For my second blog on The Savage Detectives, it took me a moment to try and decide what an appropriate title could be for my post. I’ve called it “Additional Context” because as I was reading, especially with the characters we saw little glimpses of in the first part, more of the puzzle was starting to come together. The opinions on visceral realism and the ways in which everyone is somehow connected to each other was all starting to fall into place and make a bit more sense. To be honest, I found this format of many short stories or recollections from an array of perspectives less engaging than the first part, which focused on García Madero’s perspective. However, I think it is just a personal preference as I enjoy getting into details with characters, and I do think the format of the these following chapters was relevant for the novel.
I found that certain characters such as Luscious Skin, María Font, Alberto, Laura and others, were all portrayed in the second part of the novel quite differently than the first part. I don’t think this is too shocking, considering that in the first part of the book, what we initially learn about the people in García Madero’s life are purely from his point of view. One example of this difference in portrayal was with Luscious Skin, where he calls himself a “peace-loving person” and claims he never hit Belano, despite strongly disliking him. If I had only read the first part of the book, based on the depictions of his violent sexual behaviour, I wouldn’t use peace-loving as an adjective to describe him. María’s account of the events that transpired after García Madero and the others took her father’s Impala and escaped also demonstrates the differences of what we learn, compared to when the story is told from just García Madero’s point of view. In the first part of the novel, María is understood to be very sexually liberal, compared to her sister, but in her own account specifically on page 194 (of the Picador edition), she talks about how during one of her last conversations with Belano and Ulises, that we as readers know of, that she was supposedly tempted to sleep with both of them, but she stays silent. While the contrast between Angelíca and María in terms of their sexual experiences already reveals themes of misogyny and sexuality during this era, I think this also spoke to María’s agency, and her turmoil in not understanding how to navigate emotionally complex situations. Her situation is not unique however, this avoidance, escapism and redirection of emotions seems to manifest in almost every single character. Right before her account, we have another one from Jacinto, that overtly highlighted the visceral realism movement as a facade to distract from something much more serious and looming. Jacinto, who is having a child with Xóchitl, did not focus on finding a job to support his family, but instead spent every single day talking about poetry, and supposedly pouring his soul into the movement. However, I think the movement is also producing hierarchies, as Jacinto seemingly has jealous feelings towards Belano, not because he flirts with Xóchitl, but because he has authority over everyone else.
Finally, my thoughts on Auxilio’s piece at the very end of this section. I really enjoyed her point of view. It was dramatic and it had me wondering if a soldier or someone else was going to find her in the bathrooms. She spoke of the university being violated multiple times, which I think explains why she finds such solace and importance in poetry, because it gives her an avenue to grapple with traumatic or painful events. If anything, I understand and believe she has a genuine connection to poetry the most out of anyone we’ve been introduced to so far. This has left me excited to read Amulet in the coming weeks.
Thank you for reading my post this week!