feels directly out of a Bolaño novel that I’m sure would have pleased the author. Puma and I on a bone-chillingly cold February 2016 day in Chicago seeing the play adaptation of 2666. I read a 3 volume set, each with a unique cover and while each had the full 2666 written out on it, it was displayed in a way that the combined spines also read 2666. Insert awkward moment reading the book while waiting for my daughter to get out of dance lessons when all the mother’s around me were reading christian non-fiction and here I was with a book where the cover boldly just showed 666 over the painting . I got a few looks, none of them positive. â€�Reading is pleasure and happiness to be alive or sadness to be alive and above all it's knowledge and questions.â€� Something about reading most of this book in a parked delivery van in the decay and rains of autumn fits the tone of this book perfectly with its ever creeping dread and the lurking shadows that haunt characters like philosophy professor Óscar Amalfitano. Bad times all around as each section seems to be spiraling around a core of violence set in a Mexican border town that functions as a literary investigation into the that claimed the lives of 370 women between 1993 and 2005. The violence is like a black hole of depravity slowly bending each strand of the novel into its gravity with the pull felt through abject existential despair to those unknowingly caught in it’s grip. Each of the sections of the novel stands strongly on their own, but the collage created by them amalgamates to something much more powerful than simply the sum of its parts. The book begins with a dark comedy about literary critics as they hop along the globe caught up in academic feuds, love triangles and a search for the reclusive author who’s works brought them together: German novelist Benno von Archimboldi. From there it segues into the story of a professor and his daughter as he feels the growing dread of Mexico overcoming his mental health and safety, a fast paced story about an American reporter sent to cover a fight and gets plunged into the deadly machismo culture that demonstrates the mindsets that create violence against women, a long police-centered section on the actual murders, and finally into a story of a German man’s life from Berlin to war to his literary life. The final section is as close to a fable as Bolaño gets and doesn’t so much as blatantly tie the stories together but puts us at the precipice of understanding and terror, a signature style of his I’ve come to truly love. The centerpiece of the book, “The Part About the Crimesâ€� is a difficult and disturbing section but also full of political intrigue, detective drama and action. Bolaño really leaned into this section due to his love of detective stories and noir but also it is said he knew his friend Mario Santiago Papasquiaro (fan of The Savage Detectives will know him as Ulises Lima) wouldn’t read the book without an action cop drama hidden inside. This layered and fragmentary novel is absolutely incredible as it explores so many different themes and ideas that all seem to work well in an orbit around the central themes of violence--particularly misogynist and racial violence. Understandably, the book may seem a bit clunky with so much going on, yet that might be part of what makes it so endearingly brilliant. At one point a character observes a clerk always reading great authors, but never their bigger books: 'He chose The Metamorphosis over The Trial, he chose Bartleby over Moby-Dick, he chose A Simple Heart over Bouvard and Pecuchet, and A Christmas Carol over A Tale of Two Cities or The Pickwick Papers. What a sad paradox, thought Amalfitano. Now even bookish pharmacists are afraid to take on the great, imperfect, torrential works, books that blaze paths into the unknown. They choose the perfect exercises of the great masters. Or what amounts to the same thing: they want to watch the great masters spar, but they have no interest in real combat, when the great masters struggle against that something, that something that terrifies us all, that something that cows us and spurs us on, amid blood and mortal wounds and stench.â€� This seems an apt assessment of 2666, Bolaño sparing with dense ideas and delivering us a novel scarred from the battle of creating literature. Bolaño has a gift to be simultaneously pretentious and unserious, often making literature seem like the most important notion in the world while also lampooning it. This is perfectly embodied in “The Part About the Criticsâ€� with comical caricatures of academia such as debates at literary conferences written as if it were a battle between the Gods and Titans. There is also a segment on a famed artist who admits everything was simply for money, a dagger in the heart of one critic who wants to believe art is sacrosanct . This whole section is brimming with situational comedy (a famed publisher has the last name Bubis [yep, pronounced ‘Boobies’] and one joke has two of the critics thrilled to see photos of him with famous authors shouting ‘It’s Heinrich Boll with Bubisâ€�. Its juvenile humor that somehow works to offset the darkness of the book) that quickly drops into a dark and desperate depression when the group heads to Mexico in search of their prized author. This was so comforting to read in a time when life seemed uncertain and a reminder to look for beauty but not take anything too seriously. It is freeing in a way, to fully embrace your dreams and quests yet not demand impossible meaning from them. â€�History, which is a simple whore, has no decisive moments but is a proliferation of instants, brief interludes that vie with one another in monstrousness.â€� At the heart of this book, however, is the violence, and â€�violence piled upon violence.â€� As in most Bolaño, abstract evil is lurking and violence is often compared to sexual desires. Here we see that patriarchal norms and objectification and oppression of women open the floodgates of horror. Lusts override humanity and sex workers are killed for pleasure and discarded, small disputes lead to men shooting their girlfriends, and even children are not safe. While not every one of the multitude of deaths that are covered in the book are directly linked to what might be a chain of murders, they are all part of a larger systemic issue Bolaño attempts to place his finger upon. The deaths pile up in this section of police report after police report in order to overwhelm the reader with the tragedy, and the effect is very well accomplished. The final section of the book is simply majestic. It reveals mysteries and misconceptions that have occurred throughout the novel without directly pointing them out in a way that captures his idea that â€�People see what they want to see and what people want to see never has anything to do with the truth.â€� We learn the truth behind the reclusive author--his purpose for remaining in hiding is one of the strongest sections of the book--and see another side of characters almost forgotten from the beginning of the book. Ultimately, Bolaño shows how multifaceted the world and people are, and even in darkness there is beauty. Particularly in storytelling, as this section includes many stories folded into the larger story. It’s completely astonishing. I spent an autumn enraptured with this book, discussing it with my good friend and, later, having a grand weekend seeing the play which has truly embedded this book in my heart and memory. It's a book that I look back on more as a travel companion and friend than a novel I lugged around for weeks. It's been awhile since I read this but it's been nice to check in on my past self and send a message back through time that things will be better. Also a good reminder that at least once a year read its good to read a book that will become a part of you and devours a part of you to make room in you for itself. Books like this are the reason why literature will always hold a special place in my heart. 5/5 ...more |
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Dec 14, 2015
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Dec 14, 2015
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| 1612193471
| 9781612193472
| 1612193471
| 3.76
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| Sep 30, 2014
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really liked it
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when you read him, you get the urge to read and write yourself. i think that that's the best thing anyone can say about a writer. -Rodrigo Fresán Rober when you read him, you get the urge to read and write yourself. i think that that's the best thing anyone can say about a writer. -Rodrigo Fresán Roberto Bolaño is both the myth-maker and the myth. He creates a realm where reality and fiction copulate to birth a new, better, brighter world. In his works we find literature to be the paramount importance, where literature may not save your life or change your status, but will save your soul. That is the sort of thing I choose to believe in. I want to carry around in my pocket a medallion with Bolaño’s face on one side, and his wordless poem on the other and make him the Patron Saint of the doomed and damned artists who truly believe their craft makes more difference than any political leader, army or god. Bolaño is who I choose to believe in. Bolaño: A Biography in Conversations is a stunning look into the life of the legend, brilliantly structured, cycling between personal research and essay by Mónica Maristain (with whom Bolaño gave his final interview) and her interviews with those who knew the master. What appears is a piercingly beautiful portrait of a sensitive and playful¹ man fiercely dedicated to his craft. I remember him as a man who wanted to seem tough but had a very sweet side. - Paola Tinoco The biography chronicles his life from boyhood (we see the truth behind the relationship with his father, a former boxer, that appears in glorious fictionalized truth in his story The Last Evenings on Earth) to his death at an early age from liver failure. Bolaño died while on the waiting list for a new liver (can I please make a stipulation as an organ donor to only give mine to poets and novelists far from the top of a waiting list?). While some of the myth is dispelled and the drug-addicted tough guy attitude cast in a new light (Bolaño neither drank nor did drugs. It is amusing that he always insisted upon being photographed smoking to add to his ‘tough guy� image), it casts light on a life well lived and one worth honoring. We strip away the errors but find more gold to enjoy, and the list of authors interviewed and works mention is sure to bulk up any to-read list (particularly the list of 16 best novels that he made for Playboy Magazine) The escapades as a Visceral Realist are told with great hilarity, little-known poets turning up at literary meetings and wrecking havoc, and we can be assured that Bolaño was every bit the poet bad-ass he wanted us to see. The mythology of Bolaño is fascinating. In this modern age, it is tough to keep a low-profile, yet so much of his life is still shrouded in ‘did that really happen?�. The answer is that it truly doesn’t matter if it did or not, but what does it mean to us. His works are so blended with biography and fiction to create a better world imbued with meaning and message that can save us, protect us, comfort us and entertain us. We can choose to believe in the blended myth and find solace there. Why bother with the semantics? Like warring religions debating whose is the ‘truth� when what really matters is taking the message to heart, mind and action and living life in a better way. Bolaño showed us the route to a world where art is of the utmost importance, and that is something you can take with you forever. And hopefully let it guide your own artistic endeavors. He gave us the beauty in slums or exile, the emotion of defeat, loneliness and the importance of sticking true to your beliefs. Bolaño is on our side, a man both folk-tale and reality, a man worth believing in. You are missed, goodnight sweet prince. 4.5/5 ¹ There is a great story told by Fresan where Bolaño turns up at his door awhile after they had parted ways. Bolaño is pale and soaking wet and tells him he killed a man who tried to mug him because he felt their money dedicated to literature was too important to be taken away by a Skinhead. After much disquieting discussion and alarm, Bolaño finally laughs and asks how Fresan could believe that. He says he needed to call a cap but that seemed to vulgar and boring so he'd spice the story up a bit. Apparently Bolaño was known for such joking around. [image] ...more |
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Aug 02, 2015
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| 3.90
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it was amazing
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Sordel, Sordello, which Sordello? â€�Literature is like phosphorus,â€� wrote Roland Barthes, â€�it shines with its maximum brilliance at the moment when it a Sordel, Sordello, which Sordello? â€�Literature is like phosphorus,â€� wrote Roland Barthes, â€�it shines with its maximum brilliance at the moment when it attempts to die.â€� This view of literature existing at the precipice of the posthumous comes alive through Roberto Bolaño's Father Sebastian Urrutia and his deathbed confessions that make up the long night of By Night in Chile. Told in a single continuous paragraph—a style that hints with the flavor of Thomas Bernhard—Bolaño keeps the pressure and tension of his politically charged satire to a controlled maximum as if it were a horror novel while Urrutia takes us room by room through his haunted house of Chilean history. From his early days as a fledgling literary critic and poet spending time along with Pablo Neruda at the estate of Chile’s foremost critic, to travels in Europe and teaching Marxism in secret classes to the new regime, Urrutia attempts to rationalize his life and battles with his shame before the judgement of the shadowy ‘wizened youthâ€� that haunts him and his memories. Behind every curtain may wait a new horror, in every basement a sinister torture scene, yet these unspeakable terrors lurk just outside the candle-light of narrative, making them all the more sinister as we step along in the warm and surprisingly comical blaze. A perfect blend of all things Bolaño, By Night in Chile is a dazzling display of narrative that culminates upon the association and juxtaposition of seemingly separate elements to plunge a sharp dagger deep into the heart of Chile’s political climate. â€�That is how literature is made in Chile.â€� By Night in Chile is the blessed union of Bolaño’s prose and poetry. Each sentence coils and crawls smoothly and effortlessly like a satirical snake through gardens abloom in allegory and metaphor. The novel in a method similar to how a poem serves as a near-hallucinogenic impression of reality, residing in the Garden of comical and bizarre events that function like a translucent veil both masking and giving glimpses into the Fall and damnation lying just beyond our grasp. The episode of falcons being used to murder pigeons before they can cover the cathedrals in excrement is a masterpiece of situational comedy, but also a startling metaphor for the Pinochet regime hunting down and snuffing out any opposition to their own structure¹ Bolaño is an expert at embodying the essence of a place or person, often stacking details together that build towards an impression that takes the reader off-guard and instills a sense of bewilderment and wonder at the image being presented. Perhaps the most impressive aspect of Night, however, is the spirit of the short story—a form in which I find Bolaño to be at his best—and the episodic nature of the novel. Like walking through a nightmare, Urrutia recounts his life through swirling episodic reflections that blend into one the way a fever-dream seamlessly morphs from one notion to the next by riding a wave of emotion and produce a work greater than the parts of the whole through the way the episodes communicate and comment upon one another. â€�My silences are immaculate.â€� While Urrutia, a member of a conservative priesthood Opus Dei which served fascist uprisings, has much to feel guilt over in his actions, it is his inactions that are most unbearable to him and the ‘wizened youthâ€�. One has a moral obligation to take responsibilty for one’s actions, and that includes one’s words and silences, yes, one’s silences, because silences rise to heaven too, and God hears them, and only God understands and judges them, so one must be very careful with one’s silences. I am responsible in every way.The novel is much like jazz where the notes you »å´Ç²Ô’t play are equally important to the ones that are played. Urrutia did his part, played his role and was never chastised for it. Even when he feared for his reputation after teaching the private lessons to Pinochet and his generals (a humorous sidenote is that the generals are far more concerned with the personal life of one attractive female theorist than her actual ideas), nobody seemed to care. However, it was his inability to stop it, to say no, to do anything to dam up the onslaught of history even for a moment that will serve as his everlasting personal tombstone. Similar to Urrutia is the young novelist Maria Canales² who wishes to be a integral part of the literary scene, hosting salons and mingling with all the poets and politicians. Like Urrutia who was able to turn a blind eye to the horrors around him, Canales ignored the political interrogations and tortures going on in her very own basement during her salons. â€�I would have been able to speak out but I didn't see anything,â€� Maria tells him, â€�I didn't know until it was too late.â€� Willfully neglecting reality, we will all wind up bemoaning our fates, dismissing our responsibility, and realizing it is too late for all of us. By remaining silent, we are essentially condoning the horrors. By Night in Chile is sure to haunt any reader who dare cross the threshold. A perfect elixer of all Bolaño's finest elements, this is a novel that dances and sways with the ethereal beauty of his poetry but punches with the raw intensity and eloquently abrasive power of his novels. History is making itself before our very eyes, and what are we doing to control the tides? Will we be a voice of reason, or simply march to the beat of whatever drum imposes itself. Will we get out alive, or will it be too late by the time we realize where we are. A frequent refrain echoing across the novel is critic Farewell’s line â€�Sordel, Sordello, which Sordello?â€�, dredging up Dante’s Sordello who was cast into purgatory for being unable to confess his sins before death. By Night in Chile is Urrutia’s feverish, disjointed confession, one that brings about the flames of hellfire in an attempt to avoid them. Bolaño's novel is full of pure rage and humor that never blinks or stands down. 4.5/5 And then the storm of shit begins. ¹It is interesting to note the names of the two gentlemen that recruit Urrutia for this mission are Mr. Raef and Mr. Etah. A simple reversal of the letters reveals the truth hiding within their power. ² Maria Canales and her husband’s story finds inspiration in that of , which bears a near resemlance to the version found in this book. I am highly indebted to a good friend for the full novel experience. ...more |
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Apr 21, 2015
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Jun 11, 2015
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Apr 21, 2015
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| 0374191484
| 4.17
| 48,901
| Nov 02, 1998
| Apr 03, 2007
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it was amazing
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A book so good I had to get it tattooed onto me. â€�Youth is a scamâ€� Roberto Bolaño (1953-2003) created a very special novel with The Savage De A book so good I had to get it tattooed onto me. â€�Youth is a scamâ€� 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 ‘whodunnitâ€� 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 â€� 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: â€�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.â€� 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 , 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 »å´Ç²Ô’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 On the Road 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 knitâ€� 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 ‘metagroupâ€� 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 »å´Ç²Ô’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... ...more |
Notes are private!
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Jul 02, 2012
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Jul 02, 2012
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