lucas73's Blog

No catchy title here folks! All my previous blog posts simply are titled with the title of the book, the part of the book, and the corresponding page numbers. I kind of felt an obligation to come up with a catchy title since this week’s reading was the entirety of the short novel, Amulet, but I decided to keep it consistent and every title that I was thinking of kind of fell short. Let’s actually talk about titles a bit! I feel like they have to be short (obviously) yet they have to capture the essence of the work (be it a book, movie, blog post, etc.). Most importantly though, titles have to capture the reader’s attention/curiosity because it’s really the very first impression that they get of the work. In the case of The Savage Detectives, I’ve seen some discussion floating around about the significance of the title, personally I’m not 100% sure yet, but I’m guessing we’ll figure it out soon enough (perhaps it’s the group of Belano, Lima, García Madero, and Lupe who have gone North to do who knows what). In the case of 2666, it’s actually pretty interesting because just from reading 2666, I had not a clue of the significance of its title. However, thanks to Amulet, there’s actually a mention of 2666 in this line: “Guerrero, at that time of night, is more like a cemetery than an avenue, not a cemetery in 1974 or in 1968, or 1975, but a cemetery in the year 2666, a forgotten cemetery under the eyelid of a corpse or an unborn child, bathed in the dispassionate fluids of an eye that tried so hard to forget one particular thing that it ended up forgetting everything else.” (86) Now I would love to discuss this further on its significance to the book 2666 but let me not stray too far since this is supposed to be a blog post about Amulet, not The Savage Detectives or 2666.

Anyways, in the case of Amulet, I really loved the title and the symbolism of the amulet at the end as a song of hope and love for the young generation of Latin Americans encompassing “youth and valor…violence and exile…memory and history” (Bolaño) (I’m actually not sure how exactly to cite the blurb on the back of books). I thought that this was an excellent ending to this short novel and I found the last couple chapters of Auxilio’s visions sort of fantastical or dreamlike, which I enjoyed. When I say “fantastical” or “dreamlike”, I don’t mean to downplay the student movement and massacre in Mexico, but I think it perfectly reflects Auxilio’s intended narrative. The very first lines of this short novel begin with: “This is going to be a horror story. A story of murder, detection and horror. But it won’t appear to be, for the simple reason that I am the teller.” (1) Rather than hiding the horror, Auxilio, or I guess deep down Bolaño, is framing it through their own poetic lens. Not just as a cold part of history, but instead as a memorable song of resistance, their amulet.

Now for some more general thoughts and impressions I had of Amulet. To be completely honest, I thought it was only okay. I didn’t love it but nor did I hate it. I definitely enjoyed reading certain portions of the book, especially the chapter where they confronted the King of the Rent Boys. I also liked Coffeen’s recount of Orestes and Erigone. However, in classic Bolaño fashion, there are tons of shorter stories within the larger story, some of which I just straight up didn’t find myself enjoying reading. For example, even perhaps the most important one of Auxilio being stuck in the washroom didn’t really interest me. Perhaps that’s due to the point made earlier on how Auxilio is not trying to frame it as a horror story. Additionally, I don’t think I’m quite the target audience that would really get a lot out of reading Amulet. Hell, a few blogs ago I mentioned that I wasn’t really familiar with the Mexican student movement to begin with. On another note though, as someone basically just reading Bolaño this term, I felt that his tone or maybe style of writing in Amulet felt more “lyrical” or at least more similar to his poetry than his other long books (maybe it’s because he’s writing through Auxilio, maybe because it’s a short book, or maybe even because it’s a different translator). But again, if I am to be completely honest once more, I kind of enjoy Bolaño’s writing in his books than his poetry (at least from his poetry we’ve read in class). So, my question to you all this week is: “Do you find any difference in Bolaño’s style of writing between Amulet and The Savage Detectives? If so, which one do you prefer? And what about his poetry?” I know that for the last question a couple of us have already shared our thoughts in class, but I’d like to know what more people have to say!

P.S. I really liked the cover of this Picador edition, so shoutout Michael Schmelling and Mike Adams (the cover designer and illustrator)!

Returning to 2666 this week with “The Part About Amalfitano”, the second Part out of five, I had a much shorter reading than normal. If I’m not mistaken, this will be the fewest number of pages in a given week for this course at just ~65 pages! Worry not though, longer readings for these long books are to come, I believe Parts IV and V are like 250-300 pages…each! I was considering reading Parts II & III this week because combined they’re actually less than either Part IV or Part V, but ultimately decided not to because I didn’t want to split up the two last Parts into three portions. I would much rather dedicate each of the Parts to one week and not split them up with a break in between, especially since I remember it was mentioned that Bolaño intended on publishing 2666 as five separate books (for financial reasons albeit). That actually leads into one of the points I want to talk about in this blog post: how these parts connect to each other (and how on earth would they work standalone)? Before I get into that though, let me give a brief (and slightly scuffed) summary of what’s happened in “The Part About Amalfitano.”

This Part is completely centered around Óscar Amalfitano, a Chilean professor in Santa Teresa, who was introduced in the first Part already (he’s also familiar with Archimboldi but not quite as big a fan as our “critics” in the first Part). We begin with Amalfitano’s life before coming to the city of Santa Teresa (where all the Parts should converge), where he lives in Barcelona with his young daughter, Rosa, and wife, Lola, who is just departing on a bit of an extended trip with her friend, Imma, to visit her favourite poet who is being held at an insane asylum near Mondragón. Yeah… Lola is a bit of an interesting character to say the least. She claims that she had slept with the poet (who people believe is gay) before meeting Amalfitano, but the thing is the story may or may not even be true because Amalfitano alleges that Lola only became aware of the poet’s existence through him when he had given her one of the poet’s books. Anyways, Lola sends letters to Amalfitano during her journey and quite a few things happen so let me try to rapid-fire it: Lola and Imma originally are refused entry to the asylum but eventually meet him after claiming to be a reporter and poet, they don’t see him the following days because he’s apparently on bedrest, Imma leaves heading to Madrid but said she would come back (she doesn’t), Lola has sex with a driver (his last name is Larrazábal, just noting this on the off chance he makes a return later), she gets kicked out of the boardinghouse she was staying at, she sleeps in a cemetery, she watches the poet who is supposedly ignoring her from afar (the poet also umm “pleases” another inmate with his hand?? not sure what the importance of that was), she stays with Larrazábal for a bit but eventually leaves by train and goes around Europe a bit, there’s a gap of five years where Amalfitano doesn’t receive any letters from Lola, then Amalfitano receives a final letter from Paris telling him that she is working a cleaning job and has another son. Wow, that was longer than I would have liked but we’re not quite done yet because two years after that final letter, Lola tracks down Amalfitano and tells him she has AIDS and is dying but wants to see Rosa once last time. After their short reunion Lola leaves by hitchhiking and that’s that.

Following that, we see a bit of Amalfitano and Rosa’s life after having moved to Santa Teresa (why did he move? well Amalfitano questions himself as to why as well). Amalfitano finds a book called Testamento geométrico in one of the boxes he packed but doesn’t remember ever packing, buying, or even having seen this book before. For some strange reasons, he decides to hang it outside on a clothesline which was already kind of mentioned in Part I when Pelletier and Espinoza visited Amalfitano’s home: “Espinoza went out into the backyard and saw a book hanging from a clothesline…It’s Rafael Dieste’s Testamento geométrico” (133). Amalfitano does some other strange things like drawing geometric figures with names of philosophers and later he begins to hear a voice talking to him in bed, some of the drawings below from page 192:

Apart from that, he lives a pretty standard life as a professor it seems, other things that happen include going to a merendero (picnic kind of place with a pool) with Rosa, Professor Perez, and her son (Perez is the one who actually convinced Amalfitano to take a job in Santa Teresa) as well as meeting Dean Guerra and his son Marco (the latter of which he actually meets a couple times which I’ll mention later). Above all though, just like in Part I, there are stories within this story, real ones like Amalfitano recollections about his father’s love for boxing (and homophobia), other conversations with the voice in Amalfitano’s head, Amalfitano literally reading us a book on telepathic Araucanians (???), and some very strange dreams, one of which is about Boris Yeltsin (a former president of Russia?) which also happens to be how Part II ends.

To be honest, I most certainly could have condensed the above summary by half at least, especially the part with Lola, but I found it interesting so I decided to leave it in. Again a preliminary apology in case it was confusing or I’m missing anything that becomes relevant later in future Parts, but let me get into my actual thoughts now. Speaking of future (and past) Parts, so far Parts I and II don’t seem to connect very much besides Amalfitano being introduced in Part I and the few mentions of the women disappearing in Santa Teresa. Archimboldi, the mystery man from Part I is not mentioned a single time in Part II! We also don’t eventually come back into the “present time” with our original critics from Part I. While I enjoyed reading Part II, I’m still left a bit confused as to how everything connects. Let’s say these Parts were released as separate books just as Bolaño originally intended, by themselves, as standalones I don’t think they hold up quite well, but… since that isn’t the case and they’re released as just one multi-part book, I, as the reader, have to assume there’s much more to come. I mean, just look at the page count, I’m only 200 something pages in out of like a 900 page book (not even halfway to halfway)! As of right now at least, while I might find it tedious, I’m trying to latch onto all these stories within stories in hopes that it will all come together in the end. I doubt everything will be of importance, but surely some of it will. Perhaps we’ve already seen a glimpse of it like Lola and the poet mirroring Part I’s critics and Archimboldi (I just realized I forgot to mentioned that Lola also had some kind of elaborate plan to have the poet escape the asylum with her and to move abroad), perhaps Norton leaving Pelletier and Espinoza is like Lola leaving Amalfitano, perhaps I’m just rambling too much and I’ve made something out of nothing, perhaps it’s like the second Part of The Savage Detectives where it was mentioned in class where we’re kind of “waiting” in a sense. There’s a quote that actually really stuck out to me in Part II of 2666 when Amalfitano reads the front flap of Testamento geométrico: “Testamento geométrico was really three books, ‘each independent, but functionally correlated by the sweep of the whole…this work representing the final distillation of Dieste’s reflections and research on space” (186). Is this not kind of a metareference to 2666 itself? I mean 2666 is Bolaño’s final book just like Dieste’s so I guess we’ll have to see how all the Parts are connected “by the sweep of the whole.” Anyways, I enjoyed my experience reading Part II nonetheless and really look forward to the future Parts and seeing how all the details may or may not tie in.

Now let me talk a bit about Amalfitano. Honestly, I kind of feel a bit bad for the guy, I mean in the beginning of this Part his wife basically just abandons him and their child, and then life in Santa Teresa doesn’t sounds like lollipops or rainbows. He seems to be constantly worrying about his daughter because of the disappearances in Santa Teresa, “Amalfitano called Professor Perez and confessed that he was turning into a nervous wreck…She remind him that the victims were usually kidnapped in other parts of the city.” (198-199). He doesn’t seem to only worry explicitly though, but subconsciously as well like when Rosa leaves the house (or on page 196 when he says “it’s silly to worry about it when much worse things are happening in this city” in reference to the book on the clothesline) and perhaps it’s one of the causes of the voice he hears around the time when he sleeps. Speaking of the voice and Amalfitano’s other strange actions, I realized when I was writing the summary that I made it sound like he was a complete lunatic. Although, I don’t think that’s actually the case, from his thoughts he actually seems quite rational and at the very least Amalfitano is aware and conscious of the fact that he might be going slightly crazy with the voice in his head (he’s also kind of likable just generally speaking, maybe more than the critics in Part I). Also, on a slight side note, the book that he hangs on the clothesline wasn’t completely out of nowhere, it’s from a story about Duchamp (a chess player?) who gives a book as a gift to a newly wed couple and instructs them to “hang a geometry book by strings on the balcony of their apartment so that the wind could ‘go through the book, choose its own problems, turn and tear out the pages’” (191). Now that’s interesting and all but what’s more interesting is the reason Amalfitano gives Rosa on why he hung it up “to see how it survives the assault of nature, to see how it survives this desert climate” (191). Does Amalfitano kind of see the book in some strange metaphorical way as himself and Rosa surviving in Santa Teresa? Just take a look at this passage and consider it for a moment:

“he didn’t plan to stay long in Santa Teresa. I have to go back now, he said to himself, but where? And then he asked himself: what made me come here? Why did I bring my daughter to this cursed city? Because it was one of the few hellholes in the world I hadn’t seen yet? Because I really just want to die? And then he looked at Dieste’s book, the Testamento geométrico, hanging impassively from the line, held there by two clothespins, and he felt the urge to take it down and wipe off the ocher dust that had begun to cling to it here and there, but he didn’t dare.” (196)

Hmm, I’m not entirely sure but that’s just some food for thought. Maybe I’m going a bit crazy myself considering this blog is wayyyyy too long already. Before I end though, one last thing to note is that Amalfitano shares a drink with Marco Guerra (the dean’s son) called Los Suicidas. Sound familiar? Well it should because that’s the drink that Amadeo Salvatierra gets at the beginning of Part II in The Savage Detectives. I tried looking it up online but couldn’t really find much so I guess it’s just a mezcal drink that Bolaño made up. Do I think that this drink has any importance to either story? No, not really, just like I’m sure a myriad of other things might not be so important, but it’s cool to note. It’s also cool to note the section breaks or dinkuses(?) in this Part, some of which are very brief like on page 190, “The idea, of course, was Duchamp’s.” or even moreso on page 195, just “Help.” The first discussion question for this week that came to mind was a bit more on the vague side: “What do you think are the purposes of the details that authors write which may not necessarily be relevant to the plot?”I mean obviously to build the atmosphere, to immerse the reader into the story, to overall just make the reader’s experience more enjoyable, etc., etc., so maybe that was a poor question. Instead I’d like to ask: “What small details have you noticed in your book that you believe will be more relevant later on?” I mean with Bolaño, I’m sure there’s a ton that you could point out with all the shorter stories within the larger narrative so I’m curious for all the other books people are reading. Okay, now let me end this blog post on 2666 before it becomes 2666 words long (also what’s the significance behind the title, 2666? my bad, just end it already, Lucas! until next week!)

P.S. Starting from now I’ll be capitalizing “Part” when talking about the five different Parts of 2666 and the three different Parts of The Savage Detectives to avoid confusion when I talk about different parts/sections of specific Parts :p

Unlike the very first part of The Savage Detectives, I’m not going into this second part completely blind because of our discussions in class where it was mentioned that this second part would take a shift from García Madero’s journal entries to a multi-narrative style (multiperspectivity? polyperspectivity? polyphonic narration? I just searched on Google “word for multiple narrators” and got a bunch so I’ll just stick with multi-narrative). I also believe it was mentioned that eventually in the third part we’ll come back to García Madero. However, what I find most interesting is that even though we move away from García Madero’s journal entries, in these ~60 pages, there’s no mention of García Madero at all, nor is there any mention of Lupe as well! To think that the whole first part of this book was from García Madero’s perspective, it makes me truly wonder why there is not one single mention of him yet? It’s also not just that he isn’t mentioned at all, but the fact that basically everyone else from the first part has been mentioned. Belano, Lima, the Font sisters, Quim and his wife, Pancho, Moctezuma, Barrios, Jacinto Requena, Luscious Skin, San Epifanio… the list goes on in addition to the many other characters we meet from this multi-narrative jumble (maybe jumble isn’t the right word, but it’s the first word that came to mind). Intriguing, very intriguing, I suppose I’ll just have to read on to find out what happens, or I guess happened, to García Madero…

This kind of transitions to my next thoughts on the chronology and structure of the second part of this book. Here’s what I’ve gathered so far: the second part of this book is dated from 1976-1996 which is of course after the first part that ends on New Year’s Eve. While it’s dated 1976-1996, they of course aren’t solely talking about what’s happening in those years, it’s just that these accounts (or interviews? I’ll get into that a bit later) take place in those years. Since we’ve just only started the first part we’ve only really gotten accounts from 1976, however, it does ping pong a bit back and forth between the months (although maybe it’s just Amadeo’s accounts in January 1976 that are the exception, otherwise I guess all the accounts are in chronological order). We do know from Maria’s account in December 1976 that at some point Belano and Lima have returned to Mexico City though (again, no mention of García Madero or Lupe). Also, each account has a location, so far all just various places in Mexico City (I wonder if we’ll be going international soon because Lima and Belano did mention that they were going to Paris and Spain, also why are they going in the first place??). Now one big question that I have is what exactly are all these accounts? Are all these narrators being interviewed or something? That also of course begs the question of why? These aren’t just simple journal entries like with García Madero. On page 162, Alberto directly references Luisito’s account and goes on to set some facts straight and even says “Make sure you get that straight.” I understand that some people use “you” when writing their personal journals as if they were talking to themself or some omniscient third party (I used to do the same when I was young) but combined with the location and dated entries and the fact that we have all these narrators, this second part reads as some kind of sequence of interviews. Maybe there’s nothing deeper to it and Bolaño just wanted to create this fragmented multi-narration in the second part, but still, something important to note.

Now, personally, I’ve actually been enjoying having all these different narrators, it’s kind of nice to read the differences in how they write and describe events (kind of like how it’s nice to read the differences in our blog posts!). I think the most notably different one was Barbara Patterson’s which didn’t hold back any punches when it came to foul language. My discussion question this week might be a bit lame but I’m curious as to “What do you guys think about the multi-narration? And who has your favourite narrator been so far?” If I had to choose, I’d either say Luscious Skin or Maria. Luscious Skin because he writes very simply in short, straight-to-the-point sentences, and it was fascinating to see how he perceives others and how he perceives himself (as a “peace-loving person” when reasoning why he didn’t beat up Belano which I found quite funny). I also enjoyed reading Maria’s account because in the first part there were definitely a few moments where I was curious to understand what exactly she was thinking or more so how she saw things. So it was actually quite interesting being able to read from Maria’s perspective briefly, even that last part about her wanting to sleep with Belano and Lima gave some nice insights into her thoughts (still, again, no mention whatsoever of García Madero…)

P.S. I know I didn’t mention much on the last chapter with Auxilio’s account (which I believe is the part from Amulet) but after posting this blog I think I’ll do some reading on the Mexican student movement because honestly before this course I was not really familiar with it at all. Please excuse my ignorance!

Wow, I believe this was a great start to this long book, and it’s left me thoroughly intrigued as to what comes next! Sadly, but not that sadly, I will restrain myself for another week, since this next week I’ll be returning to The Savage Detectives (which I also really enjoyed reading and the reason why I say “not that sadly”). If I had to pick, I would say so far I’ve enjoyed reading 2666 more and I’ll get into why a bit later. Before I get into my thoughts and impressions of 2666, I feel like I’ll have to give a little bit of background about what exactly is going on. I’ll try to keep it as brief as possible without missing any important details, but I’m sure I’ll miss a few and there will also most likely be some details that I will have left out thinking they were unimportant now, but realize that they were very important later. So please bear with me.

(SPOILER WARNING FOR THE FIRST PART OF 2666) As I mentioned in last week’s class, the book’s very beginning is a bit slow, simply introducing the group of four academics that our first part centers around: Pelletier, Morini, Espinoza, and Norton (from France, Italy, Spain, and England, respectively). They are all deeply invested in the works of a mysterious German author named Archimboldi and they all meet and become good friends while attending conferences and sharing their papers and research surrounding Archimboldi and his works (they have also translated many of Archimboldi’s works as well). Despite the initial slow start, things begin to pick up pace, Norton (who is the only woman of the group, again, bear with me please) begins separate sexual relationships with both Pelletier and Espinoza. A large portion of this first part of 2666 revolves around Pelletier and Espinoza’s love for Norton and their desire for a deeper relationship, however, Norton isn’t quite on the same page as them and of course it’s also quite complicated since she’s having relationships with both of them. Surprisingly, they all remain good friends despite knowing about each other’s relationships. Eventually Norton says she needs some time to think things over.

Besides all the love shenanigans, let’s take a moment to talk about Archimboldi, the author that our group is so very obsessed with. Besides the profound analyses of his books over the years, they only have a vague physical description of him being quite a tall, thin, old German man from his publishers. Despite Archimboldi’s (maybe some would describe as niche) popularity (he’s even been nominated for a Nobel), nobody has really ever met or seen him, until one day our group meets a Mexican who tells them that a friend has actually just met him not long ago. They were told that Archimboldi was going to the border city of Santa Teresa (important!). So the group of Pelletier, Espinoza, and Norton of course head down to Santa Teresa (not Morini who makes up a health excuse not to go, by the way, Morini has multiple sclerosis and is permanently wheelchair-bound, again, please bear with me) where they meet another Archimboldi fan (though nowhere near to the same extent), Amalfitano, in hopes of finally finding the mysterious author. However, their search leads to no avail, although Espinoza and Pelletier are both convinced that Archimboldi is there, just that they cannot find him. Also, Norton left Mexico earlier and emailed both Espinoza and Pelletier telling them that she and Morini actually love each other (Morini and their relationship is also quite interesting I must say)! (END OF SUMMARY)

Hoo boy, okay, after rereading my summary I can firmly say that I’m not that happy with it but it’ll have to do for now. I’m somehow already over the word count without giving my thoughts and impressions yet so let’s just say the summary doesn’t count, deal? Anyhow, I doubt that I’ll give such a long summary in future parts (even though I skipped a ton of details), but for the first part at least I feel like I kind of have to give you guys the gist of what’s going on. The very first thing that stuck out to me and I think basically anyone else who has read 2666 is the five-page long sentence. Yes, you heard me right, a sentence that is nearly five pages long from pages 18 to 22 in the English version. What was that sentence about you may ask? Well that leads into my next observation, 2666 contains many short stories within the larger narrative, which honestly, I’m kind of a fan of (although maybe not the five-page long sentence because that was a doozy). While maybe not all of these short stories told by some of the characters “move the plot forward”, it’s nice reading them and hey, who knows, maybe I’ll find some meaning to them later. Kind of like the epigraph which I really took a fancy to “An oasis of horror in a desert of boredom” by Charles Baudelaire.

Speaking of epigraphs and other parts of the book, just like The Savage Detectives, I basically went into this book blind except for what the professor mentioned about it being in five parts and the little blurb on the back of book. Now I will say that this blurb has kept me very intrigued, it reads “Three academics on the trail of a reclusive German author; a New York reporter on his first Mexican assignment; a widowed philosopher; a police detective in love with an elusive older woman–these are among the searches drawn to the border city of Santa Teresa where over the course of a decade hundreds of women have disappeared.” Well nothing about a New York reporter, widowed philosopher, or police detective yet, but bam, there it is, the border city of Santa Teresa. Oh boy, how I was grinning in anticipation of what was to come next when I read that this mysterious author Archimboldi was going to Santa Teresa (although the earliest mention of the murders in Santa Teresa was on page 43 when Morini reads about them in an article). It’s that a-ha moment where you think “okay, okay, now we’re really getting started.” Which reminds me of another thought I had, Pelletier and Espinoza going to Santa Teresa gives me a slight whiff of the beginning of a “hero’s journey” where they just set off on their adventure. I do hope that when they return home they come out changed or transformed in some way because similarly to The Savage Detectives, they are by no means flawless characters (yeah…I may have left out a part where they nearly beat a taxi driver to death and then go on their own sexual escapade filled with prostitutes). Going back to the point at hand, the titles of the five parts of 2666 are also pretty interesting:

1. The part about the critics
2. The part about Amalfitano
3. The part about fate
4. The part about the crimes
5. The part about Archimboldi

You may have noticed that I haven’t referred to our group of academics as “the critics” but yes, in fact, they are the critics, not sure exactly why though. Actually the first time I noticed they were referred to as the critics was on page 114 which is quite far out into the first part. Anyways, I really look forward to the future parts, the next part seeming to be about Amalfitano which I mentioned earlier. Fate, I really have no clue about. Crimes, I can guess will be about the women who have disappeared in Santa Teresa. And in the final part, the man, the myth, the legend, Benno von Archimboldi! As for my discussion question(s) this week, I want to ask you guys “What do you think about the little blurb on the back of books and the title of chapters/sections? Do you think reading them beforehand adds value as you read and do you find yourself enjoying figuring out how/when they tie in? Or do they just spoil the surprises?” That’ll be it from me this week though because this blog post is way too long already, even longer than last week’s, but I hope not to continue this trend!

P.S. I also would have loved to get into how much I am enjoying the characters and how they interact with each other just like The Savage Detectives, but that’ll have to wait until next, next week at least!

As someone completely unfamiliar with Bolaño’s works and The Savage Detectives, I really went into this first part blind, not knowing what to expect. Yet still, any of my faint preconceived notions went out the window as soon as I started reading. I certainly found this first part to be quite interesting, and to be absolutely clear, I don’t say that in a bad way, in fact, I found the first part of The Savage Detectives rather enjoyable to read. For starters, I really liked the journal style of writing! Juan García Madero, or just García Madero as everyone calls him (which I believe was brought up both in conversations with Maria and Quim), is an excellent writer to give him some credit. Whenever I’ve tried to write journals or just random notes about my day as a child or teenager, it looked nothing like this. Alas, this is a novel written by Bolaño at the end of the day, not an actual journal written by García Madero. However, I like to imagine that what I’m reading really did in fact happen and that it really is a journal written by García Madero, I find that this is how I can truly get immersed into a book. But don’t misinterpret me, I’m not saying that I want the actual events of the book to have been real. For example, I most certainly don’t want Lupe’s story of Alberto at the “contest” to have been real. As a reader, I just want to kind of “suspend my disbelief” in a way to get the most out of my experience reading. In an ideal world, I could pick up a book, completely engross myself into the book as if it were real, and then put it back down and carry on with my day as normal. Of course, that sounds a bit dangerous, I certainly don’t want to end up like the man from Continuity of Parks!

Anyways, apologies for sidetracking a bit from the task at hand of giving my actual first impressions of The Savage Detectives. I might do that in future blog posts as well, so another apologies in advance! (Although, I do think that the point of these blog posts is to spark discussion, which includes some sidetracking as well) What I really enjoyed the most about this first part were the characters themselves. Not the descriptions of 1970s Mexico, not the numerous references to real-life poets, but the actual characters and how they interact. At the heart of The Savage Detectives (or at least the first part) is García Madero, a 17-year old law student who becomes a visceral realist (the name of the members of this literary movement although I find it difficult to describe exactly what it really is), except he doesn’t really study law, he spends most his days reading poetry, writing poetry, talking to other visceral realists about poetry, going to cafes, drinking, smoking, and later on, a lot of sex.

Yes, García Madero has many flaws, to name a few: his unruly desire for sex, his over-obsession with the visceral realists and poetry, as well as his overall aimless nature and naivety where it’s shown that he’s still figuring out what he’s doing in his life. He’s kind of like a leaf just flowing in the wind, searching for belonging maybe or perhaps some other higher purpose? I believe that’s part of the reason why he becomes so attached to the visceral realists and why he takes it so seriously. García Madero is not somebody I admire, nor somebody I want to be, or even wish to have been friends with. Yet, I like him. Despite all his flaws and things that he had done or said that made me cringe, I still end up rooting for him. It’s not because he’s a mere teenager that I overlook his flaws (I was a teenager once too and definitely wouldn’t act like him), I think it’s because he’s flawed that I root for him. I want him to succeed, I want him to grow, I want him to find whatever he’s looking for. I’m not sure why but maybe it’s because of the way I immerse myself through the pages of his journal that I almost have to root for him because I’m living his life through his journal. I bet if I had read the events of this book from another perspective, I might have even hated García Madero, but that’s not the case here.

So, a question that I perhaps would like for us to discuss collectively would be “Can you find yourself disliking a character like García Madero, yet rooting for him at the same time?” From the above you can probably tell that I think the answer is an obvious yes, yet I’ve had similar discussions with some friends in the past that has got me thinking before. For example, Breaking Bad and Walter White, Walter is an incredibly egotistic drug kingpin who has done and said much, much worse things than García Madero. But despite it all, I think many other fans of Breaking Bad and I can’t help ourselves from rooting for this “bad guy.” However, I also think that this was really what the writers of Breaking Bad intended, maybe that’s not the case for what Roberto Bolaño intended with García Madero. Anyways, I’d be curious to know what you all think!

P.S. Going back to what I said about liking the characters, I also am really intrigued by the Font sisters, Quim, Lupe, Belano, Lima, Pancho, and Rosario, but this blog post is already well over 500 words so maybe I’ll mention them in a future blog post.

Knock, knock.

Who’s there?

Lucas.

Lucas who?

That’s me! (My last name is “Hu” pronounced like “who”)

 

Hi everyone, my name’s Lucas and welcome to my blog for RMST 495 (or perhaps you’re reading this post on the home page for RMST 495)! I’m in my final term here at UBC as a computer science student and I’m really excited to take this course with you all! Apologies for the bad joke at the beginning, but at this point it’s kind of become my schtick whenever I introduce myself now. As this is my own blog, I’ve decided I’m going to keep my tone pretty casual as if I were writing this to a friend. I’ll try to keep the grammar or spelling mistakes to a minimum, but the main focus will be getting my fresh ideas and impressions down as soon as I finish each of the readings, as mentioned in the post about our blogs. Still, sorry in advance :p

I registered for this course a few days before this term’s start and I actually first heard about it from this Reddit post made by Professor Beasley-Murray. I have already pretty much fulfilled all my requirements for graduation so for my final term of my undergraduate degree (also possibly ever), I wanted to take some interesting electives that really differ from my usual computer science courses. Luckily I stumbled upon RMST 495 and the course description and trailer really piqued my interest! To be completely honest, I don’t read as often as I would like, or at least when it comes to “typical” books and certainly long books — I do however read a lot of manga and manhwa but I would argue that the distinction between text-based vs visual storytelling between “typical” books and manga/manhwa make the mediums and experience reading them very different from each other. Although, that’s a discussion for another day. Going back to my expectations for this term, I found that this course would be an excellent way to get invested into a couple good, long books to escape our busy world of social media filled with short-form content. Ideally, maybe I would fall in love with reading these kinds of long books and I could take that passion with me after I graduate!

The other long book that I have chosen to read alongside The Savage Detectives is 2666 by the same author, Roberto Bolaño. I’m aware that this is a very long book but I’m quite committed to reading this one specifically because I think it would be cool to read another long book by Bolaño and one of my best friends really loves this book. I think with the structure of this course, namely the weekly blog posts and discussions, as well as the fact that I’m only taking four courses this term, I’ll have tons of motivation to read these long books!

Anyhow, this is the end of my first blog. To put it like Monterroso, “Today I feel well, like a Balzac; I am finishing this blog post.”

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