“How long is this going to take?” (King Julien from the Madagascar movie). That is kind of how I felt reading this chunk of the book. Because there are so many voices and stories, that are coming from all ends of the world, and are semi-relevant but are also displaying the ways in which these characters pass time, ways that I myself could never imagine myself partaking in, I re-read a lot of pages. It was hard to put the picture together in my head of why all of these accounts were included. Every time Ulises or Arturo were mentioned, I thought okay, some relevance to the first part of the book that I read only around a month ago, yet it feels much longer than that. I think that is the point though, so while it sounds like I am complaining, I did still enjoy this part of the book. The sprawling of the story was very notable to me. We are introduced to more characters that are somehow connected to Arturo or Ulises, as well as new locations like Paris and Barcelona that tie together the uncertainty and fluidity of the visceral realists.

Furthermore, the sense of belonging or lack of is also continued into the book, which is one of my favourite elements of this book so far. For example, when Simone remarks on how she met Arturo, and then eventually Ulises, she states that Mexicans all have a funny way of just meeting one another, but then Arturo says “I’m not Mexican, Simone, I’m Chilean.” and she notices a hint of sadness in his statement, but the truth behind it (235). This stood out to me, because I think it ties very well with what we start to put together for the reasoning of leaving Mexico in the first place. The sense and feeling of belonging is a very powerful feeling, which is why for those who take poetry and the revolution so seriously, it is their means for finding belonging, and they would go anywhere to find it.

What I also found interesting was Luscious Skin’s role and portrayal in this part of the book, compared to the first 200 or so pages we had read before. He is painted in a much more sensitive and complex light than before, and it is where we understand that this is where the journey begins and he is a key constructor of the events. The visceral realism aspect of the book was highly judgmental in the first parts of the book, where membership was limited and withheld from people that weren’t considered revolutionary enough. However, juxtaposing this judgement with this part of the book, we see the characters unfold much more and can be understood for much more than what they were initially. In this sense, Ulises, Arturo, Luscious Skin and the others, they are delicate and fragile, which is not the conclusion I would have drawn after the first 100 pages of the book.

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

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

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

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

Hi everyone, I have read about 70 more pages since my first blog post on Zeno’s Conscience, which puts me at page 130, which is just before the part titled The Story of My Marriage finishes. Originally, I was going to finish this part, but I don’t think I divided it up very well, so I adjusted.

To be completely honest, I enjoyed the first two parts Smoke and My Father’s Death more than this third part I’ve now read as well. However, I think this largely due to the fact that I am getting so annoyed with Zeno in this part of the book. What I have read so far is Zeno’s recollection of how he met his future wife and then eventually married her. I read quite a bit, and as of right now, they are still not married! Instead, it has been Zeno going over to the family house, where he pines for Ada. Let me provide some context; there are four daughters, Alberta, Augusta, Ada and Anna. A quick additional note, Zeno found it very intelligible of their father Giovanni to name all of his daughters with an “A” name. As we can see, it is really the little things for Zeno that matter. Anyways, Zeno uses a quick process of elimination to decide that Ada is the daughter he is in love with and wants to marry because Alberta is too plain, Augusta is in love with him and he doesn’t like that and Anna is a child.

Maybe there is another part of me that stopped reading before the part ended because it was taking so long to find out if Ada was going to marry Zeno or not. I have left off at a very interesting part. As of right now, Ada shows no interest, and has also met another suitor that Zeno describes as handsome.

While I have written a lot about Zeno’s adventure of trying and miserably failing to court a woman he thinks he is in love with, that is not all that is in play during this section of the novel. The strange neurotic behaviours and twisted opinions are still very prominent. On page 81 Zeno is writing about why he wants Ada to be his wife. At first it starts off sweet, he talks about how Ada accompanies him at all times, even when they are apart because he always envisions her. Then he goes on to write “I bestowed on her all the qualities I lacked and whose need I felt, because she was to become not only my companion but also my second mother, who would adopt me for a whole lifetime of manly struggle and victory. My initial thought was: Freud must be smiling right now. After smiling uncomfortably and laughing about how his wife would adopt him, the part of “struggle and victory” stood out to me as well. Zeno cannot seem to have any normal, standard or neutral experiences. Everything is extremely emotionally charged. Even when he tells himself he is going to remove himself from a situation, because at one point he considers giving up on courting Ada, he cannot do it with any peace of mind or stability. When I think about the first two parts of the book I read, Zeno was more convincing in his methods, that he was in control and was choosing to act odd. However in this part, I think this foreign element of love, which Zeno has an unique definition of, throws him for a loop even more. It is an interesting read, but it is becoming harder to follow his train of thought.

Thanks for reading!