Roberto Bolano's "The Savage Detectives" discussion

...a story of lost poets and lost magazines and works no one had ever heard of, in the middle of a landscape that might have been California or Arizona or some Mexican region bordering those states, a real or imaginary place, bleached by the sun and lost in the past, forgotten, or at least no longer of the slightest importance here...

I just want to talk about this quote and others. And about Sean's review which is excellent but I want to expand on it. A lot of people call this Latin American beat literature. But to me that is less a description than a label. And not a very good one. Maybe it's time and place (I've read most of this sitting on a beach which has been an amazing experience) but this book has such wider implications than, say, On the Road, which is basically just about Sal and his friends that no one really cares about. You could say this book is about Arturo Belano or Ulises Lima but that only tells half the story. It is actually about Mexico and Latin America in general and its place in the scope of the rest if the world at large, its struggles to be valid and to have impact, and often its failure to do so. I have had two gin and tonics and I am typing on a desperate little mobile device so I am probably making no sense.

I had meant to say that poetry could be a way of preserving the past and the present into the future. However, even poetry can be ephemeral and, like Ozymandias (ironically, written of in a poem), be lost or destroyed. The quest to find the collected works of CT is a quest by the present or the future to locate and reconnect with the past.

Good luck to me to even TRY to spell ceasaria

Oh not bad!

I said CT, because I couldn't remember and couldn't be bothered looking it up.

They're exploring the "lost province of poets".

Jason (happy vacation, btw - and very impressive writing -- I couldn't have guessed about the gin and tonics or the mobile phone) -- I agree with you that people who refer to SD as about Latin American beat poetry are oversimplifying. They are probably simply following the equation poetry + road trip = beat.

I was reading some essays by Borges last night, and in one he is making a very strong case to consider Argentinian literature as part of world literature rather than simply as an off-shoot of Spanish literature. (And by world lit, I don't mean non-Western lit.) From other things I have read about Latin American literature, I think that many Latin American writers and poets have struggled over the issues you are mentioning about having a place in global literature. So, I would not be surprised if this is one of the goals Bolaño had in writing SD.

Ian wrote: "I had meant to say that poetry could be a way of preserving the past and the present into the future. However, even poetry can be ephemeral and, like Ozymandias (ironically, written of in a poem), be lost or destroyed. The quest to find the collected works of CT is a quest by the present or the future to locate and reconnect with the past. "

Yes, I couldn't agree more. And I think that part of that reconnection also involved recreating the meanings of those foundational works of literature to provide what present and future generations are looking for. In SD as in other examples, the past doesn't remain captured in amber - poets grow old, make different choices in their lives, their poems resonate differently with different generations of readers.

I think that in a way SD shows an attempt to understand the geneaology of a movement, just as if we're looking at a family tree of Visceral Realists. There seem to be parallels with attempts to understand different aspects of individual identity by tracing family members, understanding their stories, etc.

There's a recognition in SD that time moves on, but I am struck by the search for connection and reconnection that ties together the novel throughout.

CT's poem doesn't rely on words at all, it's just a series of drawings. They say a whole lot about the journey of life, but they can be understood by any reader, whatever language they speak.

There is a sense in which this reinforces Kris' idea about a world or universal poetry or literature or culture.

I read TSD as universally applicable, not just Hispanic.

The important thing is that they came much closer to political revolution in Latin America than the First World did in 1968.

I wish I’d read this with the group rather than by myself years ago on a commuter train, about as far removed from the lay-about poet lifestyle as can be imagined. Then I might have felt more of a connection. As I recall, I wished at the time that there’d been more hints about what their movement was all about. It seemed like they did a better job of claiming what they weren’t. Telling The Man he can stick it up his culo and maligning the more traditional poets only goes so far in defining you. What you propose or embrace as an alternative gives readers a lot more to go on. I think as a group you had a much better sense of what Bolaño, the infrarealists, and the whole Latin American literary scene was all about. I can’t help feeling that part of the appeal of a book like this is what we ourselves read into the characters and their milieu. As a stand-alone, I guess I didn’t think TSD sold that appeal as well as it could have. Bolaño probably assumed his readers had already bought it.

Now that I’ve read more of the background, I have a better idea why people like it so well. At the same time, I’ll attempt to defend that less enlightened earlier self who said it reminded him of OTR. (No worries, Jason, I’m sure my shattered ego can be swept up and pieced back together again someday.) For one thing, I hadn’t realized at the time that it was almost a cliché. But more than that, I felt like much of what lovers of either book feel is a romance for the road, open horizons, poetic grace, and an image of what’s cool about it all beyond any case the author had made for what the “it” is.

This one didn’t seem as good in a vacuum. Anyone who sees this comment, though, is presumably lucky enough to be in on the fun and detective work that this group is providing.

It helps if you were surrounded by Che Guevara posters in your youth and young manhood.

Steve, I wish you had a better experience too - I can see that reading along during a commute wouldn't be nearly as much fun or as rewarding as reading in a group. I also benefited a lot from other group members' expertise and research into the Infrarealists and Latin American lit scene in general.

You comments are making me think about my reaction to TSD. I don't think it bothered me not to have a clear picture of what the Virtual Realists stood for. You're right that the little bit of background reading I did on the Infrarealists helped - I think I had them in the back of my mind the entire time I was reading. I also think I ended up focusing more on the interpersonal relationships and the themes of self-discovery and change than I did on political or artistic values.

I like this a lot: "But more than that, I felt like much of what lovers of either book feel is a romance for the road, open horizons, poetic grace, and an image of what’s cool about it all beyond any case the author had made for what the “it” is." I think that what appealed to me, and what I keep coming back to, is the combination of the journey with the quest to connect or reconnect - the threads of relationships that criss-cross throughout the book. In the end, what's more human than searching -- particularly if we don't really know what we are searching for?

It's a bit like asking, "What are they dancing about?" The point is they were dancing.

Thanks for the reply, Kris. This is another case in point for why this group is so great. I like these other aspects you got out of the book that were quite independent of the movement itself. Now that I'm taxing my memory, I wonder if for me, the searching and connecting part that you expressed so well was something I took more for granted, and was personally more interested in a kind of artistic view of things that was (and may still be) something I'd like more of in my life.

This is part of what makes personal book interpretations interesting, isn't it? I suspect what you got out of it is more in line with what the other 5-star reviewers were seeing. My purview was more rudimentary, and not as enlightening.

Some thoughts from the Infrarealist Manifesto, to prompt discussion:

"Little bright stars eternally winking an eye at us from a place in the universe called Labyrinths."

Ian wrote: "It's a bit like asking, "What are they dancing about?" The point is they were dancing."

I always liked that quote about Richard Nixon playing the piano. Someone asked if he did it well. The reply was that it's like elephants on hind legs dancing -- doing it well is beside the point.

Not quite what your saying, Ian, but yours reminded me of it.

"These are hard times for poetry, some say, sipping tea, listening to music in their apartments, talking (listening) to the old masters. These are hard times for mankind, we say, coming back to the barricades after a workday full of shit and tear gas, discovering/creating music even in apartments, spending all day watching the cemeteries-that-expand, where they hopelessly drink a cup of tea or get drunk on pure rage or the inertia of the old masters."

"Our ethic is the Revolution, our aesthetic is Life: one-and-the-same."

"Rimbaud, come home!"

Ian wrote: "It's a bit like asking, "What are they dancing about?" The point is they were dancing."

This encapsulates the book for me.

And btw, excellent quotes :)

I read Rimbaud: The Double Life of a Rebel earlier this summer, and I kept thinking of it while I was reading TSD, especially in the African scenes.

Ian wrote: "It's a bit like asking, "What are they dancing about?" The point is they were dancing."
wonderful observation,if I may take it a step further...
the point is,we remain spectators, or join in the dance

@Kris The template for me was set when I was 15 and discovered James Ramsey Ullmanand his The Day on Fire about
Rimbaud, Verlaine and Baudelaire
also Byron and Shelly
forefathers and soul brothers

Magdelanye wrote: "Ian wrote: "It's a bit like asking, "What are they dancing about?" The point is they were dancing."
wonderful observation,if I may take it a step further...
the point is,we remain spectators, or jo..."

The point of the Cabbage Detectives was that we joined in the dance.

Some time ago, I heard how good The Day on Fire was, but have never seen it and understand it's very hard to get.

Magdelanye wrote: "Ian wrote: "It's a bit like asking, "What are they dancing about?" The point is they were dancing."
wonderful observation,if I may take it a step further...
the point is,we remain spectators, or jo..."

Thanks for the recommendation, Magdelanye! There are some used copies at Amazon, so I just ordered one. Ian, I saw some other reasonable priced used copies, in case you decide you want to check it out.

Ian wrote: the point of the cabbage detectives is that we joined in the dance

ya-hooo! we did....with our own soundtrack!

I'm coming in late in the game because of a couple of reading commitments. During my first reading of SD, I paired it up with another book which was mind-blowing in its concepts. This caused me to not notice the details and emotional punch of SD. My rereading of SD left me feeling sad about the poignancy of something that is lost.

I saw that there was a question of what the Visceral Realism was about. At the beginning of the book, there was a mention of the poems of Comte de Lautreamont. His poems were so intense and violent in their sensations, as to make things surreal. I guess the best comparison to real life would be when you've been through something real shocking, that things don't seem real. I think SD was written in a visceral way to reflect the surrealism of the intense real.

Glad you enjoyed this, Aloha!

Definitely worth a rereading. I'm seeing more things as I'm analyzing it and writing the review. Thanks, Jason.