San Marcos, Lima, Peru

Posted on February 1, 2026 by ava

My initial thought after finishing the last page I intended to read for this week (pp. 90-190) was that I tried to figure out whether I liked The Savage Detectives more or Conversation in the Cathedral and I genuinely do not have an answer. I compare them so much I don’t know why. However one thing I’ve really appreciated about Conversation in the Cathedral is how it sparks my imagination as I read it; it allows me to visualize the streets, the places, the university of San Marcos, the faces of the characters, their expressions; I feel none of that when reading The Savage Detectives.

I am still very much confused about what is going on. I think there are three main reasons that make the book confusing: first, there are so many names and those names have nicknames; last time I thought I had this under control, but it just got worse. Second, there are conversations in conversations. As Ambrosio and Santiago talk, other stories are thrown at the reader, woven into the narrative, leaving me feeling confused. At some point, I tried not to think of connecting the dots, but instead JUST READ (I think it helped). Finally (same issue I have with The Savage Detectives), I feel like there is a lot of unnecessary information which I like to call filler information. This gets me to think about the question that keeps popping up in our discussions. Why are long books long? Do they need to be that long? I don’t know…I would like to keep an open mind and to think that it is all relevant and will make sense by the end.

As for a storyline update: Santiago is interesting. It seems like he’s been carrying many regrets, feeling that he’s spent his life not truly believing in what he’s doing. He often feels like he didn’t have the courage to make bold decisions and was just “pretending” at times. To me though, his choices show that he simply has a functioning brain and tends to think carefully before making big decisions, rather than acting impulsively. For example when offered to officially join the Cahuide (a communist organization largely composed of students at San Marcos), despite his friends joining, he doesn’t as he is not sure what the role exactly entails. The story basically explains these relationships, student uprisings at the university, how they plan to organize it all, and their affiliation with APRA and the labour movements; though they are unsuccessful in this section and most of the important actors of the student body get arrested.

As we know, Santiago’s father is closely tied to Odría’s government. When Santiago and a bunch of other Cahuide members get arrested, Santiago is saved and his name is removed from all the records because of his father, Don Fermín. He seems eager to break free from his father’s influence and power. I wonder if he secretly enjoys the protection he gets knowing someone will always come to his rescue at the end of the day, or if he truly despises his father.

 In one of the conversations, Odría’s officials say that an election must be held to “seal the deal” and that Odría’s presidency has to be officially recognized by Peruvian voters for his government to gain international and national legitimacy especially from the U.S.. Don Fermín goes on to say “Elections are a formality… but a necessary formality.” Another person says that to hold this election, the country has to be pacified first meaning that all the Apristas have to be cleaned up, or else the election could “blow up in our faces like a bomb” and not end up with Odría winning. What I appreciate about this book is the ability to connect it to scholarly work I have previously read. This section reminded me of Levitsky and Way’s concept of Competitive Authoritarianism. Odría wants that recognition, to gain legitimacy and signal democratic values by holding elections on paper but there is a significant gap between what is presented and the reality. They suppress opposition, they imprison the leader of the opposition party, arrest APRA members and communists and attempt to control the election apparatus, signalling that yes, this is an election and there are candidates; however, the winner is already pre-determined from our pool of candidates.

A question I will leave you with is this: When I read, I always have my blog in the back of my mind… what will I say… oh maybe I should underline this… maybe I should leave a bookmark here… but that gets tiring, and I feel like it sometimes takes away from my ability to fully enjoy the readings. This time I tried to block that and didn’t even write down much in my notebook, and I believe I enjoyed that quite a lot more. So I wonder how your experience has been? Do you do this too? Or is it just me:)

Tagged | Comments Off on San Marcos, Lima, Peru

2666 III: Order with the Possibility of Suicide

Posted on January 31, 2026 by Jon

“The Part of Amalfitano” is, at almost exactly eighty pages, the shortest of the five parts that make up 2666. It expands on the character, circumstances, and history of Oscar Amalfitano, a professor at the University of Santa Teresa and “expert in Benno von Archimboldi” (150–51), to whom we have already been introduced in “The Part of the Critics.” He is, we could say, the fifth critic, though his part in no way advances our knowledge of Archimboldi, who is not even mentioned in this section of the book. It looks as though Bolaño is going to make us wait quite some time before the mystery of Achimboldi is resolved. . . if indeed it ever is.

Meanwhile, if this book’s first part was relatively disparate and uncohesive, then its second part is even more so. There are perhaps three main elements to it. First, there is the tale of Amalfitano’s wife, Lola, who, when they are living in Barcelona with their young child, takes off hitchhiking with a friend (Imma) in pursuit of a poet who turns out to be interned in an insane asylum in the Basque Country.

At the asylum, Lola (who is relating her adventures to Amalfitano via a series of letters) and Imma meet a doctor who tells them he is writing a biography of the poet. “Someday,” he explains, 

all of us will finally leave Mondragón, and this noble institution, ecclesiastical in origin, charitable in aim, will stand abandoned. Then my biography will be of interest and I’ll be able to publish it, but in the meantime, as you can imagine, it’s my duty to collect information, dates, names, confirm stories, some in questionable taste, even damaging, others more picturesque, stories that revolve around a chaotic center of gravity, which is our friend here, or what he’s willing to reveal, the ordered self he presents, ordered verbally, I mean, according to a strategy I think I understand, although its purpose is a mystery to me, an order concealing a verbal disorder that would shake us to the core if ever we were to experience it, even as spectators of a staged performance. (224–25; translation, page 174)

This description of a series of uneven and varied stories that “revolve around a chaotic center of gravity” seems to be almost equally apt for the book (2666) that we ourselves are reading, though perhaps we are still unsure even as to what that center of gravity is for Bolaño’s novel. Are we being kept from it precisely because it would “shake us to the core if ever we were to experience it”? Is this why the true subject of 2666 (if indeed the book, or any other, can be said to have a “true subject”) has to be postponed so long?

The second element of “The Part of Amalfitano” comes when the professor has relocated to Santa Teresa and comes across a book in the boxes of books he has had packed up and delivered to his new abode, but this is a book that he cannot remember ever buying or owning. It is written by a Galician poet, Rafael Dieste, though rather than poetry it is a book of geometry, with the title Testamento geométrico or “Geometric Testament.” We are told that on its front flap the book is described as “really three books, ‘each independent, but functionally correlated by the sweep of the whole’” (240; 186). Again, we may wonder whether, with this description of a book within the book, Bolaño is also telling us something about the book that we ourselves are reading. Are all books within books metaphorical in this way? Or would that be synecdochal: a part for the whole? Which may then make us wonder about the roles of the “parts” in this long book. What is the “whole” that is 2666? Is it somehow more than its parts?

In the case of Dieste’s Testamento geométrico, Amalfitano comes up with a novel reading (or non-reading) strategy, albeit not quite so novel in that we are told that the idea comes from Duchamp: he hangs it up on a clothesline in his garden, exposing it to the wind and the sun, and presumably also whatever rain may fall in these dry latitudes. As he explains to his daughter: “I hung it there just because, to see how it survives the assault of nature, to see how it survives this desert climate” (246; 191). But this “just because” is already something more than a “just because”: hanging the book on the line also here stages a conflict between literature and nature, perhaps between civilization and a (barbaric?) climate hostile to human habitation. Or as Duchamp is said to have put it of his own experiments in hanging books out on a line: “in its exposure to the weather, ‘the treatise seriously got the facts of life’” (246; 191).

Meanwhile, we are told that Amalfitano has other strange little ideas, beyond this one of treating a book like an item of wet clothing. He has some “idiosyncratic” thoughts about jet-lag, for instance: that people in other time zones in fact do not exist, or are at best permanently slumbering, such that 

if you suddenly traveled to cities that, according to this theory, didn’t exist or hadn’t yet had time to put themselves together, the result was the phenomenon known as jet lag, which arose not from your exhaustion but from the exhaustion of the people who would still have been asleep if you hadn’t traveled. (243; 189)

We are told of such odd “ideas or feelings or ramblings” that they

turned the pain of others into memories of one’s own. They turned pain, which is natural, enduring, and eternally triumphant, into personal memory, which is human, brief, and eternally elusive. They turned a brutal story of injustice and abuse, an incoherent howl with no beginning or end, into a neatly structured story in which suicide was always held out as a possibility. They turned flight into freedom, even if freedom meant no more than the perpetuation of flight. They turned chaos into order, even if it was at the cost of what is commonly known as sanity. (244; 189)

Is this then another clue to what this novel is doing–or what novels do, on the whole? They create “neatly structured stor[ies]” out of “incoherent howl[s] with no beginning or end,” but at the price of madness or suicide, freedom that turns out to be (a line of) flight? Is Bolaño trying to give us some insight into the process by which “order” is processed out of “chaos,” even as inevitably we look for that order and prefer to suppress or pass over the chaos that is its chaos, and which the order that prose brings both reveals and represses?

Finally, the third element (though in truth there are plenty of others) in this “Part of Amalfitano” concerns the university rector’s son, Marco Antonio, who appears out of nowhere on the street one day and takes Amalfitano to a rather dubious bar on the outskirts of town and gets him to try a brand of mezcal called Los Suicidas: 

drink up and enjoy, said Marco Antonio. At the second sip Amalfitano thought it really was an extraordinary drink. They don’t make it anymore, said Marco Antonio, like so much in this fucking country. And after a while, fixing his gaze on Amalfitano, he said: we’re going to hell, I suppose you’ve realized, Professor? (275; 215)

Los Suicidas: The Suicides. This oddly-named drink is, incidentally, the same brand of mezcal that, at the outset of the second section (or part?) of The Savage Detectives, Amadeo Salvatierra serves to Ulises Lima and Arturo Belano when they come to interview him about the forgotten poet, Cesárea Tinajero. But is this resonance only incidental? Is anything incidental in Bolaño? Or is everything just a series of incidents, from which we are forced (as is our habit, as readers of novels) to find significance in their mutual interconnection, as we seek to fabricate a cohesive and unified story where in essence there is none?

Tagged , , , , , , , , | Comments Off on 2666 III: Order with the Possibility of Suicide

those dogs; the visceral realists — [the savage detectives; pp. 143-205]

Posted on January 29, 2026 by jasmine choi

those dogs; the visceral realists — [the savage detectives; pp. 143-205]

Though it has been refreshing to read so many different perspective, other than the singular García Madero’s, it has been difficult to keep with all the characters. Confusing, at times, but I think that is part of the intrigue. I find myself trying to figure out what character is being spoken about and by whom. I am flipping back and forth through the book like a madman.

It has also been interesting to get a different perspective of the visceral realists and also, surprisingly, Arturo Belano. It seems to me that the mystery of the visceral realists is less about intrigue and more about brooding performance. I like that some of the characters believe visceral realism to be absurd. But this absurdity that they take on feels almost like an older sibling’s antagonism onto something that the younger has created to be weird and esoteric. Like a secret bookclub with a secret meeting spot and secret code words that only members know. That kind of imaginative absurdity.

Here, for me, there is a sense of (almost child-like) play with the poets involved in visceral realism. Perhaps this is egged-on by (what I can only assume are) older characters like Amadeo Salvatierra or the director. Quim doesn’t quite count for me, though he is an older figure. He seems to engage in this absurdism quite well.

On the other side of this, there is García Madero, perhaps one of the younger (or youngest?) characters. I feel that he almost idealizes and looks up to visceral realism. By proxy, also idealizing Arturo Belano and Ulises Lima. Perhaps the result of only reading García Madero’s perspective for the first portion of the book was that I took visceral realists a lot more seriously. The intrigue there was grittier, darker, more mysterious. Now it seems a little lighter, less weighty, much more childish, imaginative, and absurd.

In the same vein, it has been interesting to hear more about the different perspectives of Arturo Belano. Considering that this (may) be Roberto Bolaño’s ‘alter ego’ of sorts, I wonder if I could ever write my own alter ego like this. Some characters revere him and his behaviours, actions, words… others think him pathetic and oddly-willed.

Another thing I was thinking about was: what is the form/format of what we are reading? It was clearer with García Madero’s portion, a journal! But what is it that we are reading now? What did Bolaño concieve of in his mind’s eye? I find there is a bit of interplay between some of the entries, namely with Alberto and Luis’ conflicting/overlapping stories.

What were your initial thoughts with this new, García Madero-less format? Do you like it better?

Tagged , , | Comments Off on those dogs; the visceral realists — [the savage detectives; pp. 143-205]

Enero de 2026

Posted on January 29, 2026 by Eli

Desperate books, or books that cause desperation? I am sure that every reader has a type of literature they feel comfortable with, a kind of literature they enjoy and with which falling asleep is not an option; a literature and a type of stories, of narratives, that holds the reader’s attention word by word and surely differs from one reader to another. Even for the same reader, narratives and literature become different, and are approached with different emotional perceptions as the years go by, and perhaps the same book can be “una literatura para cuando estás aburrido (literature for when you are bored*). […] una literatura para cuando estás calmado (literature for when you are calm*) . […] una literatura para cuando estás triste (literature for when you are sad*). […] una literatura para cuando estás alegre (literature for when you are happy*). […] una literatura para cuando estás ávido de conocimiento (literature for when you are eager for knowledge*). Y [hay] una literatura para cuando estás desesperado (literature for when you are desperate*).” And just as Joaquín Font suggests different tipologies of literature, in addition to his two kinds of readers, I wonder whether this also applies to the writing of literature, and if there is writing conceived to make the reader feel desperate?

I continue reading Los detectives salvajes and leave Juan García Madero behind, with his adolescent monologue. Now, the different voices that beg to appear give the narrative a particular perspective, one that is built month by month through the voices of the different characters. I still do not understand the purpose of what is the purpose, but this turn strikes me as a point in its favor. It has caught my attention and allows me to desprenderme from the pretentious García Madero, as I try to find, in Los detectives salvajes, a renewed point of interest, of engagement. 

I continue with the reading and I try to piece together the idas y venidas (comings and goings) of the character, in particular, of the writer of “solicitudes, rogativas y cartas” (petitions, pleas and letters), Amadeo Salavarrieta; but “entre tantos nombres, nombres de hombres [cabales] y nombres huecos que ya no significan nada y que no son ni siquiera un mal recuerdo…” (among so many names, manes of men and empty names that no longer mean anything and are not even a bad memory*), Cesárea does not appear, and instead García Madero resurface in the words of other characters: 

“Pancho y Moctezuma eran pobres, pero en los lugares más insospechados de su vivienda pude ver ejemplares de Efraín Huerta, Augusto Monterroso, Julio Torri, Alfonso Reyes…” (79)

 

Pancho and Moctezuma were poor, but in the most unexpected places and corners of their home, I could see copies of Efraín Huerta, Augusto Monterroso, Julio Torri, Alfonso Reyes…” * 

The words before become blurred when the average reader is invoked, a lector promedio that does not align with the Rodríguez brothers:

“por ejemplo, un lector medio, un tipo tranquilo, culto, de vida más o menos sana, maduro. Un hombre que compra libros y revistas de literatura”. (243)

Although this episode forms part of Joaquín Font’s narration, I detect traces of García Madero in some of the characters, Joaquín and Perla, por ejemplo. This is the impression I retain from this initial reading of the second part of Los detectives salvajes.

 

*My translation

Tagged | Comments Off on Enero de 2026

“The second part of The Savage Detectives is so much better than the first”

Posted on January 29, 2026 by Carlina

This (see title) is what I kept thinking to myself as I read through “The Savage Detectives (1976-1996)”. I didn’t dislike “Mexicans Lost in Mexico (1975)” (it had its good moments and its frustrating moments), but I can say, without a doubt, that this second segment of the book is the type of literature that I would actually choose to read on my own time. I very much appreciate the constant change of narrators, which gives us a variety of voices and perspectives. I’ve read a couple other novels that have this type of narration (Hey Nostradamus! comes to mind) and I find it to be a rather refreshing approach to storytelling. Chapter 4 was the most riveting part of the novel so far. I know that the other book that we’ll be reading, Amulet, will focus on Auxilio Lacouture’s story, but I was honestly disappointed that this chapter was as short as it was, since it has been the part of the book that kept me turning the pages with the most anticipation. I was interrupted while reading it and I got upset since I was so absorbed by the story. However, the other chapters were captivating in their own ways. Perla Avilés’ narration also kept me glued to the pages. I thought it was interesting how the story went back in time to 1970 and how she spoke about some guy who she never names. By not ever naming him, it creates a sense of mystery. Now I’m wondering if this person will end up being one of the characters that we’ve been introduced to. She mentions that he went back to his “native country” and “suffered through a coup” (p. 170), so I’m guessing that she might referring to Arturo Belano. I also found Laura Jáuregui’s criticism of visceral realism to be somewhat amusing, when she calls it “cheap and meaningless” (p. 152), and later on expresses her disinterest in the movement and even criticizes the name (p. 174-175). Considering her lack of interest, I’m surprised that she wants to spend time around people who are clearly very passionate about this movement, to the point where it has become the main part of their identities. I couldn’t help but nod in approval when she called it “cheap and meaningless’, because up until now, I have yet to see anything of substance arise from this movement. I know this is a very harsh criticism for me to make. However, as a reader, I’m constantly hearing so much praise about this poetry movement that will impact society in the most significant of ways. But I have yet to read any of their poems, nor witness any positive impact of this movement. I’m hoping at least one character will share one of their poems at some point in the novel. Up until now, the visceral realists have struck me as a group of idealists as opposed to realists, which I’d say is a bit ironic. A bunch of young idealists who want societal change and to be part of something big that might never fully come to fruition.

For the class, I would like to pose the following questions:

Considering the fact that this section of the novel features a constant change of perspectives, switching from one character to another, why do you think that Bolaño decided to write “Mexicans Lost in Mexico” solely from the perspective of one character? What effect does this abrupt change of style have on your reading experience?

Why do you think Bolaño chose the title “The Savage Detectives” for this part, as opposed to choosing a different title from the title of the novel?

Comments Off on “The second part of The Savage Detectives is so much better than the first”

Interview with All of Mexico City?

Posted on January 28, 2026 by mg444
I must say, it’s been nice to get a break from Juan García Madero’s narration — and from Juan García Madero in general, if I’m honest. I kept thinking that one of the characters in part two would talk about him when they talked about Ulises Lima and Arturo Belano, but nothing so far, and I’m okay with that.
Although I’m not entirely sure how to define what I’ve been reading this week, I think I’ve enjoyed the format for the most part. The characters/interviewees (?) seem to ramble at times, but I feel like each one has a unique style of rambling, so I don’t really mind it. I’ve also been glad to learn that most of these characters have led much more interesting lives than our previous narrator (from what I can tell, at least). I found myself paying attention to the accounts from Luis Sebastián Rosado, in particular. I was also quite drawn in by María Font’s section at the end of Chapter 3: the image of Ulises Lima and Arturo Belano sitting in Café Quito with a man dressed all in white (192) called to mind scenes from Queer (also a story set in Mexico City) by William S. Burroughs.
On another note, I liked that we finally met Auxilio Lacouture, the “mother of Mexican poetry” (195) and (spoiler alert) narrator of Amulet. One thing that stood out to me about her chapter was how she described the younger Arturo Belano: shy, bad at drinking, politically conscious; a boy with a family, and a boy with ideals; and then, after his time as a revolutionary in Chile, changed. Auxilio’s descriptions of Belano made me curious about whether Juan García Madero will develop in a similar way, or whether he is doomed to continue chasing after visceral realists, being taken advantage of, and taking advantage of others. Additionally, this chapter has reminded me that I can look forward to revisiting Amulet, which I haven’t read since I was in RMST 202. I recall little bits of it, in a dreamlike way; I hope I will be able to enjoy it a second time.
Finally, my question of the week: Do the various voices in part two of The Savage Detectives feel like a chorus to you? Do they complement each other in a way that creates a certain atmosphere? Or would you say that they feel isolated from each other, or even awkward to read together?
Tagged | Comments Off on Interview with All of Mexico City?

Los Detectives Salvajes II – mirrors and absences

Posted on January 28, 2026 by Amada Libertad

In this second part of Savage Detectives it seems as if we are looking back, gathering the missing pieces, to the histories behind what we read in chapter I. Through different voices, such as María, Laura, Jacinto, etc, we are diving into more intimate reflections around our “beloved male characters,” visceral realism, and México itself. It is not a diary anymore but more of a bitácora (binnacle?). Each voice is reflecting towards itself, but there is someone definitely collecting them. Who is this missing person? Who is curating these stories within our imaginary literary world?

At this point in the book, I feel genuinely lost. I’m overwhelmed by the amount of information and unsure how to begin making sense of it. There are clearly many connections I’m missing, as keeping track of the names, events, and the subtle (and not-so-subtle) hints Bolaño scatters throughout the narrative feels impossible. One thing that does stand out, however, is how consistently Ulises and Arturo provoke strong reactions. Most people who encounter them seem to really dislike them, or at least experience a deep sense of discomfort, as if these two leave behind an almost unsettling, possessed presence.

One of my favorite stories is that of Luis. The confusing (mostly hateful) reaction of Luis to the presence of visceral realists made me think of what this visceralist realism is made of. A mixture of class clashes, age clashes, gender clashes, and sexual clashes. Clashes or controversies that are difficult to accept, to swallow, to digest in context like those of Latin American artistic circles. Clashes that might carry a lot of meaning, be confusing, or have no meaning at all. It seems Mexico itself is going through a huge transition during the 70s, this transition is mirrored in the personal lives of characters, the social interaction of characters, and the identity of the Mexican art world.

As we read the testimonies of those well known poets meeting the visceral realist, we see a world of luxury, of maids, of money, of European worship, of high standards, mostly of comfort. This is no longer the case for the young poets who are trying to navigate the new changing reality of Mexico City, or of Latin America in general. They both try to play the game of upper class early generation poets and the reality of both their lives and sources of inspiration, of survival, of struggle (economical, political, emotional, etc) in a post-conflict society that has stolen that which early generations took for granted.

Luis going to a club in Tepito, listening Ulises speaking French (reciting a poem from someone he couldn’t tell), seeing Julia being okay with visceral realist joining their night and being okay with them flirting with her, falling for Lucious Skin!, being targeted by people at the club, throwing up in the car; it is in a weird way that reconciliation of the truth (that horrible feeling of accepting where things are going).

The visceral realists are orphans of their countries, of the Mexican state, of the welfare system, of their parents, of their histories, of the educational system, and of past generations. They are forced to begin from nothing, navigating life without inherited structures or guarantees. Their only guides are poetry and poets, figures who, for the most part, are incapable of perceiving the world’s shifting realities unless they are drawn into it directly, through nights spent together, intoxication, or intimacy.

Do you think that the person who is collecting these stories is Madero? Why is Madero not mentioned in any of the stories? Why will Bolaño start with Madero and then erase him completely from the book?

Comments Off on Los Detectives Salvajes II – mirrors and absences

savage detectives two

Posted on January 28, 2026 by davesan9

Hello everybody!

I surprisingly miss Garcia Madero. I am not sure if it is very effective to have so many narrators to talk abut Belano and Lima. However , i did enjoy some of them and how the ideas of youth , attachment , sexuality and the literature world is written. I think the author bases these narrators in people he met ( or at least most of them)… they all are savage detectives too in their own way.
I am not sure if i am liking the novel but i am also not hating it. So , i am just going with the flow and i think i found a few topics that caught my attention.

First , lets talk about Perla. She is crushing hard for a boy ( nothing wrong with that) but i like how she goes deeper into her memories. She understands that because he is seeing with lots of people it doesnt imply that he had many friends ( i also find interesting how her testimony starts with ” i didnt have many friends”). She knows many of his flaws to the point that she considers him to be ” arrogant” but she is still attached to him. In other words , i like her self-awareness. She knows the difference between being “socially visible” and being ” connected”. Perla is not naive and i feel like she understands there is some type of contradiction in her feelings. for example ,she visits him regularly but not too often , or as she states later on ” she forgives him everything”…
Her testimony is not just about remembering a crush , it is to makes us understand why it was important at that stage of her life. I can relate to that in a way and all the poeple that i used to get attached when i was younger. It doesnt matter now but it had importance in the past.

Now Luscious Skin. This testimony is helping me to see that homosexuality is gonna create some division in the literature world. Some people like you , some people hate you , but i mean this does not just happen in the literature world. I think Luscious is telling us that in life we just have to accept this division. There is nothing we can do about it. I like also that he does not try hard ( or thats what it seems) to get Belano’s sympathy. He maintains his dignity and he is capable of admiring his antagonist.

discussion question:
DO YOU THINK THAT THE MULTIPLE NARRATORS CREATE CHAOS OR MAKE THE NOVEL RICHER IN PERSPECTIVES OR FUN LITERATURE?

Tagged | Comments Off on savage detectives two

Bolaño 2: Not My Favourite Style of Prose

Posted on January 28, 2026 by parden

I kind of feel like I cheated a little this week, when I downloaded an .epub copy of The Savage Detectives onto my laptop to read virtually while I was out and about. The whole reading-a-big-book vibe was ruined because I had no real way of conceptualizing how much of the book I had read or had left to read (especially when the page number only changes every few times I “turned” the page).

This section was awful to read. Content-wise, I preferred it to the last section, and I appreciated that we have different voices and perspectives and characters. We are no longer dealing with one insufferable main guy, but rather a blend of interesting people (like others have mentioned, even the characters we heard about in the last section are more three-dimensional in this section). I say it was awful to read not because of the content this week, but because of the structure. While some of it is okay, I found it difficult to read when whole pages are one big block of text, with no paragraph breaks and either very short or very long sentences. I must have lost my place five times while reading, and found that the lack of separation between sentences (monotonous) throughout the page was especially hard on my eyes (eye strain) in a virtual format.

One of the parts in the section that stuck out to me based on our class discussions was when the poet narrator was being interviewed by the group of young poets to discuss the state of Latin American poetry (pg. 153 – 155). The idea of length and long poetry and long books was interesting here. The majority of page 154 is one long run-on sentence, spiralling, as our narrator wonders if he was drugged as he tells his interviewers the story of his publisher taking a poem out of his prize-winning book. The group discusses length and page count requirements, and then the young poets’ “theory about long poems,” which they called “poem-novels” (154). I love this idea of a poem-novel, not just a poem within a novel but a poem so long and full that at some point it starts resembling the prose of a novel.

The other bookmark I have on what I wanted to note is with Laura Jáuregui’s section, mostly because I love her hater status. She describes Arturo Belano as a “stupid, conceited peacock” (172) and the men as “at least twenty and they acted like they were barely fifteen” (173). I loved her stance on the visceral realists being useless and not real, and the idea that “you can woo a girl with a poem, but you can’t hold onto her with a poem” (172).

 

 

Tagged | Comments Off on Bolaño 2: Not My Favourite Style of Prose

RMST 495 – Week 4: Second Chances, The Savage Detectives

Posted on January 28, 2026 by david chen

Second chances – Begin again now - Toolshero

I have to say I’m quite surprised by the shift in style in the second part of The Savage Detectives. Obviously, I knew from lectures that we hear less from Garcia Madero, but I certainly did not expect a major shift in the approach that Roberto Bolaño writes. In general, I have mixed feelings about this novel, but slowly, I’m starting to like it. That is, I quite like the way he wrote the second part more than I expected: various characters are introduced, reading different perspectives of all sorts of events that led up to the end of the first part of the novel. The one thing that struck me the most was the journal entries written by Luis and Luscious Skin: I certainly did not even expect myself to say that about Luscious Skin after reading his narrative in the first part of the novel – like seriously, who knew there was a softer side of Luscious Skin!

learning english Archives - Let's Learn English How I Surprised My Kids For Free - Playtivities

This contrast is striking because it forces me, as the reader, to reassess Luscious Skin. In Part I, his crude and grotesque way of talking about women reduces them to bodies and performances, reinforcing a harsh caricature of toxic masculinity. However, in Part II, his tenderness and timidness towards Luis complicate that image. This reveals vulnerability, desire, and emotional openness that clash with his earlier behaviour and personality, suggesting that his ugliness toward women and the female body may be a defence mechanism rather than his whole identity. Honestly, I find myself searching more entries written by Luscious Skin or Luis – honestly, I can’t even believe I am even saying that – haha !

The Real, Heartbreaking Reason I Shy Away From PDA As A Gay Millennial What Women Really Think About Men's Ability to Discuss Emotional Issues | by Robert Roy Britt | Wise & Well | Medium

Moreover, I was also surprised to learn that a seemingly secondary character, Auxilio, appears in one of the longer journal entries in Chapter 4. Knowing from the in-class discussion with the professor, Auxilio, who locked herself inside the bathroom of the university because the Mexican army occupies the UNAM campus. I would like to believe this is the entry linked to Bolaño’s other book, Amulet. I look forward to more entries from Auxilio in The Savage Detectives and also Amulet.

Discussion Question

How does Luscious Skin’s crude behaviour, highly toxic masculinity and objectification of women function as a performance of masculinity, and what does his tenderness with Luis reveal about the limits or fragility of that performance?

In my point of view, Luscious Skin’s objectifying discourse about women is a deliberate performance of hyper-, or even toxic, masculinity, reinforcing dominance and emotional distancing. His untoward behaviour, however, contrasts sharply with his tenderness toward Luis, which reveals his vulnerability and relational sincerity. The sharp juxtaposition exposes masculinity among young Mexican men in The Savage Detectives as constructed and contingent, shaped by societal expectations rather than inherent identity. I believe that Bolaño critiques the cultural behaviour of machismo by showing how aggressive heteronormavity can coexist with, and even conceal, non-normative desires and emotional openness, dismantling fixed perceptions of gender and sexuality.

His desire for Luis foregrounds an interesting form of male-to-male attraction marked by flirtation, yearning and erotic tension rather than overt bravado. Unlike his crude sexualized speeches about women and the female bodies, his interactions with Luis are shaped by attentiveness and restraint, suggesting a more exposed and softer kind of desire. That is, lust here is not purely physical but emotional and relational, unfolding through stolen glances, proximity, and vague suggestive language. Perhaps, Bolaño employs this dynamic to demonstrate how male-to-male desire destabilizes Luscious Skin’s performed masculinity and exposes the fragility of Mexican machismo.

– David C.

Tagged | Comments Off on RMST 495 – Week 4: Second Chances, The Savage Detectives