RMST 495/520: Long Books

Hi everybody!!!
The end of SD did not really compel me or excite me. The novel was not for me and I often felt that it could have been shorter ( but i mean , its length exists for a reason). I remember there was a diary entry about buying toothbrushes and Lupe taking too long in the washroom ( 601) and i was like…. i need to finish this book ASAP.
I do command Bolano for the middle part which requires a lot of engagement but I think the ending is anti-climatic and even Garcia Madero confesses that finding Cesarea wasn’t hard ( 639) and then she dies three pages later. In my humble opinion , this novel is designed for people who like to submerge in fiction even if the plot is not interesting or not. In other words , i call it is just reading for reading. I forgot what was the term one of my classmates used during my presentation to describe the novel but I totally agree with it now.
I would have preferred to have Garcia Madero during the whole novel ( and less narrators) and watch his growth. I actually enjoyed THE FIRST PART ( despite GM being too much).Although , his ending was not that bad, as he becomes one of the last visceral realist according to Lupe (644) and this is the part that I found interesting about this book. He is introduced into this world of literature and follows Belano and Lima, explores his sexuality with many girls , shows to be very witty and perceptive and he looks for meaning in his life. He represents the movement through personal dedication, his sense of curiosity and his desire for adventure. His character was entertaining at times ( other times not ) but i am happy that he was able to find himself and/ or to have the chance to go into the desert with the others. People come and go during the story and they also die and there are no consequences or lessons after that. Even if that’s the future for Madero , he found joy in his exploring (not by literary acclaim or rewards). Being a VR might lead you to an ambiguous ending or failure but it is your persistence that leads you to success.

discussion question:

I am curious to know , what means for you the concept of visceral realist? What do you think will be the future for Garcia Madero and Lupe?

Well we’ve finally done it folks, we’ve reached the end of The Savage Detectives! I’ve only had a few days to really digest it all, so as you read through my final blog post on The Savage Detectives, keep in mind these are just my first impressions on Part III – The Sonora Desert. Also, if you haven’t read my first blog post on Part I, I’m a lot more sympathetic(?) toward Garcia Madero relative to other people’s feelings about him (maybe not sympathetic but definitely less harsh on him than others as I tend to enjoy reading more “flawed” characters, so Garcia Madero’s naivety and faults don’t bother me so much, but you can read more about my feelings in that other blog post). Okay, enough preamble.

Now I don’t recall the exact discussion we had in class many weeks ago, but the general gist was on Garcia Madero and whether he would experience some kind of change in Part III and the professor said something along the lines of “spoiler alert: you’ll be disappointed if you do expect anything of the like.” I definitely didn’t think we would see any change in Garcia Madero for a couple reasons, first off Part III immediately follows Part I so it’s not like a long period of time has passed (with time, people have more opportunities to change, obviously) and also Part III is only like 60 pages (with more pages, people in books have more opportunities to change, maybe not so obviously). To no surprise (for me at least), we return to classic Garcia Madero basically quizzing Belano, Lima, and Lupe on several obscure poetic devices and forms as he sees it as a fun and entertaining way to pass time along their car ride. Now I can see how most people would find this insufferable but in my client’s defence, nobody actually tells him to shut up and they’re at least partially engaged by responding to him over and over, AND Belano says “Keep going” and “we’ll get one” so there ya go, case dismissed (595) (plus both Belano and Lima ask for more questions on page 600)! Anyways, I found it especially funny when Lupe turned the table by quizzing the others on different slang to which Garcia Madero is completely out of his depth. One of the more noteworthy slang was “entrado en la rifa” (which translates to “entered the raffle” according to Google Translate), meaning “you’ve already gotten involved in the problem, you’re mixed up in it whether you want to be or not” (599). Belano asks if they have entrado en la rifa which Lupe affirms, but if I recall correctly Belano and Lima volunteered to take Lupe, it was only really Garcia Madero who got “mixed up”? though maybe it’s referring to Lupe being “mixed up” in the search for Cesarea Tinajero? Something I find hard to believe that she has much interest in, but that’s a good segue to move on.

Ah the wild goose chase for Cesarea Tinajero, as soon as we got to this portion of Part III I immediately thought of how similar it was to Part I of 2666 where “the critics” search for the illusive author Archimboldi in, you guessed it, Santa Teresa. Now, very, very slight spoilers for Part I of 2666: they never ended up finding Archimboldi which made me believe our group’s search in The Savage Detectives would also come to the same conclusion. So, it was kind of surprising when they eventually did find Cesarea Tinajero. But… only kind of. It’s a bit ironic (? there’s certainly a better word to describe it, comical? lackluster?) because when they do find her, she doesn’t appear as some mythical legend, she just appears as a physically immense washerwoman: “there was nothing poetic about her. She looked like a rock or an elephant. Her rear end was enormous…” (639). Also, after finding her, we barely get to hear from her! Her conversations with Belano and Lima are unheard as Garcia Madero awoke in another room, and of course the only perspective we’re seeing is from Garcia Madero’s journal. He enters the room and they allegedly sit there for a long time, but nothing really happens… The only words she spoke to Garcia Madero, which he notes, was to not get out of the car in the confrontation with Alberto and the policeman. As the last cherry on top in a kind of twisted fashion (maybe there should be some expression related to a cherry stem tied in a knot), Cesarea Tinajero straight up just dies, which really comes as an indirect result of Belano and Lima who sought out to find her fully knowing that they were being hunted by Alberto. They themselves admit that “we’d f*cked up, that we’d found Cesarea only to bring her death” (643). And that’s that, Lupe and Garcia Madero split off from Belano and Lima who deal with the dead bodies and go on their escapades in Part II. Lupe and Garcia Madero return to Villaviciosa and even take over Cesarea Tinajero’s house for a few days before leaving to, I assume, the cities listed from February 10th to February 12th. However, we (and this blog post) are not quite done yet though… we get to the final page with the previously-observed dashed line rectangle and are asked the question “What’s outside the window?”

Now here’s where things might get a bit rambly but I’ll try to make my thoughts as coherent as possible. Similar to Garcia Madero’s little picture puzzles from pages 609-613, we’re first presented with a rectangle with a little point on the left side, allegedly a star outside the window. Then just a rectangle, allegedly a sheet. So what’s outside the window in the final dashed line rectangle? To me, I feel like the window kind of represent us, the reader, peering into Bolano’s story of The Savage Detectives. The more and more I thought about it, the more I was reminded of the series of accounts in Part II that end in “everything that begins as… ends as…” Just as we each read The Savage Detectives differently (as seen from our many blog posts), we can each imagine something different outside the window, and perhaps that’s the beauty in it. The Savage Detectives and Bolano’s other works aren’t like other typical books where the plot comes to a neat and tidy end, I feel like it’s less about the destination and more about the journey. I mean, just take a look at the structure of the book, Part II taking up like 70% of the book is all “journey” leaving the climax of the “destination” with Cesarea Tinajero just a few pages long. I don’t know really, I’m rereading my thoughts over as I’m writing this and it doesn’t even make much sense to me so I don’t know how in the world it’ll make sense for you guys. Remember these are just my first jumbled thoughts. Instead of clarifying my thoughts though, I’m actually gonna double down and make things maybe even more confusing. Recently, I was on YouTube just watching some videos about who Bolano was and came across a short titled “Roberto Bolano: The Novel That Only Stands on Its Plot is Already Dead” Curious, I looked up the full interview and found the below video (the interview took place in 1999, The Savage Detectives was released in 1998):

Now it’s supposed to have English subtitles as the title suggests, but it cuts out like 20 minutes in so I had to rely on auto-translated English subtitles based on the auto-generated Spanish subtitles (we’re really going to get lost in translation here). The relevant section takes place between 33:20 – 37:06. I would be delighted if anyone fluent in Spanish could give me a better translation and what you understood from Bolano but what I understood is that he’s critiquing traditional linear storytelling structures relying on their plot while acknowledging that it will continue for years to come. However, he proposes that that form is exhausted and the future of the novel doesn’t repeat the previous authors of the world and take the easy way out. Hm, even if I were fluent in Spanish, I think I’d have a hard time comprehending Bolano. My understanding (and do tell me if you believe I got it completely wrong) is that through The Savage Detectives, through the polyphonic narration, through the countless short stories within the larger narrative, Bolano is writing what he thinks the future of the novel should be, whatever that is exactly, I’m still not 100% sure. Regardless, even when we may see things differently, we’re looking, we’re looking at Bolano’s work, we’re looking at his vision of the future of the novel, and that is what’s outside the window!

Okay, well, moving on, maybe that whole last part I was talking about was baloney. Let me just quickly go over some more miscellaneous thoughts I had reading Part III of The Savage Detectives. To start, another potential reference 2666‘s title was made here (the first one being in Amulet actually):

“But Cesarea spoke of times to come and the teacher, to change the subject, asked her what times she meant and when they would be. And Cesarea named a date, sometime around the year 2600. Two thousand six hundred and something. And then, when the teacher couldn’t help but laugh at such a random date, a smothered little laugh that could scarcely be heard, Cesarea laughed again, although this time the thunder of her laughter remained within the confines of her own room.” (634)

It would be funny if 2666 made a reference to the title The Savage Detectives, but I doubt it’ll happen. Also, please check out my postscript in my previous blog post on 2666 if you’re interested in some potential references to The Savage Detectives (Lupe mentioned? Belano or Lima’s potential child??). Anyhow, I found the amount of times Garcia Madero referred to Lupe, Belano, and Lima as his “friends” kind of funny, strange, and oddly endearing, I mean yeah, I would say they’re friends, but something about it stuck out to me. Finally, I know I mentioned earlier how Garcia Madero doesn’t really change, but in the end, even he laughs at the idea of visceral realism: “Lupe told me that we’re the last visceral realists left in Mexico. I was lying on the floor, smoking, and I looked at her. Give me a break, I said.” (644). To be completely honest, if the book ended right there and then, I wouldn’t be upset, and I would have found it very funny in fact (still is funny but even moreso). So, for my discussion question, I’d like to ask: “Where do you think The Savage Detectives should have ended? How do you feel about Bolano’s ending?” A bit generic of a question, but it is what it is, I’m sure we’ll all be discussing it on Thursday with the question of the window in mind. If you haven’t already guessed, I liked it, and I enjoyed reading The Savage Detectives. I hope that sentiment came through in my blog post, but I just wanted to conclude by simply stating it to be clear. I sense that I’ll be in the minority here, to each their own.

P.S. I believe this has been my longest blog post for The Savage Detectives, but not my longest blog post (that would be the one for 2666‘s The Part About Amalfitano). Although, I would say this felt like the longest to write, I got caught up writing it while studying with friends even though in my mind I had dedicated a lot less time to write it, but hey, I want to get all of my thoughts out. So yeah, the fun fact is that this has been the only blog post I’ve written outside the comfort of my own room (I wonder if you could tell or if it sounds any different, probably not though).

Well, we did it.

The last few pages of part three of The Savage Detectives reminded me of one of those heist movies where everything goes wrong, and it’s stressful to watch, and maybe the characters involved aren’t even entirely likeable or competent, but you still end up feeling kind of bad for most of them when you realize that their lives have been messed up beyond repair. Part three also made me feel a little like a hostage in one of those movies—like I was stuck in the back of the Impala with my hands tied and a handkerchief in my mouth, and Juan García Madero was rambling directly into my ear for hours straight. Was that how the others felt? Did they regret taking García Madero with them? I’m imagining Belano and Lima joking about leaving him at the side of the road. But maybe I’m projecting too enthusiastically here.

Although I did think that the circumstances of Cesárea Tinajero’s death were tragic, I have to say, the absurdity of the situation in its entirety was darkly amusing to me. A character named Aurelio Baca said back in part two that everything that begins as comedy ends as tragicomedy (513), and in this case, I’m tempted to agree. The Savage Detectives: A Tragicomedy of Errors. But then, does a descriptor like “tragicomedy” relate to the success or failure of the road trip? Can the trip itself be considered either a success or a failure? Cesárea Tinajero was found. Cesárea Tinajero was killed. Lupe’s pursuers were killed. We don’t know what Cesárea talked about with Belano and Lima. We do know that García Madero got to read her notebooks. Is that why he started drawing shapes again? And if he was taking inspiration from Cesárea in the end, should we view that as a positive outcome?

I know I’ve already asked a lot of questions here, but for my official question(s) of the week: Do you feel like the end of the book (in 1976) justified the rest of it? For those who were bored or annoyed during the first two sections, did you find the end satisfying, or did it only add to the previous negative feelings?

I felt fairly neutral about the ending, and about The Savage Detectives as a whole. I didn’t exactly have fun, but I wondered whether Bolaño did. Maybe one day I’ll read the Spanish version.

Hi everyone! I cannot believe we have all finished The Savage Detectives, it felt like this day would never come. I want to first reflect on the action of not only reading a long book, but reading it alongside peers that are having the same experience; this is something I have never done before personally. I think it is a very valuable experience because it really demonstrated how different each of our experiences and thoughts on the book were, yet at the same time we all shared a common ground of having read the book.

I will also say, I am happy that it returned to García Madero’s diary entries for the last part that we read. When the book first switched from the journal entries to the interviews, I was not happy. I found it harder to engage with the story and to bring myself to care about all these new characters and their escapades across the world. However, reading the last part of the book, it did not really bring back the structured style of story that I was craving, which I kind of came to terms with? In general I like satisfying endings, ones that make sense and we are left with a better understanding of the story, or something else. Having finished the book, I have a better understanding of all this ambiguity and uncertainty. We don’t know what will happen to García Madero, but considering all the adventures and the people around him, it would not make sense to just know. The lives of Arturo, Belano and everyone else are messy and complex. They cannot be tied in a bow to make a perfect ending, instead it can present itself authentically to us as readers, and we can task ourselves with the duty of wondering what it all means.

That’s not to say that there are no constants in the book. We can see that the pursuit of a poetic revolution remained extremely pertinent to Arturo, Belano and García Madero the whole time. It was also quite amusing when García Madero began spewing all his poetry knowledge to Arturo and Belano, which also showcased the constant feeling of belonging and how important it was in the book. Lupe’s being chased by her pimp and being in danger was another relevant constant in the book. It shows the uglier realities of being wrapped up in this kind of world, ones that may be covered with different artistic pursuits or adventures all over the place, but are essentially impossible to outrun. The book ended, but it left a lot of parts and people’s stories unanswered, will I be able to sleep at night? Yes I will, but I am excited to discuss with everyone because I think everyone will have a different interpretation of what the point of all of this really was.

It is over. I feel strange. An end that marks the end of the book but not the end of the story for me.

I think halfway through the novel I decided that I didn’t enjoy reading it but even then I was still hopeful for a change. I was waiting for the moment when it would all make sense. In some sense it did. However, I’m having a hard time putting it into words. If I want to put it in the simplest form possible, it made sense by not making any sense. In fact, I think “meaning” got lost in this novel.

Just like Belano, Lima, García Madero, and Lupe searching for Cesárea Tinajero and her poetry, believing that finding her would answer all their questions, only for her to die once they finally found her, I found myself in a similar situation when I finished the book. I waited through all these pages to get to part III and when I finally did and reached the end, I was left with my questions unanswered. Maybe that was intentional or perhaps I need to reread the book (which I won’t do) to find the deeper meaning behind all of this if there is one. But there must be! Otherwise, how could so many people praise it? or why was it chosen for this class? Instead of answering my questions, it has left me with more.

García Madero’s show-off of his “knowledge” was utterly off-putting. He wanted validation, recognition, or to try to fit in, to impress, while Arturo and Belano were mostly clueless about what he was saying, and didn’t seem to care much. He was the same García Madero from part I, the same views, the same comments. As we got closer to the end, specifically on January 31^st, when they found Cesárea Tinajero, I couldn’t wait to read an actual poem of hers, to finally read a poem by a visceral realist (not counting her other poem), but that moment never came because Belaño simply didn’t give us any. In my view, García Madero seems as disappointed in visceral realism as I am. Once upon a time he was flattered that he was invited to join the visceral realists, and after just four months, everything seems to have changed. A pattern I’ve noticed from the start of part II is that wherever Arturo and Ulises have gone, they seem to have ruined something, not necessarily on purpose, but still. As the last example of this, they went on their mission in search of Cesárea, and they ended up in a way being the reason she died.

The end of Cesárea Tinajero, the end of visceral realism, and the end of the novel all at once.

Also, I understand why Bolaño chose to call the novel The Savage Detectives.

Despite everything negative I have said about this book, it was challenging (which is good) and got me thinking a lot about what holds “meaning” and what doesn’t, and about what is “important” and what isn’t.

I remember commenting on someone’s blog about gifting books and how enjoyable/satisfactory it is to receive and gift books. However, I would not gift The Savage Detectives to anyone. If someone asks and is eager to read it, I will give them my copy but with a warning. With all that said, I don’t regret reading it. I feel content that I have read this novel, but I’m certainly relieved that it is over.

Writing about The Savage Detectives is like trying to walk on a moonless night through a forest, or desert, that I don’t know, believing I’m moving forward, yet without even realising whether I’m actually moving my feet or simply standing still in the same spot while imagining my steps. This is how I’ve felt reading this Bolaño’s work, and not because it’s a long novel or because the number of pages has made me give up on reading it. No! It’s simply because I haven’t been able to find an affinity, a connection with the stories or the lives of Belano, Ulises Lima or Juan García Madero—the latter of whom sometimes strikes me as a younger version of Belano… Bolaño? Furthermore, I find the lists overwhelming—lists where names are mentioned simply for the sake of mentioning them, and not even for the pleasure of naming, but for the sake of showing off? of wanting to include. When it comes to catalogues, I prefer those of Degenerate Art y para listas, I’d rather turn to Umberto Eco’s The Infinity of Lists (El Vértigo de las Listas)

En todo caso, and to return to The Savage Detectives and The Deserts of Sonora (1976), this final section has been the continuation of a story of doubts, of situations that are narrated as if there were a ‘before’ to them—a ‘before’ of which, as a reader, I am unaware—as is the case with the search for Césareea Tinajero, when I thought it was about getting Lupe to safety from Alberto. And although chronologically this third chapter is the continuation of the first part, at times it seems to me that this is the continuation of a chapter not included in this novel, one persecution that is more the search for a faceless woman. For this reason, and perhaps because of the misogynistic* references and descriptions, reading this novel has been like wandering through a labyrinth with no way out: streets, towns—it makes no difference whether they are in Mexico City, Chile, Sonora, Barcelona… Because in this reading of The Savage Detectives (and I don’t know if I’ll ever read this novel again), the names of streets, cities, writers, as well as book titles, were nothing more than a distraction, elements that, in MY reading, added nothing.

As a reader—sometimes of informative, theoretical or critical texts—I know that reading cultural texts, as Anne-Marie Chartier and Jean Hébrard call them, that is to say, literature and everything that falls within or borders on this category, is an activity “en la[s] que se ponen en juego los gustos, valores e intereses personales de cada uno, – y donde – el abanico de posiciones personales es mucho más amplio” (22) (in which each person’s personal tastes, values and interests come into play, – and where – the range of personal positions is much broader)  and interpretations will be shaped by subjective elements that mediate, qualify, nourish or distort the act of reading.  These two reading theorists also assert, about new narratives and literary forms, that: “estos nuevos textos forman nuevos lectores, crean “nuevos horizontes de expectativas” (Jauss,1970), tanto que los textos rechazados muy pronto serán imitados y se convertirán a su vez en referencias del nuevo clasicismo” (21)  – these new texts shape new readers, creating ‘new horizons of expectation’ (Jauss, 1970), to such an extent that texts initially rejected will soon be imitated and will in turn become references of the new classicism” -, of a new canon (un tema para otro día). I do not know if this is the case with Los Detectives Salvajes, but as a reader from outside the field of literature, my reading of literature has largely stemmed from a lack of familiarity with this field, into which Belano and his group now enter?…

—–

*“[…] ¿pero de qué podía hablar un literato con una cartera? […] para consolarme me decía que peor hubiera sido que fuera carnicera. Yo hubiera preferido, más que nada por seguir la moda, que fuera policía” (513-14).

“[…] but what did a man of letters and a mailwoman have to say to each other? […] I’d console myself that it would be worse if she were a butcher. I would have been happier if she were a policewoman, mostly because it would’ve been more fashionable.” (459-60)

From page 525-535, which is almost ten full pages, the entire section is just a car ride out of Mexico City. What made it feel even longer was that nothing actually happens in terms of action or plot. Instead, it is mainly Garcia Madero asking question after question about literary devices, poetry, and writing techniques. At first, it shows his intelligence I guess at knowing all these complex sounding things. However, after a while it just gets repetitive and exhausting. I can almost feel myself in the car getting impatient with him. It almost feels like a conversation going in circles, with no progress, no end, no change in the topic. Just Garcia Madero going on and on and eating everyone’s head. 

It reminded me of the conversation we had in class about long books and why long books are long. We talked about how authors include these kinds of detailed, slower moments to help us understand characters more deeply. In this case, it really shows Garcia Madero’s personality. It shows along with being smart, he is also kind of overwhelming and annoying at times. The way he keeps asking questions without stopping shows how intense he can be. It is crazy because he goes to sleep and wakes up and decides to be annoying again. In our class discussion we also talked about how some scenes are meant to slow down the book, and this part does that for sure. The pacing drops a lot because the book gets so slow that it forces the reader to stay focused. 

Even after that part, it still kind of felt boring because there was not much action. They get out of the car to eat, buy things like toothbrushes and hygiene care, and at one point they get pulled over by a cop but even that was not interesting and none of these moments change anything in a drastic way. For the most part, they are just going city to city, continuing their search for the poet. However, I still think this connects to what we discussed in class about why long books are long. These slower, repetitive moments are used to build character and a sense of realism. Even though it felt boring, that might be the point of this section. It puts you in the same mindset as the characters just moving from place to place just anticipating something happening. 

 Discussion Question: Do you think these slow moments are meaningful?

I have to say that this is probably the strangest book I have ever read. Bolaño’s style of writing in general (based on the other short stories we read of his) is definitely unique. I can’t say I have ever read anything quite like it, and especially not in a long book.

I have to admit that I enjoyed it, however I didn’t feel this way throughout the whole book. I went from disliking it to liking it (or maybe appreciating it is a better word) over the span of reading it this semester. It definitely brought up a lot of feelings (of frustration) and questions for me, most of which being, what the fuck is the point of any of this?? And yet at a certain point I felt like I was able to let go of that question and just enjoy the ride, and this was probably around the time that I realized that Bolaño was most likely not going to answer the questions we, as readers, would have. I found the experience quite humourous and I often wondered what Bolaño himself was thinking when he imagined people reading his book. What was his intention of writing this? 

That being said, I’m not sure if I would read another one of Bolaño’s long books. I enjoyed the experience while it lasted but I didn’t come away from it wanting to read more Bolaño. If he didn’t always write with that style, I would definitely consider it, but based on what we’ve looked at so far, it seems that he always writes like this. My favourite books are historical fictions – I really love learning through the books that I read so when it’s told in a fictional way, it adds this interesting element of getting hooked into a story. I get the sense that Bolaño also tries to write about history, politics or things that he’s reflecting on in the world. For that reason, I really appreciate him, however the way he writes about it can just be confusing sometimes. 

I always appreciate new experiences and Bolaño certainly brought that to my reading journey this semester! 

In terms of what happened in Part 3, I have to admit I’m glad that García Madero didn’t die (since I was beginning to think that maybe he had). As I entertained other ideas of why García Madero wasn’t mentioned in Part 2, I had also wondered if maybe he had ran off with Lupe (which it sounds like he did, to some degree). It makes sense as to why no one talked about him because he was really only a part of the visceral realists for a few months before he left CDMX. I imagine the other members were part of it for much longer, which is why they were mentioned and García Madero wasn’t. Perhaps he was also seen as the annoying teenager that tried to make himself into a bigger role than he had. 

Overall, it was an interesting experience and definitely a story that I won’t forget!