The Savage Detectives Book

Although the novels of Roberto Bolano have been hugely popular in the Spanish speaking world for well over a decade now, until around 2009 his work had been sadly overlooked by both the English media and the reading public. However, once Bolano's wonderful prose was finally recognised, the establishment and readers embraced him wholeheartedly. Both of Bolano's novels that have appeared in English language paperback editions this year, The Savage Detectives and 2666, have been bestsellers and both have had awards and critical praise heaped upon them. Both are sure to feature prominently in the inevitable "Best Books of 2009" lists that will be making their appearances shortly. It is tragically unfortunate that Bolano himself didn't live to see the massive impact that he has had on the worldwide literary scene. While 2666 is certainly a massively monstrous work of genius, The Savage Detectives could justifiably be held up as the 'better' novel. Narrated in its entirety by numerous individuals, The Savage Detectives begins with the life of 17-year-old aspiring poet Juan Garcia Madero as he struggles to gain admittance to the Visceral Realists, a gang of roving Mexican radical poets. Madero eventually drops out of University and rampages around the streets of Mexico City with the Visceral Realists despite never being fully convinced of the merits of Visceral Realism as a revolutionary poetic movement. The novel then switches focus to present a series of interviews with various people based in diverse locations in North America, Europe and the Middle East who all claim to have come into contact with Ulises Lima and Arturo Belano, the founders of the Visceral Realists. Although each of the interviewees has their own opinion of Lima and Bolano, the general consensus is that they are a pair of literary elitists whose behaviour infuriates and alienates all those whom they meet. It becomes clear that Lima and Belano spent time in Europe where they frequented bars and camp sites and generally lived a debauched, bohemian lifestyle. While Lima ends up serving a short sentence in an Israeli prison, Belano challenges one of the many scornful literary critics to an absurd swordfight on a Spanish beach. The narrative is then taken up again by Juan Garcia Madero, now living in the Sonora Desert with Lima, Belano and a prostitute named Lupe. The group are closing in on locating an elusive poet named Cesarea Tinajero and are being pursued by a pimp named Alberto and a corrupt Mexican police officer. The Savage Detectives was described by Bolano as "a love letter to my generation" and it is a brutally beautiful tale told by a master of language who showed no fear in breaking literary conventions and scorning the mundane patterns of prose. For a darkly satirical tale of poets, pimps and prostitutes, The Savage Detectives is a surprising tender tribute to the literary underdogs, to those who run from acclaim rather than pursue it. Bolano was not reticent in mixing up his own mythologized life story with that of his characters and it is here with the characters that he clearly loved that the heart of the story lies. The Savage Detectives may not have such an epic and intricate storyline as 2666 but it is the far better developed and nuanced novel. It is impossible not to care about the Visceral Realists, however pretentious and irritating they may be. The Savage Detectives is Bolano's triumph as a novelist and is rightly to be acclaimed.

New Year's Eve 1975: Arturo Belano and Ulises Lima poets and leaders of a movement they call visceral realism leave Mexico City in a borrowed white Impala. Their mission: to track down the poet Cesarea Tinajero who disappeared into the Sonora desert - and obscurity - decades before. But the detectives are themselves hunted men.

The Savage Detectives : Paperback : Pan Macmillan : 9780330509527 : 0330509527 : 26 Jan 2010 : An exhilarating, must-read novel from one of Latin America's pre-eminent writers, and author of the acclaimed masterpiece 2666.