RMST 495/520: Long Books

And the Interviews continue… How will all of this make sense? Will it ever?

To start off, it’s satisfying that the pages I’ve read finally outweigh what’s left. I must give Bolaño some praise for his writing. It may not make much sense to me, but he clearly knows what he’s doing by deliberately making it as confusing as possible; that takes a lot of effort. With over 250 pages into this part and with more to come, this section continues with the same old fractured stories, giving us descriptive accounts of how these characters first met Bolaño and Lima, what they think of them and what they think of visceral realism. I would like to know why he doesn’t divide these interviews into chapters rather than spread them throughout. I think I would enjoy it more to read one chapter from one person and then move on to the next. At this point, I don’t understand what the point of having chapters is.

It’s interesting to hear more about Arturo and Ulises, though I feel there still isn’t enough context and once again I don’t know whether I need this information. At times, it also sounds repetitive, and like last time it feels unnecessary especially some of the interviews that go on tangents for no obvious reason (at least no obvious reason so far). I must say, I favour Arturo over Ulises. Ulises seems strange, off-putting and quite careless. Both of them seem to be burdens to others, as if friends are helping them out of pity or they are making people’s lives difficult.

What we get from this section is that visceral realism is dead, no one seems to remember it or even know of it at times (or maybe pretends not to). It is barely that we hear good things about visceral realism, Arturo, and Ulises. Alfonso Pérez goes on to say that he doesn’t really see them as poets and that only money mattered to them. Maybe only Garcia Madero truly loved them and thought visceral realism is the greatest thing to ever exist.

We do get some more context about what happened on December 31, 1975. Well, we knew they left, and now we know where: Sonora. When Lima disappears in Managua, though some think he is lost, others think that he is not in fact lost but disappeared on purpose because people are after him which is why he has been on the run since New Year’s Eve in 1975, when he left town with the others. Maria Font says that Ulises and Arturo have been on the run since then. She says they left for Sonora to look for Cesárea Tinajero (as some people said in their interviews) but if I recall correctly, that was not the reason. Someone else says they fled because of their way of playing politics saying the way they politically influenced reality caused this and got them in trouble. Questionable.

I just really hope the ending leaves me stunned. After putting us through this section (there is more left, which I am not looking forward to reading), I will be quite disappointed if this all doesn’t make sense at some point. I’ve been trying to be more optimistic about outcomes, focusing on the positives instead of the negatives so this is perhaps a test.

Hi Guys!

I enjoyed reading Amulet. Right off the bat what stood out to me was:

 “I came to Mexico City in 1967, or maybe it was 1965, or 1962. I’ve got no memory for dates anymore, or exactly where my wanderings took me; all I know is that I came to Mexico and never went back. Hold on, let me try to remember. Let me stretch time out like a plastic surgeon stretching the skin of a patient under anesthesia. Let me see.” 

This reminded me of myself because I have an absolutely terrible memory and I often forget things very fast. For the book itself, I found that it was very easy to read and the language was simple. Compared to the Savage Detectives where I might not understand a lot of it, Amulet felt like even my elementary self could read it. 

The one trait that stood out to me about Auxilio was that very observant and paid close attention to her surroundings. For example, she states,

 “and those clouds covered everything with dust, the books I had read and those I was planning to read, covered them irrevocably, there was nothing to be done: however heroic my efforts with broom and rag, the dust was never going to go away, since it was an integral part of the books, their way of living or of mimicking something like life p. 5.” This part shows how even something small like dust in her eyes is an integral part of books and it shows how deeply she observes the smallest things.

Another example of this is: “Sometimes Don Pedro would catch me looking at his vase or the spines of his books and he’d ask. What are you looking at, Auxilio, and I’d say. Huh? What? and I’d pretend to be dopey or miles away, but sometimes I’d come back with a question that might have seemed out of place, but was relevant, actually, if you thought about it. I’d say to him, Don Pedro, How long have you had this vase? P.6”

Most people would ignore how Don Pedro looks at books or the meaning behind his gaze at the vases. No one would really think that deeply of a vase. Whereas Auxilio wasn’t just noticing things like the vase but she was rather observing every little thing and how frequently Don Pedro would look at the vase and try to think of the hidden reason behind why he does. 

Discussion Question: How does Auxilio’s observant nature help us understand her personality?

Hello everybody!!

I have to say this has been one of my favourite readings of the semester. I like the character’s personality and how she describes everything that it is going on around her ( even the incident at the school). In a way , i find her to be a savage detective for her wit , intelligence and bravery.

She is a really strong female character and these are my reasons behind this idea. She is like an embodiment of memory , passion for literature and courage. She is showing us that memory is a way to pass information to others and that the fight against inequality could be tackled by a common sentiment that in this case students and writers could share.

Literature guides her routines, attitudes and habits as she mentions that when the attacked occured , she was reading in the washroom. She mentions old generation actors as Pedro Armendariz and Maria Felix , who i was not expecting them to see here , but that reminded me of the legacy of actors that that country has.

Even from the first page , we see that she understands there could be some type of discrimination or biases that people might have about her as she mentions ” This is going to be a horror story ….Told by me , it wont seem like that”. She is avoiding to be stereotyped by showing that a woman like her can be smart and resourceful. She is just like the female characters from the movies that she mentioned. Even at desperate times , she confesses to us that she never lost her sense of humour , and she is the first one to make fun of her because in the end she keeps observing , remembering or scanning whats happening around her.

One of my favourite scenes happens in page 39. This is another example of her refusal to be stereotyped. She shows herself to be a frank woman when she talks to Mrs. Belano and points out that even though she is not a mother like her or doesnt spend time with people of her age , she already had hundres of children. She defines motherhood to me in a way that represents protection , witnessing and nurturing of others.

In conclusion ,the amulet that we take from the novel is her. Her charisma , resiliance and inmense source of memory. As she is in this poet world , she knows how to move around it because she knows its like moving between life and death.

Hi everyone, likewise to what I have read from everyone else’s posts so far on Amulet by Roberto Bolańo, it is kind of hard for me to pinpoint how I feel about the book. I don’t think I loved the book, but it did leave me a lot to think about. One of the main takeaways for me from Amulet was the construct of time. Bolańo’s construction and deconstruction of time is also very prevalent in The Savage Detectives, but I will come back to more of my thoughts on time later on.

First, I want to touch on Auxilio as a character and why I think she is very powerful agent in her own story, as well as in other people’s lives as well. She notes that she lives somewhat of a nomad lifestyle where she never really stays in one place for too long, I don’t think it can be denied that she makes lasting connections with the people she meets and generally has a positive impact on them. Moreover, I appreciate her personality because I think there is an unapologetic attitude to her that I find admirable. For example, her friendship with Elena highlighted her undeniable ability to make friends anywhere. She mentioned how Elena would always talk about how philosophy and theatre were closely related. Even though they don’t seem to have very similar interests or personalities, Auxilio finds a common ground with her, and when she goes missing for awhile, she makes it her mission to find where Elena went, and goes as far to get her home address from the faculty. Maybe one could argue she was so concerned for selfish reasons, for companionship or looking for someone to stay with, but there is no explicit mention of her staying with Elena and based on my reading, Auxilio puts a lot of her soul into her relationships which is why she always shows a level of care. On page 43, Auxilio states she never lost her humour, which is another part of her personality that shines throughout the book. From her viewpoint, even the bleakest moments can have some humour, like when she jokes about UNAM with Arturo’s mother. It is aspirational to be resilient to the point where you can allow positivity to infect even the most tragic or upsetting realities.

Back to my thoughts on time in this book, the way Auxilio frames time, claiming she sees events that happen in the future far decades ago. On page 31, she states “The birth was over” when she is recalling what happened when she stayed in the bathroom stalls when the soldiers left. This really stuck out to me for a couple of reasons. First, we obviously know this is not her actual birth, because she is an adult woman. But similarly to García Madero with being introduced to visceral realism/realists, this was a definitive moment that felt like birth. We don’t remember being born because we are newborn babies, but with monumental moments like what happened in UNAM, our memories, cognition and perspective are able to actually comprehend what birth means, and then we prescribe our birth to something else besides the actual act of being born. My personal opinion, Auxilio’s birth is much more significant than García Madero’s if we had to judge from an objective standpoint, but I get that the value assigned to these life changing events is personal, I’m just being a bit of a hater.

Overall, I really enjoyed the element of time in this book, as well as the balancing of bleakness and random tidbits of her bohemian life.

The first two lines of Amulet that I read were the first, as I opened the book, and the last, as I flipped to see how many pages I should pace myself for each day this week: “This is going to be a horror story” (p. 1) and “And that song is our amulet” (p. 184). Very intriguing! I don’t feel like they are connected, but I look forward to finding out.

As I read, I recognized lines, passages and ideas from Part II of the Savage Detectives – like when Auxilio berates herself for forgetting her paper supply in the bathroom, or Arturo Belano returning from Chile after the coup. It really does read like an extra chapter, and, since Auxilio’s voice and story were the most appealing to me from Part II, I was excited to learn more.

What initially captured my attention was the writing style, which kept me reading through events and narratives that for the most part I did not find inspiring. I love the descriptions and use of language: “Let me stretch time out like a plastic surgeon stretching the skin of a patient under anaesthesia” (p. 2), the possibilities of a Pandora’s Box-like vase, how the younger generation of poets make her shudder, “as if they weren’t creatures of flesh and blood but a generation spring from the open wound of Tlatelolco” (p. 77), “Then the moon changed tiles” (p. 168). I love the little details all throughout the text, like a silver frog or Mexican feline lineage, which, though we might consider these as what makes a long story long, I find fit in here much more easily than little details would in the Savage Detectives. I cannot quite put my finger on why: perhaps the narrator.

Two themes I found interesting are temporality and companions. I enjoyed the use of temporality in the novel, the 13 days being measured from moonlight on tile – two images found on the cover of my edition. The moon is mentioned so often throughout the book that it evokes the idea of a companion during Auxilio’s isolation. Reading is another companion for Auxilio, “I knew that I had to resist,” (p. 32) she explains, turning to her book of poetry as the companion to resistance. For a question relating to a major theme in class, how can reading be a form of resistance? What is the difference between resistance as an author versus as a reader?

For these reasons I did enjoy reading Amulet, but honestly, I don’t feel like I got that much out of it. Maybe I would have found it more impactful without having read the Savage Detectives, but I found it to be about characters that I did not really care too much about, and too flighty/loose/airy (I really cannot find the right adjective!) to ground me in the solid reality of the horror of being trapped in Auxilio’s situation.

As for the opening and concluding sentences, I suppose being isolated in fear in a washroom for days on end is a horror story. I find in the children singing a protective song in the end evokes the ideas of what the university students were pushing for: reform and resistance.

Thank you for reading!

I find myself struggling to know what to write about this week’s reading. This was one of those books that I’ll finish and probably not really think about again (besides our incoming class discussion). I neither loved nor hated it. I don’t really feel any particular way about Amulet, I just read it and now it’s over. I did like the prose, and I enjoyed the slightly more bouncy(?) writing/narration style to what we see in The Savage Detectives. By bouncy, I mean like:

Where maybe your most straightforward non-nonsense author (maybe an author really into historical accuracy) might tell the story like the black line, our narrator’s voice is the pink, where everything is a “yes, but…” or a “maybe, while also…”

I found love to be a strong theme throughout the chapters, a love of poetry, of Mexico, of young poets, of language and words and slang, of her friends, and of storytelling.

I also thought a lot about Poulet’s writing on the phenomenology of reading as I was reading. The narrator talks about how much she loves the poets León Felipe and Pedro Garfías, and while she says she worked with them in Mexico before they died, it’s unclear how much of her “knowing” poets is from meeting them versus reading their poetry. It’s Garfías’ poems she’s reading in the bathroom when UNAM was seized, and she then spirals into her stories about various poets she knew. In reading Garfías’ words in this scene, it’s like a part of him (as author) was with her (as reader) in the bathroom stall; her act of reading inspiring the literature to become “a sort of human being,” and linking “a common consciousness with the reader” (Poulet 59).

One idea I underlined to share this week was her mediation on movement towards the east: “To where night comes from. But then I thought: It’s also where the sun comes from” (Bolaño 54). I have never thought about the night coming from the east, because I guess I’ve always been so fixated on the sun setting in the west.

Then, I’d love to hear people’s thoughts about who the narration is for. When the narrator says “you” (like “I still have to tell you about her”) (41), is she speaking to a generally undefined audience, as in everyone who reads the book, or is she addressing it to something/one more defined (like the young poets she loves and mentors)?