RMST 495/520: Long Books

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!

I’m done. I’m actually done. Omg. I don’t think I felt this amount of relief after finishing in a long while. Almost 800 pages. 500 of which, if I’m completely honest, I kinda blacked out for. I think I’d be so much more down to read only the first and third part, even if Garcia Madero is the most annoying, sexist, pretentious narrator to ever be created. I think Bolaño can be proud about the fact that I hated his guts (Madero’s, not Bolaño, Bolaño himself doesn’t make me feel anything). The start of the third part made me roll my eyes so much, like, Garcia Madero can’t be more of a narcissist asshole than the way he treats Lupe with his “superior knowledge”. I am glad she, somehow, made her point when her own questioning started and she showed that his knowledge is not the only kind of knowledge there is.

Lupe is the only character I had any interest in in the whole book. Not Belano, not Lima, not “please shut your mouth” Garcia Madero, not Cesarea Tinajero. To be honest I couldn’t care less about Tinajero. Her story seems well constructed: a anticlimactic death for an anticlimactic character. Lupe, however, even through Madero’s point of view, its compelling, its the most normal person in this absurdity. I don’t have much else to say about her but that I cared for her a little, which is a lot in the context of the book.

I think Bolaño thinks he’s funny. And he is. I think The Savage Detectives is a dark joke on the reader. I read somewhere that this book is a parody of the detective genre, and read through that lense it makes so much more sense. I do see Bolaño making fun of detective novels with this one, commenting on the whole genre as a bunch of nothingness.

I am happy its over. I am glad I don’t have another 800 pages of Garcia Madero monologue to read. I am not proud I read it. I will probably donate my copy somewhere, though my annotations in the margins might make it a little bit embarrassing (not that there is many though), specially the ones from the first read through. I just don’t want to have this book on my bookshelf to remind me that I, in fact, had to grind through it like some kind of Iron man race just so I could say that I, for better or for worse, read Los Detectives Salvajes by Roberto Bolaño.

It’s funny (sad) what society, well, some characters in the book associate with “comfort” or being “privileged”. I believe these “hidden desires” reveal something deeper about society especially economic disparities where many things are defined by what you can influence with the money you have, what activities you can engage in and even who you can socialize with in hopes that it will add value to you or change how people perceive you.

I think that the place where Santiago works, La Crónica, functions more like a detective agency than a newspaper, solving murder mysteries at this point. It reminded me of Poirot novels I had read when I was younger. As they talk about their job, this one quote reminded me of The Savage Detectives. Carlitos says “this is where we confessed that we were failures as poets and as communists. Now we are a pair of newspapermen” (p. 355).

Back to Santiago’s family dynamics. It got me thinking of how sometimes distance is good.  In the sense that it makes you appreciate people’s presence and the value they add to your life by just being there. When they are always there, we seem not to notice that much, and we miss that because we think they will always be there. This is what happens to Santiago and his brother: even though they were constantly arguing and fighting, he does everything to get Santiago to come back home. He is begging him, he is excited, he is joyful about the idea that he is coming back to have lunch with them. I keep wondering whether this is where Santiago went wrong, separating from his family and wasting his opportunities. I think that fighting for something that you want to achieve is admirable, but I don’t see him fighting. He pretends to be in the ring but throws punches that are perhaps at himself or an imaginary opponent. Maybe that is a fight on its own, but a fight with himself to ruin his life. I’m not sure though maybe my interpretations will turn out to be wrong by the end.

See now, with this book, it simply doesn’t let the idea of skipping pages even cross your mind, whereas Savage Detectives… I don’t know…

In my last blog, I concluded by saying that Odría was able to save his status, and the coup had failed. But that is inaccurate since Manuel Prado is now president (backed by Odría). If you thought this changed the order, I am sad to disappoint you, but the puppeteers remain the same particularly Don Cayo Bermúdez. Santiago’s dad hilariously enough says that now that Prado is in power, the government is functioning like a mafia and because of this he might as well become a communist. The insability is written all over these characters and it is all about where they can make more money and gain more power. They use loyalty as an excuse, but once it doesn’t serve their interests (doesn’t pay enough), they don’t even know what loyalty means.

This book also makes me want to read Peru’s history in greater detail. I have questions about these characters because they are based on real people so most of them I don’t know but they seem to have more important roles even compared to the president. All they do is deceive one another and the nation. Every single day. Is that fulfilling? I don’t know. One of them claims that the demonstrations show that the new president, Manuel Prado, has a strong support base, and that people would elect him if there were an election. Don Cayo, in response, says that if he gives him the money, he can organize the same demonstrations for him, no problem.

They also hand out government positions like candy. They are planning to appoint Espina, who was behind the coup as Ambassador to Spain and also appoint a senator who helped the coup as the head of the senate, just to secure their deniability and stabilize the government. Wow!

Going back to earlier, I wonder what makes you want to skip pages (not that you do but still)? Or on the other hand, what makes you not skip?

When I read literature, I don’t usually count the pages or check the page numbers; the measure—my measure—of reading a novel or literary work depends more on the pleasure I find in the universe the work constructs, on the connection I form with that world which I can enter, walk through, listen to, see and even smell. And Mariana Enríquez’s Our Share of Night has been a novel I have enjoyed page by page, a world I have been exploring, one I draw close to to feel the words of Juan or Gaspar or Luis or Rosario, a world that does not belong to me, but which I nevertheless enjoy. And in this final chapter, Las flores negras que crecen en el cielo, 1987-1997 (The Black Flowers That Grow in the Sky, 1987–1997), I have journeyed page by page with Gaspar, a boy, a world, where the insane [was]—is—possible, just as in the house in Puerto Reyes. 

At this point in the novel, Gaspar encounters the world his father kept from him—the world of darkness that now claims him and leads him to meet his mother’s family; a family that he doesn’t know, one that exists only in memories of voices,  corridors of a house filled with disfigured faces, which fade away into the fog of a forest with no place; faces, men and women who embody the power—does the darkness perhaps hope to control Gaspar?

Reading the first five chapters of the novel, that I chose for this class, I made my way through the text whilst listening to the voices of four of the characters who make up Our Share of Night, without giving any thought to how the story might end. However, now that I’m nearing the final pages of the book, I am also piecing together an ending in my head; yet I prefer it when the ending doesn’t match the one I have been imagining for myself in advance… Now that I am just a few pages from the end, I noticed that I have skipped a chapter, so I have decided to stop, go back to the previous chapter, El pozo de Zañartú by Olga Gallardo, 1993, and for the moment just stick with the ending I’ve been making up for myself.

Finally, I would like to share with you a concern that has been on my mind while reading this book, during this course, and that is thinking of reading as an action that is taken for granted, which must happen simply because one knows how to read and because books exist to be read; however, reading involves, and has always involved, ways of life and time that initially marked social and gender differences; today, perhaps we no longer think about that, but in any case, I wonder if traces of these differences, still remain.

We’ve finally reached Part IV – The Part About The Crimes, the supposed centerpiece to Bolano’s magnum opus, 2666, where we finally dive into the crimes that have been briefly sprinkled throughout the first three Parts. I’m not sure exactly where to start, I feel like I have a lot to say but I just don’t know how to structure my thoughts, so this blog post may come out (even) more “rambly” than my previous posts. I suppose I should start with a brief summary of what’s happened over this long Part stretching over nearly 300 pages. The good news is that it’s told in a very linear fashion, describing the events month-by-month. The bad news… well, we’ll get into the bad news…

The Part About The Crimes chronicles the many sexual femicides that take place in Santa Teresa each month from 1993 to 1997, from the first page to the very last. Each of these “reports” detailing the deaths read off as very monotonous and objective (maybe there are better words to describe them but what I mean to say is that they simply state things as matter of fact, completely impersonal), they each include the month, the name of the victim if it exists, the condition of the victim’s body, and how they were believed to die. Many were strangled to death (hyoid bone fractures), a lot of them stabbed as well, but above all, a disturbing amount of the victims were raped. And when I say a “disturbing amount,” I mean it, from a quick CTRL+F search on my pdf copy, the word “rape” or “raped” was used 89 times in The Part About The Crimes (of which ~15 were described as “vaginally and anally” or “anally and vaginally”, “strangle”/”strangled” was used ~25 times, “stabbed” was used ~20 times). I didn’t count an exact number, but if I had to guess, around 100 victims were described in this Part (at least it felt like damn near 100). Reading through them did in fact feel disturbing… obviously, right? But if I am to be completely and thoroughly honest with you my dear blog post readers (I’m really not withholding any of my thoughts), after a short while, I would feel less and less disturbed and more and more indifferent, simply reading the details and looking for the similarities/differences between each report. I firmly believe that this was Bolano’s intention. Why do you ask? Well I’m not the only one who feels indifferent to these murders, the people themselves of Santa Teresa appear to also be kind of numb to it all (not everyone though, there are still some people and groups that care)! One of the most spot on examples: “When the forensic report finally arrived (the cause of death probably some kind of stab wound), everyone had forgotten the case, even the media, and the body was tossed without further ado into the public grave.” (520) It reminded me of that one phrase that goes like “the death of one person is a tragedy, the death of a million is a statistic.” This phrase really rang true with me during my reading. The monotony and the sheer amount of the murders that Bolano describes over and over makes me feel like I’m being consumed by the very same apathy of the citizens of Santa Teresa that I would normally be condemning. I can’t help but move on from each murder because as I literally flip the page, another murder is being described (sometimes multiple on the very same page)! Maybe I’m not making myself clear enough and you’re thinking “wow, how can this guy feel so unsympathetic to these terrible deeds?” I don’t know, in that case, I’d recommend reading the book yourself to see (even then, maybe I’m still talking crazy).

Anyhow, amidst all the crimes, interleaved throughout this Part, we also go over several characters in Santa Teresa all connected to the crimes in one way or another. Some of the notable ones are: Inspector Juan de Dios Martinez investigating the murders (and “The Penitent”, weird guy who pees all over church items), Lalo Cura, a young police officer, Harry Magana, a sheriff from Huntsville, Klaus Haas, the very tall murder suspect from the previous Part, Sergio Gonzalez Rodriguez, a reporter from Mexico City, Florita Amada, a seer who appears on TV, Azucena Esquivel Plata, a congresswoman seeking her lost friend, and Albert Kessler, an ex-FBI agent. Now I could go into great depth about all these characters in my summary, but I’ll just do that ad-hoc in my following thoughts. What’s important to note is that by the end of The Part About The Crimes, the murders have still not actually been solved and will most likely continue for years to come, we also still don’t know how many people are committing the murders and if they’re even connected in some way. I also forgot to mention that technically a handful of the listed murders were solved, but the grand majority remain unsolved.

The Part About The Crimes feels very bleak in the sense that we’ll never get some typical mystery novel resolution like in the classic “whodunits” (no shade at Agatha Christie and others). Although, perhaps that’s just a reflection of real life like the real murders in Ciudad Juarez. Bolano definitely alludes to themes of police incompetence and corruption several times:

“Those f*cking judiciales never solve a case…Her name was Isabel Urrea. She was shot to death. No one ever figured out who the killer was. They tried to find him, but they couldn’t. Of course, it didn’t occur to anyone to look at Isabel Urrea’s appointment book…” (462-463)

“The capture of Bustos was relatively easy. He holed up in his house in Colonia Mancera…Bustos hid under his bed…Another cop, a man by the name of Cordero, famous at Precinct #3 for the size of his dick, began to urinate, aiming straight under the bed. Seeing the urine running along the floor toward him, Bustos started to sob. Finally Ortiz Rebolledo got tired of laughing and told him that if he didn’t come out they would kill him right there.” (518-519)

“The semen samples sent to Hermosillo were lost, whether on the way there or the way back it wasn’t clear.” (570)

“the police were unable to find this friend or failed to search for him as diligently as the case warranted.” (574)

“The man committed suicide, said Ortiz Rebolledo. Case closed. Later Lalo Cura would comment to Epifanio that it was strange there hadn’t been a lineup to identify the body. And it was strange, too, that the killer’s companions hadn’t come forward. And that the Smith & Wesson, once it was locked away in the police archives, had disappeared. And strangest of all was that a car thief should commit suicide.” (626)

Even the police chief, Pedro Negrete, has ties to narcos like Pedro Rengifo. In addition, pages 552-553 was a bunch of sexist jokes toward women made by cops, probably not people who’d you want investigating femicides, literally “a mental snapshot of the crooked cops and inspectors” (554). Government officials also try to push the narrative to the public that with Haas in jail, the murders have been solved, whether the reason be corruption or incompetence, nevertheless, they’re misleading the public and pretending like everything’s okay, normalizing the atrocities. It’s a cruel system where those supposed to solve the murders are instead complicit in its continuation. The Part About The Crimes isn’t about finding some mysterious killer, it’s a discomforting reflection about a world built on corruption, incompetence, and misogyny in which it’s impossible for the crimes to ever actually be solved.

For my discussion question this week, since we’re almost done our long books, I want to ask: “Do you think your long book could have been written as a shorter book without giving up anything in return? If not, why must it have been long?” In the case of 2666, I definitely think the buildup to the crimes in the first three Parts and the effect of the sheer amount of the crimes in Part IV justifies its length. Curious to hear your guys’ thoughts for your selected books. By the way though, now that I mention Parts I-III and Part IV, what in the world is going to happen in Part V – The Part About Archimboldi? How is 2666 actually going to end? I’m really not sure, but am looking forward to seeing. To be continued in two weeks!

P.S. The professor mentioned that there was surprisingly a reference to The Savage Detectives in this Part of 2666! But during my reading I thought I actually potentially found two of them, although I could be dead wrong here. The first one was when sheriff Harry Magana found (moreso stole) a notebook belonging to a prostitute. On that notebook there was a phone number attached to a “Lupe”:

“Then he called the number of the woman named Lupe and the conversation was even more chaotic than the one he’d just had with Elsa Fuentes’s mother. What he managed to get straight was that Lupe lived in Hermosillo, she didn’t want to have anything to do with Elsa Fuentes or Santa Teresa, she had indeed known Miguel Monies but she didn’t want to have anything to do with him either (if he was still alive), her life in Santa Teresa had been a mistake from start to finish and she didn’t plan to make the same mistake twice.” (447)

Could this be our Lupe in The Savage Detectives? Anyways, this next one might be more of a stretch, it happens when Lalo Cura is giving his strange family line of Maria Expositos (yes, there’s a chain of like five individuals named Maria Exposito):

“In 1976, the young Maria Exposito met two students from Mexico City in the desert who said they were lost but appeared to be fleeing something and who, after a dizzying week, she never saw again. The students lived in their car and one of them seemed to be sick. They looked as if they were high on something and they talked a lot and didn’t eat anything, although she brought them tortillas and beans that she snuck from home. They talked, for example, about a new revolution, an invisible revolution that was already brewing but wouldn’t hit the streets for at least fifty years. Or five hundred. Or five thousand. The students had been to Villaviciosa but what they wanted was to find the highway to Ures or Hermosillo. Each night they made love to her, in the car or on the warm desert sand, until one morning she came to meet them and they were gone.” (558)

Could these two be Belano and Lima?? Then that would mean Lalo Cura is actually the son of one of them. I’m not going to elaborate anymore because this postscript is wayyyy too long but let me know what you guys think though!

Reactions

Reading Quiet Chaos has been overwhelming! I have to say so much happens that it feels a relentless level of emotional trauma unpacking, yet I couldn’t stop turning pages. I felt heartbroken, empathetic, and at times frustrated, drawn into Pietro’s temporary world where grief isolates, disrupts, and transforms both him and those around him. As I get closer to finishing the book, Veronesi truly captures how mourning can be private yet socially tied to others. He writes so heartbreakingly, leaving me emotionally bothered and deeply reflective.

Commentary

For me, the most striking moment is when Pietro’s brother Carlo stays overnight. Their brotherly conversation is raw, vulnerable, and deeply affecting: Pietro confesses how much he misses his wife, while Carlo admits that he misses his brother (i.e., the man he once relied on, now emotionally unavailable since the accident).

VS.

It is clear to me that this scene was about vulnerability. It resonated profoundly with me because it shows how grief is not self-contained. Pietro’s mourning ripples outward, affecting those who care about him. We see this more and more through each and every interaction since he started crying alone in his car. I’m starting to see how his personal loss can create unintended emotional voids for Pietro’s daughter and his brother. The quiet, yet almost masculine honesty of two men confessing their emotions felt painfully real and tender.

The narrative tension really heightens up when Eleonora, the woman Pietro saved at the beach, finally contacts him. Meeting at the park bench, she thanks him and recounts that day. Pietro recalls a man shouting at him in the chaos of the waves, warning him he wouldn’t make it in time. When Eleonora shows a photograph of that man, I felt a jolt of suspense and curiosity, realizing that a plot twist is about to happen!

The emotional weight peaks and the plot twist drops: As Eleonora leaves the park, Pietro sees her dropping a wedding ring into the gutter, revealing that the man who doubted him is her partner. Actually, we later learned that Eleonora is not married, but rather she is the mistress of the man who is sabotaging Pietro’s company. So !!! The man whom she loves told Pietro to not bother saving her was her fiancé – PLOT TWIST, OMG !! What is Veronesi writing, blending personal, quiet trauma with professional chaos?

Anyways, Pietro’s sister-in-law suggests returning to the summer home in Roccamare, where his wife fell to her death, to help him and his daughter face the trauma, grieve and seek closure. Due to an unforeseen last-minute obligation, the sister-in-law could not make it, and only Pietro and his daughter made the journey. I am now curious to see what is going to happen once he is in Roccamare, because I am sensing that Pietro’s confrontation with the past would demand an emotional reckoning that is long, long overdue.

Discussion Question

You can answer the question in any way you like, whether related to literary works or personal experiences.

Pietro confesses that he misses his wife because of her absence from his and his daughter’s lives; his younger brother Carlo admits to him that he misses him because of his absence from his life. Both men clearly talk about absence, but in two different ways: one who passed away, the other who is stuck in grief and distances himself from others who are still in this world.

Hence, absence can be felt in two ways. How does grief or trauma change the way we act toward our loved ones, and how does our distance affect the people who care about us most?