The Savage Detectives. Group Read Sans Moi

I tried. I really did. But, I abandoned The Savage Detectives on page 216. The first part grabbed me, at least better than the second part which had more or less random people giving snippets of their encounters with the central characters. Part One tells of Juan Garcia Madero, a seventeen year old poet relating his escapades with the two "visceral realists", Arturo Belano and Ulises Lima, who walked into his literature class one day. He is entranced by them, as any seventeen year old would be, but that doesn't make them any different than others who entrance him. Especially the Font family with daughters Maria and Angelica. Or, any other female for that matter.

When I heard the word savage in the title, I assumed it mean savage as in fierce. I didn't equate it with savage as in undisciplined. I found it impossible to continue with a novel containing characters for whom I have neither respect nor interest. Reading about life in the '60s and '70s, the wild antics of teens who know no boundaries and have no goals, reminds me too much of the fools with whom I went to school. What's so noteworthy about the lost souls of a few troubled decades?

I do respect that this is considered one of Bolano's greatest oeuvres (although I far preferred Monsieur Pain and I'm very much enjoying The Third Reich). I do respect that he is paying homage to Latin America and avant garde poetry. I did find great interest in this particular passage:

Joaquin Font, El Reposo Mental Health Clinic, Camino Desierto de los Leones, on the outskirts of Mexico City DF, January 1977. There are books for when you're bored. Plenty of them. There are books for when you're calm. The best kind, in my opinion. There are also books for when you're sad. And there are books for when you're happy. There are books for when you're thirsty for knowledge. And there are books for when you're desperate. The latter are the kind of books Ulises Lima and Belano wanted to write. A serious mistake, as we'll soon see. Let's take, for example, an average reader, a cool-headed, mature, educated man leading a more or less healthy life. A man who buys books and literary magazines. So there you have him. This man can read things that are written for when you're calm, but he an also read any other kind of books with a critical eye, dispassionately, without absurd or regrettable complicity. That's how I see it. I hope I'm not offending anyone. Now let's take the desperate reader, who is presumably the audience for the literature of desperation. What do we see? First: the reader is an adolescent or an immature adult, insecure, all nerves. He's the kind of fucking idiot (pardon my language) who committed suicide after reading Werther. Second: he's a limited reader. Why limited? That's easy: because he can only read the literature of desperation, or books for the desperate, which amounts to the same thing, the kind of person or freak who's unable to read all the way through In Search of Lost Time, for example, or The Magic Mountain (a paradigm of calm, serene, complete literature, in my humble opinion), or for that matter, Les Miserables or War and Peace. Am I making myself clear? Good. so I talked to them, told them, warned the, alerted them to the dangers they were facing. It was like talking to a wall. Furthermore: desperate readers are like the California gold mines. Sooner or later they're exhausted! Why? It's obvious! One can't live one's whole life in desperation. In the end  the body rebels, the pain becomes unbearable, lucidity gushes out in great cold spurts. The desperate reader (and especially the desperate poetry reader, who is insufferable, believe me) ends up by turning away from books. Inevitability he ends us becoming just plain desperate. Or he's cured! And then, as part of the regenerative process, he returns slowly-as if wrapped in swaddling cloths, as if under a rain of dissolved sedatives-he returns, as I was saying to a literature written for cool, serene readers, with their heads set firmly on their shoulders. This is what's called (by me, if nobody else) the passage from adolescence to adulthood. And by that I don't mean that once someone has become a cool-headed reader he no longer reads books written for desperate readers. Of course he reads them! Especially if they're good or decent or recommended by a friend. But ultimately, they bore him! Ultimately, that literature of resentment, full of sharp instruments and lynched messiahs, doesn't pierce his heart the way a calm page, a carefully thought-out page, a technically perfect page does. I told them so. I warned them. I showed them the technically perfect page. I alerted them to the dangers. Don't exhaust the vein! Humility! seek oneself, lose oneself in strange lands! But with  a guiding line, with bread crumbs or white pebbles, and yet I was mad, driven mad by them, by my daughters, by Laura Damian, and so they didn't listen." (p. 185)

This is one of my favorite passages, ironically penned by a man within an asylum. But, it was simply not enough to cause me to continue, laboriously, through a book I found with little or no meaning to my life. Richard gave me permission to abandon it if it didn't work for me. So begging his forgiveness, I threw in my towel, frustrated with my failed attempts to appreciate The Savage Detectives.

(There will be many more thoughts about this book throughout the weekend, but I'll be in Florida and unable to update my post with fresh links or respond to comments left here. For now, let me link to Caroline's from Beauty is a Sleeping Cat.)

Crossing The Bridge of Sighs by Susan Ashley Michael and Give-away

As I walked around the city, I let my eyes wander upward to a world of rooftop gardens, frescoes, friezes, and family crests that I'd never before noticed. That is how one morning I discovered Saint Martin carved in high relief above the door of a priest's home close to the San Martino Church. The soldier was stained by time, his sword and foot broken off and lost. But he was on horseback and didn't need his foot. And someone had cared enough to patch the white marble with resins to prevent further cracking. It was true: Every day something was lost in Venice. There was always something to be retrieved, cleaned, mended, and cherished. Once upon a time I wanted everything to be perfect and in order, but life isn't like that. Life is like Venice.

When travel writer Claire discovers her husband has been unfaithful with his Parisian lover, she leaves him to discover her own life in Venice. The scene of her throwing his elegant clothes into the lagoon from the side of the gondola is redolent of times that I, too, have wanted to rid myself of the past. As if simply throwing away someone else's belongings will purge that person from one's life. It isn't that simple, because in the process of forging ahead, we must also examine our own hearts. Our own wants. Our own imperfections.

Fortunately, Claire has friends in Venice. Her dear friend Josie not only bakes her delightful cookies (fregolata, the recipe for which is included with other Italian delicacies in this book) and makes her thick, creamy cups of cappuccino, she secretly writes a personal ad in the hopes of finding someone who can heal Claire's heart.

It is an unsuspecting Claire who thrills to the meeting of Max, with whom she quickly becomes entranced. And the more mundane Michael who introduces himself after seeing her on a landing dock? Who seems to truly love her? He is appreciated, but not adored, as he seems rather dull in comparison to the charisma of Max's passionate style. Whom will Claire choose? With whom will she find an answer to the fulfillment she seeks?

In her book, Crossing The Bridge of Sighs, Susan Ashley Michael reminds us to seek the truth in all things and beware of false beginnings. She also shows us the lovely parts of Venice which makes me ache to return to this city containing, amongst its many bridges, the Bridge of Sighs.

I am giving away a copy to one lucky reader; simply leave a comment with your email should you wish to enter the drawing. The winner will be announced a week from today.

A Lady Cyclist's Guide to Kashgar



I feel like I've just been living in Kashgar, an Islamic city located within the People's Republic of China, with Millicent, Lizzie and Eva. I've eaten the dates, apricots, melons and bread, drunk the tea, and admired the women who are wives of Mohammed living under his 'care' as long as they obey.

Elizabeth (Lizzie) and Evangline English have come to Kashgar in 1923 with Lizzie's friend, Millicent, to be missionaries. Millicent has brought her Bible, and strong intentions; Lizzie has brought her Leica camera to photograph their story, and Evangeline has brought her diary for it is her plan to write a book, A Lady Cyclist's Guide to Kashgar, which Mr. Hatchett has promised to publish.

On the way to their destination, in the very beginning of the book, these women come upon a young girl giving birth. Millicent is able to help in the birthing process, but the severing of the umbilical cord is construed by the bystanders as a murder. Now they must hide away, in Kashgar, until it is decided what should be done with Millicent.

And the baby? She is taken by Eva, named Ai-Lien, and loved with all of Eva's heart.

Interspersed between this story, are chapters in present day London telling of Frieda, a young girl with a sorrowful past. Her parents have been 'victims' of the 1970's: believing in free love, freedom from possessions, freedom from religion, and consequently find themselves free from nothing. Frieda feels herself being pulled away from the romance she has shared with married Nicholas, and drawn toward the stranger, Tayeb, whom she has found sleeping outside her door one night.

This novel contains everything I love: a multi-layered story line, a puzzle to sort through, travel to exotic places, and the issues of adoption, faith, and love. It is absolutely beautifully written, a novel that I read in 24 hours because I could not put it down. This novel will not be available until July, 2012, so I thank Bloomsbury publishers for sending it my way. I cannot suggest it strongly enough, and I know it will surely be one of my favorite reads for the year.

You can visit author Suzanne Joinson's blog here and her website here.

Sunday Salon: Looking To The End of January. And Beyond.



photo credit here

The close of January brings many things. My birthday on the 30th. My mother's on the 31st. The end of the Japanese Literature Challenge 5. Basically, there are 9 days left to read that one book of Japanese literature which qualifies you. Or, if you've read one book perhaps one book more...

I never seem to read as much as my fellow participants. Still, I'm pleased with what I was able to finish for my own challenge this year:

• Strangers by Taichi Yamada
• Inspector Iminishi Investigates by Seicho Matsumoto
• Villain by Shuichi Yoshida
• 1Q84 by Haruki Murakami
• Thousand Cranes by Yasunari Kawabata
• Paprika by Yasutaka Tsutsui
• The Buddha in The Attic by Julie Otsuka

How can one pick a favorite? Impossible! I loved Villain and Inspector Iminishi Investigates for their wonderful mystery, Thousand Cranes and The Buddha in The Attic for their mood, Strangers for the thought-provoking quality that still has me puzzling out the meaning. For that matter, so does 1Q84 which remains my least favorite of Haruki Murakami's books.

 

 

If you so choose, please leave me the title of one or two of your favorite Japanese books. I'd like to add them to the suggested reading list for the Japanese Literature Challenge 6 which will begin in June, 2012, as well as have them for my own reading pleasure.

 

 

Speaking of reading pleasures, are you ready for February?! That is when the Venice in February Challenge 2012 begins which I am co-hosting with Ally of Snow Feathers. It was her brilliant idea, and I'm so enthused about it I've already read Death in La Fenice by Donna Leon, Across the River and Into The Trees by Ernest Hemingway, and most of Pictures of Italy by Charles Dickens. When it officially starts, I'm looking forward to reading many more books and hosting a few give-aways. Also, Frances is going to join me in reading Henry James' The Wings of The Dove. We're going to read it in our own time, and post about it at the end of the month. Please feel free to join in!

 

Saturday Snapshot

I stepped outside to see how much snow had fallen in the night and found mysterious tracks adjacent to my reading child statue (left). I loved how they were caught in the snow, just my reader and some scurrying creature who passed her in the night.

(Also, the bella donna is back in my header. I missed her far too much to replace her afterall.)

You can find more Saturday Snapshots at home with books.

Death At La Fenice by Donna Leon

Commissario Brunetti is such a likable policeman.

Brunetti, for his part, earned slightly more than three million lire a month as a commissario of police, a sum he calculated to be only a bit more than what his father-in-law paid each month for the right to dock his boat in front of the palazzo. A decade ago, the count had attempted to persuade Brunetti to leave the police and join him in a career in banking. He continually pointed out that Brunetti ought not to spend his life in the company of tax evaders, wife beaters, pimps, thieves, and perverts. The offers had come to a sudden halt one Christmas when, goaded beyond patience, Brunetti had pointed out that although he and the count seemed to work among the same people, he at least had the consolation of being able to arrest them, whereas the count was constrained to invite them to dinner.

And, he works in such a beautiful city.

Brunetti walked up toward the hotel, still lighted, even at this hour when the rest of the city was darkened and sleeping. Once the capital of the dissipations of a continent, Venice had become a sleepy provincial town that virtually ceased to exist after nine or ten at night. During the summer months, she could remember her courtesan past and sparkle, as long as the tourists paid and the good weather held, but in the winter, she became a tired old crone, eager to crawl early to bed leaving her deserted streets to cats and memories of the past.

But these where the hours when, for Brunetti, the city became most beautiful, just as they were the same hours when he, Venetian to the bone, could sense some of her past glory. The darkness of the night hid the moss that crept up the steps of the palazzi lining the Grand Canal, obscured the cracks in the walls of churches, and covered the patches of plaster missing from the facades of public buildings. Like many women of a certain age, the city needed the help of deceptive light to recapture her vanished beauty.

This was a wonderful novel of mystery, uncovering the reasons behind the death of a famous maestro, who was discovered bent backward from poisoning after the intermission of Traviata. Donna Leon writes of her characters vividly and her mystery masterfully. I especially enjoyed the vicarious trip to Venice upon each page.

I highly recommend this for the Venice in February Challenge to come.

Even though the kitties were ready

 

to help take down Christmas, I was not.

I'm thinking that the origami I made from the printed word could quite possibly be snowflakes for January...

if you use your imagination.

Sunday Salon: The Library Phantom

Thanks to my good friend Kevin, I was alerted to the fact that there has been a library phantom at the Scottish Poetry Library in Edinburgh. Apparently, a librarian was walking through a reading room when she came upon this:

followed by this:

with these words:

"'This is for you in support of libraries, books, words, ideas...' said a note, addressed to the Library by its twitter name "@ByLeavesWeLive". There was no artist signature, no one to thank. The staff, totally nonplussed, asked on their blog if anybody knew who made it. They described the gift as a "poetree" and waited. Nobody claimed authorship."

Then, at the National Library of Scotland, there appeared this:

"The scene was carved from a book, a mystery novel by Ian Rankin, one of Britain's bestselling crime writers. It seemed like a visual pun, because the book's title was Exit Music."

The mystery deepened when in one of Edinburgh's local movie theaters there appeared these:

Next, there was a dragon at the Scottish Storytelling Centre:

then two more scuptures at the Edinburgh International Book Festival:

The final scupture was found at the Central Lending Library:

 

Perhaps one of the most interesting things of all is that the artist's identity remains a secret. A fitting solution to a perfect mystery, in my opinion.

(Of course, don't forget to view the Joy of Books animation here.)

The Savage Detectives...Do Not Be Discouraged

If you're like me and want to read like Richard, Parrish, Stu and Frances when you grow up, you might have to obtain some books which are beyond your general purview. Books like A Void by Georges Perec. Parallel Stories by Peter Nadas. And The Savage Detectives by Roberto Bolano.

I was all excited when I found The Savage Detectives in our local library. I went out late in the night to get it, as a matter of fact, while still on Christmas vacation. I eagerly opened the first page, read about ten more, and threw up my hands in despair. Stymied, again. (Like the first time I read something by Haruki Murakami.) Faced with terms I couldn't define (such as visceral realism), countries I've never visited, and authors or poets I've never read before, I felt at such a disadvantage that I put the book on my return-to-the-library pile and hoped to forget about my failure.

Until Richard emailed me back. Among other comforting words, he left me this paragraph which helps immensely:

Anyway, the first and third parts of The Savage Detectives (the ones written in a diary format) are kind of traditional in the sense that they become plot-driven with a more or less linear trajectory.  The crazy cast of characters and all the writer talk is often over the top, so it may be hard to decipher at all times when Bolaño is mocking or telling truths through the narrator.  One important thing to be aware of is that the narrator is a teenager who is in effect describing a certain time period in Bolaño's own life in mid-1970s Mexico City.  The Belano and Ulisses Lima characters are fictionalized versions of Bolaño and his best friend, the poet Mario Santiago, who along with many of the other characters in the novel, belonged to a group called the infrarrealistas; these poets, dropouts, artists, etc. terrorized poetry readings much like the visceral realists do in the book.  This was a generation of bohemians still influenced by '60s youth culture, and the story the narrator tells is in large part a coming of age story set against this countercultural environment.

I picked up the novel again last night, determined to proceed, and now find myself near page 100 eager to get back to the story tonight after work. So:

1. Thank you, Richard.
2. Don't be discouraged other readers, if you were, because there's hope.
3. I'm now looking forward to the discussion at the end of the month.