Roberto Bolano's "The Savage Detectives" discussion
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The Savage Detectives
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Who are the Interviewers and/or the Savage Detectives?
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The disillusionment that arrives with growing up = the savage detective. The loss of youthful hope, the loss of wonderment about the world. The death of beauty. The end of thinking you’ll make a difference. The more we learn, unravel and uncover about life, about friends, about the world, the more clues we gain about the ultimate futility of it all. It’s cruel.
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I love the Wim Wenders parallel you mention above, Ian. I'm thinking through your excellent questions, and plan to return to the text to see what a second reading uncovers.I especially like your thoughts about the possible role of the detectives (including us all) to fight against The Great Vastness through creating legends, telling stories, weaving together memories.
Mary wrote: "The disillusionment that arrives with growing up = the savage detective. The loss of youthful hope, the loss of wonderment about the world. The death of beauty. The end of thinking you’ll mak..."
Mary, did you finish TSD feeling depressed? (Real question.) I didn't come out of reading it with quite so bleak a picture.
Kris wrote: "Mary wrote: "The disillusionment that arrives with growing up = the savage detective. The loss of youthful hope, the loss of wonderment about the world. The death of beauty. The end of thinki..."
No, I wouldn't say depressed, though I do tend to look at the darker side of things. Juan starts out hopeful and inspired...and Cesárea's death at the end seemed like an end to his illusion about poetry/art/life. It seemed like the beginning of reality in a sense, or "growing up". The interviews showing the slow and steady disintegration of that dream over a lifetime. Maybe it's just me.
I think your interpretation makes sense. I think I was focusing more on a passing of the torch from the founder of the Visceral Realists to a later generation. And the interviews, as sad as some were, seemed to me to suggest a creation of a new history at the same time that they represented the loss of youth. We'll see what a second reading suggests to me.
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What I admire most about Bolano is that, at a personal level, one of his motivations in writing his last works was to provide for his children.
I see this less as mercenary, than sustaining and inspiring.
Ian wrote: "This is a pretty good article:http://ambiguities.wordpress.com/2009..."
Excellent - I like the idea of the title working on all those levels at once.
Ian wrote: "This is a pretty good article:http://ambiguities.wordpress.com/2009..."
I'm still on part two so am among the uninformed. The off stage interviewer is shrouded by the dark gloom of an interrogation room. After reading the article, I loved the idea of a writer gaining their story by interviewing characters, both real and imagined, in order to write the complete story, of life, of a movement, of a culture.
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Mike wrote: "For what it’s worth: Google Translate gives us Salvages = savage, Salvajes = wild; my Spanish is minimal, and I’ll defer to Wimmer. It’s also not uncommon for a Latin American Spanish word and a Sp..."Hey Mike -- That was Ian's link. He's the superior link detective.
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For a while, I suspected that the characters in Parts I and III were the Savage Detectives and that they might have committed an act of savagery in the Sonora Desert in Part III.
I'm not convinced one way or any other yet.
Ian wrote: "Chance, you're actually in the best position to work these issues out, because you're still reading Part II."Ian, your group discussions have deepened my appreciation of SD. I've been a passive reader, waiting for the author to tell me everything, and am only now noticing how extra curricular activities can add to the experience.
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Mike's appreciation of Spanish literature has really helped me scrutinise some of my more intuitive responses. And I'm not finished yet.
The thing about Wimmer's translation is that it's like sitting in a hot bath. You just delight in being there in the moment, and only when you get out do you start thinking more analytically about the experience.
What I see while reading the interviews is an ambiance like Brando's part in this scene from Apocalypse Now - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LD0rU6...
One more day back at work tomorrow, and then I can concentrate on the interviewer questions.....
Part II - I'm feeling the reader is the interviewer, following on the trail of the savage, wild poets after they went interviewing. By giving readers the role of interviewer, we are being given a taste of the what the poets experienced as well as learning what they learned. That's where I'm am, 205 pages in. As an interviewer, I'm amazed at the light and shadow of honesty and lies.
Chance wrote: "As an interviewer, I'm amazed at the light and shadow of honesty and lies"Beautifully put, Chance!
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Ian wrote: "Bolano described TSD as a love letter to his generation. It's interesting that some of the things I've read today seem to regard his generation as a failure, especially to the extent that they were..."I think that some researchers and critics need to think about their definition of failure. I don't think it's a failure to stand up against repressive regimes for principles you believe in - and it takes enormous bravery to do that when these regimes are disappearing dissenters and the US more often than not is trying to stack the odds against the protesters for fear of communism spreading even further in the Americas.
Regarding Mike's review and the Andres Ramirez interview, I was given an impression that it's a letter that he sent to Arturo that's probably gathered as evidence, much as a detective would gather all correspondences as evidence.
Regarding "savages" as "wild", as a Spanish native speaker (Argentina) I'm quite sure the original ("salvajes") has nothing to do with wildcard ("comodín"). I'm really impressed at how English speakers appreciate this book in spite of the potential lack of information on slang and places in Mexico City. Unless you have spent a serious amount of time in Mexico (or the English translation comes annotated with great detail), the book is so full of nuances that I can only explain them as an almost autobiographical view of Bolaño's own time in Mexico. Just the colonies or places where the characters are interviewed or where things happen give great meaning to the experience they describe. For example the event at the Priapo's dance club was doubly hilarious (or doubly sad) precisely because it was in colonia Tepito. On top of this, the place is suggested by Julia Moore, who seems to live in colonia Las Lomas! Check http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colonias... for some of the "identifiable attributes" (or stereotypes) of some of these colonias. As I read, I have to keep double checking my knowledge of Mexican places, slang, and well known characters with my Mexican wife and I realise I'm missing half of the fun (and I'm not even considering the factor that these details have evolved tremendously since the 70s).
If you liked SD, I highly recommend Rayuela (Hopscotch) by Cortázar. Even the idea that the interviews in SD can be reshuffled and still get a similar experience, echoes Cortázar masterpiece.
Cheers!
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The interviewer is almost definitely García Madero. The line toward the end of part II when the interviewer asks the 'expert' on visceral realism about the poet, and the expert says he wasn't a visceral realist. Are you sure, the interviewer asks.
Mary wrote: "The disillusionment that arrives with growing up = the savage detective. The loss of youthful hope, the loss of wonderment about the world. The death of beauty. The end of thinking you’ll mak..."
Almost exactly what I got out of it. Though I'd add that the characters who maintain some level of "innocence," of youth, ie Belano and Lima are the ones making life choices most would call questionable. Because to make sensible choices or choices that tether you to an accepted lifestyle or career or a quest for "happiness" ultimately forces you to sell off those little bits of yourself--the poet, the revolutionary, the prostitute--that you once felt were your essence. It's dangerous not to compromise yourself and not always healthy. Look at Cesárea. It's cruel, as Mary says, but ultimately poetic.
Someone mentioned that Bolaño started writing fiction after his son was born in an effort to provide (like Belano). Yes, but he didn't become a stockbroker or an editor or attempt to infiltrate the literati. It's a dangerous tightrope to walk between the self and ambition.
So happy to see discussion about this important book. My personal interpretation of Part II in terms of who is speaking (detectives/characters/interviewees) is not as elaborate or deeply thought out as it is in this thread. I remember thinking that these characters are WRITING about their deep or ephemeral experiences with Lima and Belano as opposed to TALKING about them. I imagined someone, (Madero/visceral intellectual/literary historian/interested young poet does it really matter who?) asking each of these individuals from Jacinto Requena to Amadeo Salvatierra to write down their experiences with or about the two young and not-so-young poets as opposed to a straight-up-talk-to-the-camera-documentary-style interview.
I felt that each character and their respective passage was an entry into a personal journal. A journal that they knew would be read by the person asking them to collect their thoughts about the duo because it was important to his/her investigation. Part cold bureaucratic stats and part deep introspective reflection on what it meant to cross paths with the wild pair. An entry into a Journal with the given theme of "Lima and Belano." It is important that I describe it as a "journal" and not merely notes or a log of events because I felt that each character/passage was very candid about their experiences with the duo whether positive or negative. It can also be described as letters written to an individual who has asked (maybe insisted) that each person write down what they remember about Lima and Belano. In other words, I picture Amadeo, Joaquim, Xochitl, Hugo etc. sitting down at some desk with the nearly impossible task of WRITING DOWN their experiences relating to the duo. Maybe they were given a set of questions by the interested Madero/scholar/poet in order to narrow their focus on certain events relating to the duo. Or maybe they were just told "here's some paper, write down what you remember about Belano and Lima in your own words."
Each of the passages are beautifully written by Bolaño with what feels like a unique voice every time. But a voice that has had time to review what they were saying about the duo (or just one of them) and not in conversation where doubts and just the general fickleness of memory gets in our way.
Part of the beauty of Bolaño's work, in my opinion, is the feeling of utter realism he conveys to his readers. There is something about his prose that makes you believe that all the shit he writes about HAS TO have happened at one point or another just because the characters he creates are so vivid and feel so real. Im thinking Piel Divina, the Fonts especially Joaquim, Amadeo Salvaterra, Iñaki Echavarne. Each one is obviously a part of a grander story but each one also has a grain of wisdom that feeds into the symbolic poeticism of the entire work. Bolaño is trying to tell us something but he can only go so far because he has chosen to limit himself to the parameters of the speaker describing/recalling their own personal interactions and feeling(s) about the two of them. What you make of the subtleties and what is left unsaid is your business as the reader. What are humans for but to give meaning to people, places, and things?
I also agree with Nyki (commenter above, sorry I'm new to this) when she points out:
"The interviewer is almost definitely García Madero. The line toward the end of part II when the interviewer asks the 'expert' on visceral realism about the poet, and the expert says he wasn't a visceral realist. Are you sure, the interviewer asks."
The passage the comment is referring to is by Ernesto Garcia Grajales (pp. 550 in my Spanish-version of TSD). This passage does feel like a real conversation complete with interruptions and clarifications stemming from reactions provided by what one could only assume is the interviewer. So this blows my interpretation out of the water. Yet, I feel, upon revision of other favourite passages, that I will stick with my original interpretation of writing down the Lima-Belano experiences as opposed to talking about them. I come to believe that in Bolaño's interpretation of the world everyone is a writer in need of a pen and paper (or a computer with Word in this day and age). They just don't know it and need a little bit of will. Although he has repeated many times that it is extremely hard to be a "writer", whatever that means, it remains clear that the vocation of writing is a pathway to "LIFE" for him. Life with all its disappointment, glory, joy, depression, love, devotion, violence etc etc. Maybe that's why he was so fascinated by new and "raw" writers and their first novels. Maybe that's why so many people, myself included, have experienced the urge to write after reading Bolaño. The guy just makes you feel that each of your experiences, although finite at the end of it all, are important and worthy of attempted immortality. You know that you or what you leave behind can never be immortal and infinite because he tells you so; but you just can't help yourself.
Would love to hear thoughts on this. This is my first post on goodreads so apologies for the length of my comment and any faux pas I may have made without knowing. You guys all seem like a supportive bunch of Bolañeros so I'm sure its cool.
This is tied up in the question of the identity of the Interviewers (see the thread following Mike's excellent review).
Is there only one (e.g., Juan Garcia Madero, who is not one of the Interviewees, but I think is mentioned in the text) or plural Interviewers?
If the Interviewers are the Detectives investigating the crime, are they The Savage Detectives?
If so, why were they still interviewing so much later? Why did they allow Interviewees to ramble about things beyond the crime they were investigating?
Besides I'm not sure there needs to be an Interviewer or Interviewers at all.
Were these people just spontaneously relating events contemporaneously or subsequently, as in accessing their memories and the Legend that they had collectively constructed.
The book might have been an anthology of these collected memories, in a way similar to the poetic thoughts of the people in the Wim Wenders film "Wings of Desire" that the Angels in the film could overhear.
Perhaps the anthology is the work of Angels. Perhaps we are the Angels?
I started to think that Legend is a collective endeavour, and that all of our memories (I mean the memories of all of us) contribute to the Legend, like a collective consciousness.
In a way, the Book might be an exercise in Time itself organising itself, sifting out the gold relating to the Visceral Realists in the pan of collective memory.
The sifting process doesn't care in what order the golden memories were found, it's just finding them and placing them on the table for us to use as the ore of some larger refining process.
The participants and audience are all part of the process of creating and perpetuating the Legend (including us readers).
Is Time a Savage Detective in that, just as it preserves some evidence, it destroys other evidence?
Is there an analogy with Shelley's Ozymandias who thought his creations and legends could defeat the passage and ravages of time?
Perhaps the Savage Detectives of destructive Time are a negative force, they work against memory, they are what we are fighting against in trying to preserve Memories and Legends.
Perhaps our effort to perpetuate memory and therefore [our version of] civilisation is futile, like that of Ozymandias?
"Finally the Work journeys irremediably alone in the Great Vastness. And one day the Work dies, as all things must die and come to an end: the Sun and the Earth and the Solar System and the Galaxy and the farthest reaches of man's memory. Everything that begins as comedy ends in tragedy."
So for me, I'm not certain whether Time is a savage detective that destroys memories or we are detectives who wildly seek it out, trying to extend "the farthest reaches of man's memory" and defeat "the Great Vastness".