I skipped posting for week 3, even though I was quite caught up with the read-along pace. The reason for that is that I found myself with not a whole lot to say. The second section is a lot of interviews with people who reflect on their involvement with visceral realism and Arturo Belano and Ulises Lima in particular. They had nothing to say about visceral realism. Of their own lives, their experiences were most often stories of being good for nothing vagabonds who engages in petty feuds with other people for unexplained reasons. But as I was only 80 pages in to the section, I wanted to give it some ink before I pronounced my irritation here.
Well, now I’m another 75 pages further into the section. Yup, I’m still not impressed. More of the same. Roman à clef it may be, that only makes me inclined to dismiss the infrarealist movement that Bolaño founded. Perhaps if the visceral realist poets in the book described what their movement was about, I might be more favorable. But they don’t. Hell, they don’t even have a coherent movement in terms of group dynamics.
My favorite characters from the first section appear very differently now. Instead of Quim and Maria Font being the subjects of Juan García Madero narrative, they give brief interviews about other people. Rather than the people I care about, I get Belano and Lima, or other side characters who never become interesting.
One review of The Savage Detectives on LibraryThing says the plot becomes apparent in the last 100 page. It can’t come soon enough.
