Savage Detectives
May. 14th, 2014 11:15 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
pen_gruntI (finally) finished The Savage Detectives (Robert Bolano).
It's not that it was a bad book, indeed, I liked it very much. It's just that it's a tough kind of book to get through. It's not an easy read--there's no driving story. But that's kind of the point. It's a drifting story punctuated by these fantastic moments and weird things. Travel and sex and poetry and youth.
It's a modernist novel about existentialist Latin American (slash-Mexican, because Mexico is a large focus) poets.
If that doesn't sound like a pretentious book, I don't know what does. And it is pretentious. And there are a ton of characters major and minor that just jump into being the narrator without you knowing who the fuck they are. All you know is that part of their perspective will wrap around one of two young poets.
And it's so unbearably sad. I'm not sure that it's supposed to be that way, but to me it is. Youth is this hot, bright thing and the book spans thirty years. So you see that decay of youth; how purposes that seemed so noble and notable become so incredibly pointless.
Next is:
Love in the Time of Cholera
Kafka on the Shore
The Sixth Extinction
Some fantasy series a friend wants me to read that I can't remember...oh...Gentleman Bastard (the series name)
Let's hope that some of those go a bit more quickly. And I'm done with existentialist Mexican poets for now. Time to go into existentialist South American magical realism.
It's not that it was a bad book, indeed, I liked it very much. It's just that it's a tough kind of book to get through. It's not an easy read--there's no driving story. But that's kind of the point. It's a drifting story punctuated by these fantastic moments and weird things. Travel and sex and poetry and youth.
It's a modernist novel about existentialist Latin American (slash-Mexican, because Mexico is a large focus) poets.
If that doesn't sound like a pretentious book, I don't know what does. And it is pretentious. And there are a ton of characters major and minor that just jump into being the narrator without you knowing who the fuck they are. All you know is that part of their perspective will wrap around one of two young poets.
And it's so unbearably sad. I'm not sure that it's supposed to be that way, but to me it is. Youth is this hot, bright thing and the book spans thirty years. So you see that decay of youth; how purposes that seemed so noble and notable become so incredibly pointless.
Next is:
Love in the Time of Cholera
Kafka on the Shore
The Sixth Extinction
Some fantasy series a friend wants me to read that I can't remember...oh...Gentleman Bastard (the series name)
Let's hope that some of those go a bit more quickly. And I'm done with existentialist Mexican poets for now. Time to go into existentialist South American magical realism.
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Date: 2014-05-14 06:06 pm (UTC)I kinda remember Kafka on the Shore. I've read so much of Murakami that they kinda run into each other at some point. I'm curious to hear how you like them!
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Date: 2014-05-14 06:41 pm (UTC)I've only read The Windup Bird Chronicle by Murakami (and really loved it) so I imagine I'll enjoy this as well. But I'll let you know.
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Date: 2014-05-14 06:48 pm (UTC)I've read all of Murakami apart from 1Q84 (it's huge. I own a copy but just haven't found the time to sit down and read it at one time).
Windup Bird was one of the better novels. Norwegian Wood and "Hard Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World" are probably my favorite of his novels.
Thanks for letting me know when you finish it! I can't remember if you're on goodreads/we're friends on there as well...