The Savage Detectives | 
panNot sure what to say. I really enjoyed the writing style of this. But the blatant misogyny and homophobia that is rampant throughout the book was just not cool.
I am surprised that more people do not talk about the excessive use of bigoted slurs and obsession this author seems to have with degrading women and with Gay men in general. I finished it but will not be picking up 2666 which is on my shelf already.
“Nothing happened today. And if anything did, I‘d rather not talk about it, because I didn‘t understand it.”
#AQuoteADay
I feel this quote is very 2020-USA. My first book by Chilean author Bolaño
I like his writing style, but the book feels incredibly homophobic, I need to look into this more.
panThe beginning section is fire 🔥 Unfortunately this novel is 650 pages (yes I read them all), and that opening with the visceral realists doing this and that, writing poetry and fucking about is not the majority of the book. (By the way, that part I just described is the really, really good stuff.) After that it descends into an illimitable stream of disparate first person narratives, which I just could not get into. That first section though!
Then, humbled and confused and in a burst of utter Mexicanness, I knew that we were ruled by fate and that we would all drown in the storm, and I knew that only the cleverest, myself certainly not included, would stay afloat much longer.
Attention all! No book in this post but I wanted to share my good news with my peoples. I got promoted to detective today!!!!!! Expect to see more crime scene related books in future posts. That is all, carry on.
pickA long, disorienting novel about members of an obscure group of young poets in Mexico called the 'visceral realists' that is as unique a reading experience as you can hope for in a novel. It's got an odd structure- three parts, 1 and 3 from the diary of a newcomer to the poetry group from 1975-1976, and then part 2 455 pages from countless POV's over two decades (1976-1996), all being interviewed about the 2 young founders of the group.👇
pickI'm not sure where to begin reviewing this wild and fascinating novel, inspired by Bolano's own adventures as a young Chilean poet in exile. Set primarily in Mexico City in the late 1970s, the story follows the "visceral realists", a school of poets unappreciated by literary society. I can't say I fully understood everything that happened, but this overstuffed novel has a strangely compelling charm.
Help! What do you do to snap out of it? I need to do some adulting and other reads and can‘t be just lounging around on the sofa staring at the ceiling, still thinking about the book, not willing to admit that I‘ve finished reading it and need to move on. Lol
pickWow. If at the end(?) of Cortázar‘s Hopscotch I felt like laughing at the utter absurdities of life, now, just like García M, I feel like crying and I‘m not sure why. This has to be one of the most intricate and polyphonic books I‘ve ever read. The story (is there one?) is constructed masterfully by so many points of view and across different timelines, each a story of its own, of shipwrecked souls, lost castaways in the midst of life‘s sea. ?
“In some lost fold of the past, we wanted to be lions and we're no more than castrated cats.”
Ouch! But that just about sums up most of the characters of this book, lost, desperate, aimless, like victims of a shipwreck, which is exactly what their lives have become.
“Life left us all where we were meant to be or where it was convenient to leave us and then forgot us, which is as it should be.”
“La vida nos puso a todos en nuestro lugar o en el lugar que a ella le convino y luego nos olvidó, como debe ser.”
As you can see Stewie is carefully reflecting on these words
“I knew then, humbled, perplexed, in a burst of absolute Mexicanness, that we were governed by chance and that we would all drown in this storm, and I knew that only the most clever, certainly not me, would stay afloat a little while longer.”
The translation is mine so I hope I didn‘t butcher too much the intent and existential beauty of the original paragraph.
“The method was ideal to prevent anyone from becoming friends with anyone else or to have friendships forged in sickness and resentment.”
Ha! I love Bolaño‘s style of writing. Perplexing and funny, an interesting read so far.
“... but this is attributable to my ignorance in literary affairs (all the books in the world are waiting for me to read them)”
And this book waited patiently 10 years on my shelf waiting to be read. Finally getting around to it!
pick#FreakyFriday book #2 from @zeljka This book is bonkers in the best kind of way. It starts out as a diary from a visceral realist poet, then changes to testimonies of people who encountered this visceral realist group over decades, then returns to the diary. It's quite a feat and makes me want to read more Bolano. I gave it 3.5 stars because I loved the diary sections most, but it's the shorter part of the book.
@monalyisha @Clwojick
This novel by the Chilean author tells of two men who track down an obscure, vanished poet. A violent showdown turns their search to flight. Have seen this book in the bookstores but did not have the urge to pick it up. Works well for those doing the read-around-the-world challenge.
#nuyear #savage
"I laughed again and dust rose from the books with the force of my laugh, and then I could see the titles better, the authors, the files where I kept . . ."
Maybe it doesn't work out of context but this seemed poetic to me when I read it. Sometimes we need an outside force to break up the dust and stagnation and let us see things better.
"But then, through the icy lakes of my eyes (the wrong metaphor, since it was sweltering inside Priapo's, but I can't think of any better way to say that I was about to cry and at the exact moment of "about to" had changed my mind, backpedaling, but that a distorting layer of liquid still glazed my pupils)."
Two poets in the 1970s go in search of a #missing poet, Cesárea Tinajero, considered the "mother" of the literary movement they're a part of. A rich, polyphonic novel that I do want to read again because I'm sure I missed so much the first time. But then I still haven't read War and Peace, Moby Dick, Bleak House... ????
#maybookflowers @RealLifeReading
#maybookflowers day 5 - #mexicanauthors
A little distracted; having a delayed May the 4th screening of Star Wars: the silver screen edition.
So I am super behind on all these #seasonsreadings2016 posts. This was for a #tbr one. It's my tbr shelf! But today it's #weneeddiversebooks ! If you squint, you'll see a bunch of Latin American books. Perfect for the #ReadHarder2017! I have plenty of Latin American recommendations if you need them. 😊
I just realized how few books I have set in South America, and I can't find any of my Marquez... 😢 #booktober
I'm a little disappointed with my sparse collection of not just #bookssetinSamerica but #latinamericanauthors as well. I definitely need to grow this category in my library, maybe some Borges and Mario Vargas Llosa to start. Any other suggestions? #booktober
pick****
Dizzying in its structure and multiplicity of p.o.v. characters. Not easy to categorize. Entertaining throughout and sometimes fraught with suspense. It may warrant another reading to see how all the puzzle pieces fit.
"...when I was in high school we had a teacher who claimed to know exactly what he would do if World War III broke out: go back to his hometown, because nothing ever happened there...but in a way he was right, when the whole civilized world disappears Mexico will keep existing..."
Now reading. I think I found something good enough to follow Knausgaard.
pickFrustrating, intelligent, engrossing, funny, depressing - an adventure through and through. Massive commitment, though. Took me almost three months!
pickA celebration of language and literature. It has this incredible flow to it that once you start reading you just can't stop.
"One morning I woke up in Athens and the sight of the Parthenon brought tears to my eyes. There's nothing like traveling to expand your horizons. But also to cultivate your taste."
Tavish: "This book reads like raw documentary footage. It's about two poets and a dropout law student who hangs out with them in Mexico City. The bulk of the book takes places 20 years after they take off and drive through the Sonoran desert. Characters in Europe, the Middle East and Africa tell their account of the poets. You don't get who they are in a finite way. It's more about the feeling of what happens to people after their youth."
My local book club's pick for August - The Savage Detectives by Roberto Bolaño. I'm struggling a bit with the length and style of writing, but enjoying it nonetheless. I bought this copy in Cambridge, UK ?
"Every book in the world is out there waiting to be read by me."
bailed
