false 63033 21 The late Chilean writer Roberto Bolaño has been called the García Marquez of his generation, but his novel <i>The Savage Detectives</i> is a lot closer to <i>Y Tu Mamá También</i> than it is to <i>One Hundred Years of Solitude</i>. Hilarious and sexy, meandering and melancholy, full of inside jokes about Latin American literati that you don't have to understand to enjoy, <i>The Savage Detectives</i> is a companionable and complicated road trip through Mexico City, Barcelona, Israel, Liberia, and finally the desert of northern Mexico. It's the first of Bolaño's two giant masterpieces to be translated into English (the second, <i>2666</i>, is due out next year), and you can see how he's influenced an era. <i>--Tom Nissley</i> 2503920 book 1998 The Savage Detectives total:3337|5:1296|4:1025|3:552|2:294|1:170| 3337 12994 7242 901 5 63 false false Fri Jun 20 00:00:00 -0700 2008 Fri Apr 18 19:11:23 -0700 2008 Sun Jun 22 09:25:52 -0700 2008 more...]]> 5 25 false false Sun Apr 06 18:31:00 -0700 2008 Sun Apr 06 21:52:27 -0700 2008 more...]]> 4 11 false false Sun Dec 14 21:55:16 -0800 2008 Thu Nov 13 21:06:13 -0800 2008 Sun Dec 14 21:55:16 -0800 2008 more...]]> 5 11 false false Wed Jul 09 00:00:00 -0700 2008 Mon Jun 16 10:50:35 -0700 2008 Wed Jul 09 13:39:00 -0700 2008 more...]]> 4 12 false false Sat Jul 07 20:17:46 -0700 2007 Mon Jun 09 21:11:26 -0700 2008 like this book, really. I certainly didn't not like it. I just... just... I dunno, I guess I just didn't get it like everyone else seems to've. As I said somewhere else, given that everyone really lost their sh...more...]]> 4 8 false false Wed Jul 23 00:00:00 -0700 2008 Sat Jun 21 16:12:26 -0700 2008 Wed Jul 23 18:01:19 -0700 2008 The Savage Detectives is so different: it's a diary, then an oral history, then a diary. It is linear and non-linear (if I say it's so, it is!). It's about hundreds of people, but really about three: Arturo Bela...more...]]> 1 13 false false Sat Mar 28 00:00:00 -0700 2009 Wed Mar 18 09:48:51 -0700 2009 Mon Mar 30 05:03:40 -0700 2009
I walked around Mexico City for a while. And then I sat in a coffee shop and wrote poetry for seven hours. And then I saw a crazy poet I know and we argued about Octavio Paz. And then I read (name drop about 30 La...more...]]> 5 10 false false Fri Aug 28 00:00:00 -0700 2009 Tue Sep 08 17:33:48 -0700 2009 Wed Sep 09 09:57:53 -0700 2009 more...]]> 5 5 false false Tue Mar 03 05:00:48 -0800 2009 Thu Mar 12 07:08:19 -0700 2009 more...]]> 1 10 false false Mon Feb 04 09:29:23 -0800 2008 Mon Feb 04 09:49:40 -0800 2008 more...]]> 3 8 false false Thu May 22 00:00:00 -0700 2008 Fri Apr 25 14:53:50 -0700 2008 Mon Jun 02 13:21:17 -0700 2008
The largest section of the book, the first person testimonials, is by far the most successful. I fell in love ...more...]]> 5 4 false false Tue Apr 15 00:00:00 -0700 2008 Mon Apr 07 14:20:04 -0700 2008 Tue Apr 15 18:01:22 -0700 2008 The Savage Detectives is the type of book that gets better after you finish it. It is an artistic statement, best appreciated as a whole. You have to commit yourself to either the whole thing, or nothing, and it's not for everyone:

There is little plot, the characters a...more...]]> 1 4 false false Tue Apr 01 00:00:00 -0700 2008 Tue Mar 11 13:00:46 -0700 2008 Mon Apr 21 18:42:29 -0700 2008 more...]]> 3 4 false false Wed Jun 20 09:12:35 -0700 2007 Wed Aug 01 17:34:30 -0700 2007 more...]]> 2 3 false false Tue Apr 01 00:00:00 -0700 2008 Wed Feb 13 20:08:09 -0800 2008 Mon Apr 07 14:20:50 -0700 2008
The Savage Detectives is one of those titles I couldn't seem to avoid. When it was originally released in 1998 it won a slew of awards I had never heard of, and upon the release of its 2007 English language translation it was met with a loads of new praise. The New York Ti...more...]]> 5 3 false false Tue Nov 06 22:04:52 -0800 2007 Fri Oct 31 08:59:38 -0700 2008 more...]]> 4 3 false false Fri Oct 31 20:03:49 -0700 2008 Sun Nov 02 10:40:35 -0800 2008 more...]]> 0 2 false false Mon Dec 08 17:09:18 -0800 2008 Tue Dec 09 19:43:52 -0800 2008 more...]]> 5 2 false false Sun Mar 01 00:00:00 -0800 2009 Fri Feb 13 09:01:59 -0800 2009 Mon Apr 20 02:31:57 -0700 2009 What can you say about this book which seems – for me at least – to be more than just a book. It is written in the same pseudo-easy language as the novels by Franz Kafka or Haruki Murakami, it shows or quotes – like John’s Wife by Robert Coover – in the same kaleidoscopic way hundred...more...]]> 5 2 false false Wed Mar 11 00:00:00 -0700 2009 Tue Feb 03 09:27:45 -0800 2009 Wed Mar 11 08:20:05 -0700 2009 more...]]> http://www.goodreads.com/book_link/follow/8?book_id=6395254