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Thursday, November 24th, 2011
¿Ustedes han visto Easy Rider? Si, la película de Dennis Hopper, Peter Fonda y Jack Nicholson. Más o menos así éramos nosotros entonces. Pero sobre todo más o menos así eran Ulises Lima y Arturo Belano antes de que se marcharan a Europa.
— Rafael Barrios
March, 1981
Here is something that needs to be done: a bibliography should be compiled from Savage Detectives. Ideally it would include all real and fictional works mentioned in the text, with page references and contextual notes. I could do this... Maybe not now, but.
posted morning of November 24th, 2011: Respond
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Saturday, November 19th, 2011
De repente sentà que alguien me hablaba. DecÃan: señor Salvatierra, Amadeo, ¿se encuentra bien? Abrà los ojos y allà estaban los dos muchachos, uno de ellos con la botella de Sauza en la mano, y yo les dije que nada, muchachos, sólo me he traspuesto un poco...
— Amadeo Salvatierra
January, 1976
Amadeo Salvatierra's voice is one I could go on listening to for a long time without getting tired of it. His narratives seem to me to serve a special purpose in the vastness of part 2 of Savage Detectives, in that they keep the enclosing story of Belano et al. searching for Cesárea Tinajero front and center in the reader's mind. Below the fold, some lovely commentary from Salvatierra, in Natasha Wimmer's rendering, on the subject (near and dear to me) of mistranslation.
 Salvatierra is showing Belano and Lima his treasured copy of the old Visceral Realist journal Caborca.
...Cosmopolites that they were, the first thing they turned to were the translations, the poems by Tzara, Breton, and Soupault, in translations by Pablito Lezcano, Cesárea Tinajero, and yours truly, respectively. If I remember correctly, the poems were "The White Swamp," "The White Night," and "Dawn and the City," which Cesárea wanted to translate as "The White City," but I refused to let her. Why did I refuse? Well, because it was wrong, gentlemen. Dawn and the city is one thing and a white city is another, and that's where I put my foot down, no matter how fond I was of Cesárea back then. Not as fond as I should have been, I grant you, but truly fond of her all the same. Our French certainly left much to be desired, except maybe Pablito's. Believe it or not, I've lost my French completely, but we still translated, Cesárea in a slapdash way, if you don't mind my saying so, reinventing the poem however she happened to see fit, while I stuck slavishly to the ineffable spirit as well as the letter of the original. Naturally, we made mistakes, the poems wound up battered like piñatas, and on top of it all, believe me, we had ideas of our own, opinions of our own. For example, Soupault's poem and me. To put it simply: as far as I was concerned, Soupault was the greatest French poet of the century, the one who would go farthest, you understand, and now it's been years and years since I've heard a word about him, even though as far as I know he's still alive.
↻...done
posted morning of November 19th, 2011: Respond
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Wednesday, November 16th, 2011
...el mexicano iba desgranando en un inglés por momentos incomprensible una historia que me costaba entender, una historia de poetas perdidos y de revistas perdidas y de obras sobre cuya existencia nadie conocÃa una palabra...— Michel Bulteau
January, 1978
I'm sticking to my idea that Savage Detectives is two books -- the first book is part 1 + part 3 + the sections in part 2 narrated by Amadeo Salvatierra, the other book is the rest of part 2. I love both of them but I am having trouble seeing much of a connection between them...
posted evening of November 16th, 2011: Respond
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Sunday, November 13th, 2011
Al dÃa siguiente ya no fui a la universidad y me la pasé platicando a diestra y siniestra con todos los real visceralistas, que entonces todavÃa eran unos chavos más o menos sanos, más o menos enfermos, y que todavÃa no se llamaban real visceralistas.
—Bárbara Patterson
September 1976 It is frustrating and surprising to find that there is no audiobook of Los detectives salvajes available. (The only Spanish-language Bolaño audiobook I see is Nocturno de Chile read by Walter Krochmal, which I expect is great.) The interviews in part 2 should absolutely be read out loud, and preferably by different people. It would make a great reader's theater, except it would go on for a couple of days...
posted afternoon of November 13th, 2011: 1 response
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Saturday, November 12th, 2011
Todo el realismo visceral era una carta de amor, el pavoneo demencial de un pájaro idiota a la luz de la luna, algo bastante vulgar y sin importancia.— Laura Jáuregui
January 1976
The text of part 2 of Savage Detectives is seizing me, is pulling me along, is making it difficult to put the book down. And I'm remembering what pulled me in last time around -- GarcÃa Madero's diaries are lovely, impressionistic reading to be sure; but they are mainly about him. In these interviews every voice is clear, distinct, fully realized."Interviews" is definitely how I'm understanding these clips of text -- they are not explicitly presented as such, but they read like they are compiled from tape recordings of interviews done by someone making a documentary about visceral realism -- Natasha Wimmer's "faceless interviewer whose presence is only hinted at by the tone of the many characters who testify to their involvement with Arturo Belano and Ulises Lima." Who is this documentarian? And what do the dates on the entries signify? They must be the date on which the interview took place. The identity of the person who spent 20 years on building this archive of interviews became, for me, the central mystery of the book, the first time I read it -- a mystery I was not ultimately able to solve. (It can't be GarcÃa Madero or Belano, as the first interviews are recorded in January 1976, while those two are driving around Sonora.) Speaking of mysteries and clues, one of the fun pieces of reading this book, for me, is tracking down information about the infrarealists, the poets whose lives and identities form the basis for many of the book's characters. (And also the stridentists, approximately the visual-art arm of the infrarealist movement.) I'm going to use this entry, below the fold, as a notepad for links about the infrarealists, updating it as I find good new information.
- Página/12 has a good summary of what real poet serves as background for what character in the book. Felipe Ossandón wrote an article for El Mercurio on Bolaño's early literary skirmishes which contains similar information. Another article is Quién es quién en Los detectives salvajes, at Lanzallamas.org.
- infrarrealismo.com is the central point for information and links about the infrarealists. It is maintained by Ramón Mendez, who is the background for the character of Pancho RodrÃguez.
- Juan Esteban Harrington (a Chilean poet) is widely considered to be the background for GarcÃa Madero, although he himself denies it, saying "GarcÃa Madero was all of us." Harrington wrote a brief manifesto for infrarealism. Ossandón's article linked above features some delicious reminiscences by Harrington.
- Piel Divina is the only poet who had the same handle in real life and in the book -- he is Jorge Hernández, a few of whose poems can be read in translation at Calque. Youtube has a recent video of Piel Divina reading poetry.
- The author whose traces Ulises and Arturo are setting out north searching for, is Cesárea Tinajero, the mother of real visceralismo, who Wikipædia tells me is based on Concha Urquiza, the mother of el realismo infra. Many of her poems are online at A media voz, also some early unpublished pieces in Margarita León's paper Concha Urquiza: poemas de adolescencia.
- At Caravana de recuerdos, Richard finds two articles by Bolaño about the Estridentistas.
↻...done
posted afternoon of November 12th, 2011: Respond
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Friday, November 11th, 2011
Escuché voces, me llamaban, a mi lado pasó el coche de Quim, vi la silueta de Alberto en el Camaro y de un salto estaba junto al coche en donde iban mis amigos. ... En esa sombra, enmarcada por la ventana estrictamente rectangular del Impala, se concentraba toda la tristeza del mundo.
There is a vivid quality to GarcÃa Madero's diary entries in these last couple of days that was not as much present, I think, in the earlier entries. At the beginning of the December 30th entry he says, "Today I returned to the Fonts' place. Today I let Rosario down." And indeed his character changes kind of sharply here -- he becomes more confident, more assertive. He is freaked out by having sex with Lupe in a way that his previous experiences don't seem to have affected him, not quite sure how to fit these two bits together but they seem related.And we are off to part two, covering 1976-1996, on a bit of a cliff-hanger!
 The author whose traces Ulises and Arturo are setting out north searching for, is Cesárea Tinajero, the mother of real visceralismo, who Wikipædia tells me is based on Concha Urquiza, the mother of el realismo infra. Many of her poems are online at A media voz, also some early unpublished pieces in Margarita León's paper Concha Urquiza: poemas de adolescencia.
posted evening of November 11th, 2011: 1 response
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Thursday, November 10th, 2011
Hoy no pasó nada. Y si pasó algo es mejor callarlo, pues no lo entendÃ. Getting to the end of part I of Savage Detectives -- I am wondering what to make of it in the context of the book as a whole. Part I seems to me like a Beat novel, like a Kerouac novel with some adjustments made for era and culture... I don't get a sense of a moving plot, more like a developing atmosphere. What are the qualities of this atmosphere? Sexual longing is everywhere; failure to connect with others (even with Rosario, who is making it as easy as I can imagine it being with anyone), insecurity/lack of confidence, hedonism. I'll be interested to see what role the Fonts play in the rest of the book; they are certainly the most enigmatic figures in this first section.
posted evening of November 10th, 2011: Respond
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Wednesday, November 9th, 2011
A question that occurs to me as I read GarcÃa Madero's diaries: Is he slumming? My initial take on his situation is, he's coming from a comfortable family background -- I can't really tell if his uncle is wealthy or just middle class -- but at any rate in a different economic class than the poets he is hanging out with. There are several scenes early in the book where his lack of familiarity with the street is on display. Not really sure how important a role differences of socioeconomic class play in this book but it is worth keeping in mind.
I was thinking about this while I read the December 7th entry, Jacinto Requena telling him about Belano's new wave of purges from the visceral realist movement, and it occurred to me that another way GarcÃa Madero is on the outside looking in, is he's not a published poet -- I get the impression most of the other poets in the movement have been published, and that GarcÃa Madero sees the movement as a way to get his foot in the door. When he asks Requena if Belano said anything about him, I can hear a beat before Requena replies, nobody was talking about you for now.
posted evening of November 9th, 2011: 1 response
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Tuesday, November 8th, 2011
 Making my way through part I of Savage Detectives I am being reminded strongly of a question that bothered me when I was first reading the book. The meat of the book seems to be in part two, which follows the visceral realists in their diaspora from 1977 - 1996; that is sandwiched between the much shorter parts I and III, excerpted from GarcÃa Madero's diary in 1975 and 76. I had trouble relating the two books to each other the first time around -- this time I am trying to keep an eye out for clues...
Another thing I wondered about: Who is the author who (in the fictional world of the book, in 1996) compiled all these bits of writing -- is it GarcÃa Madero? He would have access to the diaries of course. I am forgetting now whether the pieces in Part II are supposed to have been written by GarcÃa Madero or by the various characters. Another thing to look for hints to.
 In Bolaño Group Read news, Rise has a new entry at Bifurcaria bifurcata on Rodrigo Fresán, book thief -- Rise links to Fresán's 2007 piece The Savage Detective and his 2010 Notes toward the memoirs of a book thief, both translated by Wimmer.
posted evening of November 8th, 2011: 1 response
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Saturday, November 5th, 2011
 One of the most pleasant aspects of reading Savage Detectives, I am finding to be ease with which I can identify with the narrator and his scene, can picture myself in the crowd of real visceralistas and wannabees -- picture myself perhaps not as GarcÃa Madero, who is after all just a kid*, certainly not as Lima or Belano; but as a minor character, a walk-on. It is an escapist pleasure, I am taken out of myself and out of my immediate world while I am reading (and really, it seems worth pointing out that that is an aspect of the experience of reading almost any Spanish-language text for me).
Without even spending any time/mental energy on the GarcÃa Madera - Rosario sex scene (which believe me, could divert enormous quantities of both), it is worth considering how much like or unlike reading pornography this reading experience is. I'm going to assert that they are unlike in some key ways; but given first that feeling of imagining yourself in a character's boots (and, well, in his whatever) -- how will the distinction be drawn?
 *Hm, and all of a sudden I find I am casting blogging friends of mine in some of this book's key roles...
posted evening of November 5th, 2011: 3 responses
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