Month: February 2026

Getting back into The Savage Detectives after about three weeks off was not as difficult as I had feared – I recognized the first voice, Amadeo Salvatierra, from his references to the Suicida Mezcal, and the rest of the pieces linked together from there. It helped that some of the chapters began to grow into pretty stand-alone episodes, for example Mary Watson’s journey through Europe starting on page 253, which could have just as easily been made into an Amulet of its own. This was my favourite narration of the section for this week, I found it the most fun and interesting to read. Like if On the Road were set in Europe and narrated by a young woman. If this were its own book, I might just check it out of the library!

Along the way, I noticed a few links to the other book I’m reading, Les Misérables. It is directly referenced on page 208 by Quim on a tangent about types of readers – desperate readers, he says, cannot read through, it seems, long books, (the four books he gives as examples are quite long) including Les Misérables. I’d like to say here, although the Savage Detectives is a long book, I don’t think what Quim calls a desperate reader would have as much trouble with it. Even though he rushes through his explanation, I think the fast paced variety of Savage Detectives would appease this reader. Later, as the stories start to take place in France, one Alain Lebert tells of how he is to stand trial for “having ripped off a supermarket” (271) of a loaf of bread, some cheese, and a can of tuna, as Jean Valjean in Les Misérables is accused of stealing a loaf of bread. But Alain, instead of his fellow Frenchman, takes instead to poetry readings and drinking late at night than repentance.

Arturo Belano and Ulises Lima weave the stories together, alongside Amadeo Salvatierra and his mezcal, who opens and closes this section, providing touchstones for the why of some stories. I began to recognize other narrators, such as Joaquin, Angelica, and Maria, which helped tie this part of the book into that of the first. Something I have struggled with in the Savage Detectives is at what point is this a cohesive story. Perhaps it is a story, but I do not find it cohesive. Anyway, having a link back to characters I had more or less left to exist at the beginning of the book was helpful in making me feel a sense of completeness.

The question of translation is an interesting one. As one character mentions (rats I’ve lost the page) whether to translate Satin de sang as “satin blood” or “blood of satin,” and Amadeo discusses translating poetry with Cesarea from French to Spanish : “Cesarea in a slapdash way, if you dont mind my saying so, reinventing the poem however she happened to see fit, while I stick slavishly to the ineffable spirit as well as the letter of the original” (p. 282). I know we speak a lot of different languages in our class, so thinking about translation in the context of literature, what do you think is the best way to go about it?

To conclude, this section felt like an expansion: out from Mexico to France, Spain, England, Israel, with new characters, into the new decade of the 1980s, with almost infinite stories within stories that could be plucked out from anywhere. But I also a return to characters from the first part of the book, as well as the quest for Cesarea Tinajero, satisfying a desire I felt for less expansion, and more linear cohesion between sections of this vast book.

Anyway, my thoughts are not the most cohesive, so maybe it’s a little ironic to be out for Bolaño about it, but maybe they’re in his honour.

P.S. Canada shoutout! “Then I’d climb into my Canadian Impetuous Extraprotector sleeping bag…” (p. 270). One of the most Canadian experiences for me is getting excited about something like that.

The first two lines of Amulet that I read were the first, as I opened the book, and the last, as I flipped to see how many pages I should pace myself for each day this week: “This is going to be a horror story” (p. 1) and “And that song is our amulet” (p. 184). Very intriguing! I don’t feel like they are connected, but I look forward to finding out.

As I read, I recognized lines, passages and ideas from Part II of the Savage Detectives – like when Auxilio berates herself for forgetting her paper supply in the bathroom, or Arturo Belano returning from Chile after the coup. It really does read like an extra chapter, and, since Auxilio’s voice and story were the most appealing to me from Part II, I was excited to learn more.

What initially captured my attention was the writing style, which kept me reading through events and narratives that for the most part I did not find inspiring. I love the descriptions and use of language: “Let me stretch time out like a plastic surgeon stretching the skin of a patient under anaesthesia” (p. 2), the possibilities of a Pandora’s Box-like vase, how the younger generation of poets make her shudder, “as if they weren’t creatures of flesh and blood but a generation spring from the open wound of Tlatelolco” (p. 77), “Then the moon changed tiles” (p. 168). I love the little details all throughout the text, like a silver frog or Mexican feline lineage, which, though we might consider these as what makes a long story long, I find fit in here much more easily than little details would in the Savage Detectives. I cannot quite put my finger on why: perhaps the narrator.

Two themes I found interesting are temporality and companions. I enjoyed the use of temporality in the novel, the 13 days being measured from moonlight on tile – two images found on the cover of my edition. The moon is mentioned so often throughout the book that it evokes the idea of a companion during Auxilio’s isolation. Reading is another companion for Auxilio, “I knew that I had to resist,” (p. 32) she explains, turning to her book of poetry as the companion to resistance. For a question relating to a major theme in class, how can reading be a form of resistance? What is the difference between resistance as an author versus as a reader?

For these reasons I did enjoy reading Amulet, but honestly, I don’t feel like I got that much out of it. Maybe I would have found it more impactful without having read the Savage Detectives, but I found it to be about characters that I did not really care too much about, and too flighty/loose/airy (I really cannot find the right adjective!) to ground me in the solid reality of the horror of being trapped in Auxilio’s situation.

As for the opening and concluding sentences, I suppose being isolated in fear in a washroom for days on end is a horror story. I find in the children singing a protective song in the end evokes the ideas of what the university students were pushing for: reform and resistance.

Thank you for reading!

Les Misérables, Victor Hugo, page 74-120

At the end of the last section, we were introduced to Fantine, a young mother who has to leave her daughter, Cosette, with a cruel family; Monsieur Madeleine, the beloved new mayor of Fantine’s hometown who promises to get Cosette back; and Inspector Javert, who assures M. Madeleine that he knows that M. Madeleine isn’t Jean Valjean. When I mentioned Javert to my dad, he said, “Javert? I remember him from the ’80s. I fucking hate that guy. He’s the thorn in Jean Valjean’s side.” To which I said, “I haven’t gotten to that part yet!” Come on, dad. Anyway, at page 120 now, Javert is definitely a thorn:

As a character, we see that Inspector Javert prioritizes what is “lawful” or “correct” to him over the bigger picture, seeing simply what happens on the surface. When Fantine is forced to work as a prostitute to save up money for Cosette, walking in a thin dress up and down the snowy road, being taunted by villagers, she finally snaps – after a boy throws a snowball at her back – and attacks him. Javert arrives on scene to arrest her – he can only see that a citizen is breaking a law by attacking another. Back to my earlier blog post on whether stealing bread to feed your family is morally acceptable, as was Jean Valjean’s crime, Javert’s response is clear.

Soon we learn that Monsieur Madeleine is indeed Jean Valjean, who we last saw repenting after stealing a coin from a child – the “Petit Gervais affair”. As aligns with his character, he toils mentally back and forth on what to do after Javert reveals his suspicions – first he resolves to denounce himself, and then to break ties with anything that connects him to Jean. He feels he is paying compensation in his new identity, that with his tens of millions, he has uplifted his town: “poverty disappears, and with poverty disappears debauchery, prostitution, theft, murder, all vices, all crime!” (p. 80) Interestingly at this point in the narrative, at least in my translation, Valjean/Madeleine is not referred to by either of these names, but as simply “he”. This is interesting as a reader because it adds to the ambiguity of this character; even though he is both, who is he really? He struggles with this question as well. The passage ends, and he hasn’t quite made up his mind.

Next, we have the Champathieu Affair – the trial in a neighbouring town for Champathieu, a man accused of being accursed criminal Jean Valjean. Even as Champmathieu pleads that he is not, the judge is about to sentence him to the galleys, when Monsieur the Mayor, as everyone thinks he is, announces that he is Valjean, and proves it by sharing things only he would know. Here, we see his resolution to his earlier turmoil; he had wanted to forget about his past in order to keep living his life properly as M. Madeleine, but realizes that he had to own up to his past in order to do the right thing and save Champathieu. Guess how Javert must be feeling now?

So, Valjean hurries back to his town, to see Fantine, who he had promised he would bring her child, Cosette. Fantine, feverish after her toiling in the snow, asks after Cosette, and here Valjean tells a lie: that Cosette is playing outside and cannot see her mother until she is well again. I was struck that after the importance of truth in this passage, that Valjean would lie to Fantine – but perhaps this relates to the question of “right” and “wrong,” and makes us think when is lying acceptable. As Valjean is assuring her, who should enter her room but JAVERT: “It was the face of a demon who had again found his victim” (p. 112). He arrests Valjean and Fantine learns that Cosette has not been brought home; she dies on the spot. It is truly, as Hugo says, “all the evil of good” (p. 112). Ooh, maybe that answers my question about the worth of lying…

Well, I won’t keep you any longer.