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Roberto Bolaño

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The Savage Detectives: A Novel Paperback – March 4, 2008

by Roberto Bolano (Author), Natasha Wimmer (Translator)

4.2 994 ratings

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National Bestseller In this dazzling novel, the book that established his international reputation, Roberto Bolaño tells the story of two modern-day Quixotes-the last survivors of an underground literary movement, perhaps of literature itself-on a tragicomic quest through a darkening, entropic universe: our own. The Savage Detectives is an exuberant, raunchy, wildly inventive, and ambitious novel from one of the greatest Latin American authors of our age.

Editorial Reviews

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“An utterly unique achievement--a modern epic rich in character and event. . . . [He is] the most important writer to emerge from Latin America since García Márquez.” ―San Francisco Chronicle

“My favorite writer . . . The Savage Detectives is an ark bearing all the strange salvage of poetry and youth from catastrophes past and those yet to come.” ―Nicole Krauss, author of The History of Love

“The Savage Detectives is deeply satisfying. . . . Bolaño's book throws down a great, clunking, formal gauntlet to his readers' conventional expectations. . . . A very good novel.” ―Thomas McGonigle, Los Angeles Times

“One of the most respected and influential writers of [his] generation . . . At once funny and vaguely, pervasively, frightening.” ―John Banville, The Nation

“A bizarre and mesmerizing novel . . . It's a lustful story--lust for sex, lust for self, lust for the written word.” ―Esquire

“Roberto Bolaño's masterwork, at last translated into English, confirms this Chilean's status as Latin America's literary enfant terrible.” ―Vogue

“Combustible . . . A glittering, tumbling diamond of a book . . . When you are done with this book, you will believe there is no engine more powerful than the human voice.” ―Emily Carter Roiphe, Star Tribune (Minneapolis)

“An exuberantly sprawling, politically charged picaresque novel.” ―Elle

“Wildly enjoyable . . . Bolaño beautifully manages to keep his comedy and his pathos in the same family.” ―The New York Times Book Review

About the Author

Roberto Bolaño was born in Santiago, Chile, in 1953. He grew up in Chile and Mexico City, where he was a founder of the Infrarealist poetry movement. His first full-length novel, The Savage Detectives, received the Herralde Prize and the Rómulo Gallegos Prize when it appeared in 1998. Roberto Bolaño died in Blanes, Spain, at the age of fifty.

Natasha Wimmer is a translator who has worked on Roberto Bolaño’s 2666, for which she was awarded the PEN Translation prize in 2009, and The Savage Detectives. She lives in New York.

Product details

Publisher ‏ : ‎ Picador (March 4, 2008)
Language ‏ : ‎ English
Paperback ‏ : ‎ 672 pages
ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 0312427484
ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0312427481
Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 1.05 pounds
Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 5.4 x 1.2 x 8.15 inches

Best Sellers Rank: #22,793 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #2 in Caribbean & Latin American Literature
- #2,091 in Literary Fiction (Books)
- #3,061 in Suspense Thrillers

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4.2 994 ratings

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Roberto Bolaño

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Author of 2666 and many other acclaimed works, Roberto Bolaño (1953-2003) was born in Santiago, Chile, and later lived in Mexico, Paris, and Spain. He has been acclaimed "by far the most exciting writer to come from south of the Rio Grande in a long time" (Ilan Stavans, The Los Angeles Times)," and as "the real thing and the rarest" (Susan Sontag). Among his many prizes are the extremely prestigious Herralde de Novela Award and the Premio Rómulo Gallegos. He was widely considered to be the greatest Latin American writer of his generation. He wrote nine novels, two story collections, and five books of poetry, before dying in July 2003 at the age of 50. Chris Andrews has won the TLS Valle Inclán Prize and the PEN Translation Prize for his Bolaño translations.

Photo by Farisori (Own work) [CC BY-SA 3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0)], via Wikimedia Commons.

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Customers find the book easy to read and enjoyable. They praise the writing quality as brilliant, inventive, and passionate. The story is described as fascinating, poignant, and full of drama. Readers describe the book as thrilling, fun, and immersive. They appreciate the variety of characters, describing them as interesting and dynamic. The book provides insights and cool concepts that readers can think about. Customers also mention the humor as witty and ironic, showing the author's wit and elegance.

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Readability Writing quality Storytelling Character variety Enjoyment Insight Humor Length

50 customers mention "Readability"40 positive10 negative

Customers find the book enjoyable and engaging. They describe it as a hard but fulfilling read with many characters. Some find it interesting enough to finish, while others say 2666 is better.

"...Fantastic book...." Read more

"...The first section was brilliant. I can't say enough about it. Everything I've come to love in Bolano's work is there. Amazing...." Read more

"...I decided the latter. It is lengthy but, all in all, I think it is worth reading, for the different characters and settings it offers." Read more

"...This edition is worth reading for the author's comments in interviews on Latin American literature alone....never liked Vargas Llosa or Isabel..." Read more

39 customers mention "Writing quality"28 positive11 negative

Customers praise the writing quality. They find it brilliantly written, inventive, and unique. The author writes with a kind of muted passion that is captivating. Readers enjoy reading it in English, but it's far better in its original language. They appreciate the skill in engaging the readers' attention, beautiful passages, and the Spanish language being maintained while making it accessible.

"...It is a silly moment, surreal and poetic and farcical, but we know that at any turn it could become tragic and deadly...." Read more

"...For me, Bolano is an undeniable talent and extraordinarily gifted writer...." Read more

"...Bolaño’s language is simply electric and the frenetic way he paces the story captures perfectly the passion and angst of a generation of young..." Read more

"...It’s easier to understand the book, however, if you look at it! I liked it well enough to get the print version too...." Read more

30 customers mention "Storytelling"23 positive7 negative

Customers find the storytelling fascinating and poignant. They describe the story as entertaining, full of drama, and enjoyable. The characters and world are described as realistic, avoiding magic or mundane realism.

"...It is based on real people, but it reads more like one of Borges' inventions of books and..." Read more

"...based on real-life acquaintances of Bolaño, and the story seems to be somewhat autobiographical, though it's hard to tell to what degree...." Read more

"...He has an amazing storytelling ability--his use of conversation is mastery...." Read more

"...And there is barely any plotline or if there is it is very subtly told...." Read more

19 customers mention "Character variety"14 positive5 negative

Customers enjoy the variety of characters in the book. They find the characters interesting and dynamic, with more than 20 characters telling stories at some point.

"...Or maybe it's because the characters are so full of themselves, sometimes admirably but more often annoyingly so...." Read more

"...to gain the inspiration again, but to be able to understand the vast multitude of characters, and how such people can relate to the goings-on and..." Read more

"...are pretty powerful and entertaining and draw in interesting characters, locations and situations. Some are sort of bizarre..." Read more

"Roberto Bolaño was an interesting and peripatetic guy...." Read more

19 customers mention "Enjoyment"19 positive0 negative

Customers enjoy the book's engaging story. They find it thrilling, fun, and an immersive experience with rewards. The book is described as stimulating and challenging, with a masterful blend of adventure and bewilderment. Readers appreciate the author's inventive writing style and the scope of the story.

"...I find it highly addictive. Bolaño won himself a new fan, which will do him much good...." Read more

"...It is a silly moment, surreal and poetic and farcical, but we know that at any turn it could become tragic and deadly...." Read more

"...snippet (or at least nearly all of them) are pretty powerful and entertaining and draw in interesting characters, locations and situations...." Read more

"...I found this novel to be always interesting and often thrilling, with only occasional stretches that dragged on too long..." Read more

15 customers mention "Insight"15 positive0 negative

Customers enjoy the book's insight. They find the writing style engaging and immersing, with interesting descriptions and cool concepts to consider. The book is described as a smart sci-fi adventure that presents everything that matters. Readers appreciate the author's knowledge of detail from Latin works and styles.

"...Many of these pieces are perceptive and well written, but more than a few are virtually illiterate...." Read more

"...His knowledge of detail is most impressive, from the works and styles of a vast scope of Latin American writers to the details of street patterns..." Read more

"...it every day, because this is the sort of book that rewires the very circuits of your soul...." Read more

"...Lots of name-dropping, irrevence, irony, bawdiness. Who'd guess this could be done in a picaresque novel about poetry?..." Read more

9 customers mention "Humor"9 positive0 negative

Customers enjoy the humor in the book. They find it poignant and humorous, with a unique style that shows wit and elegance. Readers mention the book is cool for literary pundits who love showing off their own unique mannerisms and sayings.

"...It is a silly moment, surreal and poetic and farcical, but we know that at any turn it could become tragic and deadly...." Read more

"...in and out of one hundred characters with distinct voices and mannerisms and sayings, all interweaved with their own separate stories and emotion..." Read more

"...(some are better than others, but most are entertaining), anecdotes of humor, shock, and things you would never expect (There's even a duel!),..." Read more

"...It was funny and the characters really stood out very well...." Read more

12 customers mention "Length"7 positive5 negative

Customers have differing opinions on the book's length. Some find the structure compelling and innovative, with well-described individual episodes. The novel has three distinct sections, each describing the stories of different characters. However, others consider it lengthy, with the vignettes getting longer and more self-contained as time passes.

"...The innovative three-part structure of The Savage Detectives is a precursor to Bolaño's five-part 2666...." Read more

"...The stories become longer and more self contained as time passes...." Read more

"...The novel has three distinct sections. The first and third are narrated by a young visceral realist poet, the 17-year old Juan García Madero...." Read more

"...remarkable aspect is the almost "experimental" and sophisticated structuring of the novel: it begins with a first person account in which main..." Read more

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H. Schneider
Easy Riders and Invisible Woman
Reviewed in the United States on November 4, 2012
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Bolaño was a shooting star in the Spanish speaking literary scene at the turn of the new millennium. He died soon after, aged only 50.
He wrote 2 fat sprawling novels and a few short ones. This is the first fat one. It tells us about a fictional literary movement called 'visceral realism', which is surely meant as an antidote to magical realism. (Bolaño's real life thing was called infrarealism.) It is based on real people, but it reads more like one of Borges' inventions of books and schools and philosophies, rather than like something as banal as a roman à clef. I find it highly addictive. Bolaño won himself a new fan, which will do him much good.

It is partly like a coming of age cum road story, maybe as told by a younger Kerouac. That is so for the first and third part, which are narrated by a 17 y old would be poet. We hear about other juvenile big mouths in a bohemian milieu in Mexico City in 1975. The road trip of part 3 happens in 76.

The obsession with poetry and the absence of real politics surprises me. Another obsession is, more plausibly, sex, in a graphic and free spirited way. Much drinking and smoking pot is also going on. And book stealing.

Visceral realism? I can't say that I am particularly fascinated. Neither the talk about poetry nor the 'visceral realism' seems to have any meaning or content. No goods, just packaging. As time passes, we realize we are being had. This is funny. We just didn't notice.

The two 'detectives' are always talked about by others. They have no own voice. What they are being detectives about is the life of a poetess of an older generation. They are looking for traces, like manuscripts or print copies. This may be a particular Borgesian joke. The woman in question hasn't published anything, almost. She is the 'founder' of visceral realism.
The two are Arturo Belano, a Chilean, presumably an alter ego of Bolaño, and his pal Ulises Lima, in real life a friend called Santiago.

Part 2 follows the 2 men over 20 years in statements made by others about them. There is no linear narration. The statements go back and forth in time, they are short or longer, they tell stories or just opinions, sometimes just contradicting other narrators.

Belano and Lima travel to Europe and Israel. Their life is not exactly idyllic. Mostly they scrape by like tramps, with part time low level jobs, even with begging. Lima gets to know jails from the inside, and he manages to get himself evicted first from Israel, then from Austria. Then he goes hiding in Nicaragua. Belano stays in Europe, among other emigrants, until he is hired as a reporter and travels to Angola, Ruanda, Liberia.

This part 2, the main body, contains quite a few 'stories', all somehow involving the two 'savages'. The stories become longer and more self contained as time passes. Something like suspense builds, in a sometimes grotesque way, like with a duel on a Spanish beach.

Until Belano goes to Africa, there is not much concern with the 'meaning of life', but then this: 'The heart of the matter is this: is evil random or purposeful? If it is purposeful, we can fight it, but if it is random, we are f...ed.' (paraphrased, not quoted). My vote goes for random.

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J. Bosiljevac
A Messy, Fascinating Book
Reviewed in the United States on November 30, 2010
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Arturo Bolano and Ulises Lima, the protagonists at the center of this crazy novel, are the Jack Kerouac and Neil Cassidy of Latin America, poets based on Roberto Bolaño and his friend Mario Santiago Papasquiaro. Most of the other dozens of characters are also based on real-life acquaintances of Bolaño, and the story seems to be somewhat autobiographical, though it's hard to tell to what degree. It revolves around Bolano and Lima's quixotic attempts to create a Latin American poetry revolution with a style they dub "visceral realism."

The innovative three-part structure of The Savage Detectives is a precursor to Bolaño's five-part 2666. In the first and third sections, we have a single narrator, Juan García Madero, a university dropout who follows the trail of the visceral realists through Mexico City. At first, he is an outsider who has only heard tales of the visceral realists, but through the course of the first section he begins hanging out with them and learning more about what it means to be part of the self-proclaimed greatest movement in Latin American poetry--mostly a lot of sitting around in coffee shops discussing poetry, stealing books from libraries, dissing the poetry establishment, partaking in a bohemian approach to sex and relationships, and a good amount of drugs and drinking. Madero never quite buys into the hype, but nonetheless finds himself with Lima, Bolano and a prostitute named Lupe as they speed north out of Mexico City at the end of the first section, Lupe's murderous pimp and a crooked Mexican policeman hot on their trail.

The second section is a convoluted mishmash of snapshots of Bolano and Lima, from various narrators who knew them to varying degrees over a thirty-year span. Some of the people knew the young poets well, some vaguely, but what we get in totality are portraits of two wandering, possibly delusional souls. Their stories wander across Europe, Israel, Africa. They sleep on sofas, on boats, in caves. They are loved, admired, detested, celebrated and despised, depending on who is talking about them. This section is sometimes difficult to plow through, because although it's divided up into short chapters, each one offers only a small piece of a massive puzzle. It's an incongruous timeline, and there seems to be little rhyme or reason for the order of the narratives. In a way, though, it's more realistic than a traditional narrative. What is a person if not a set of disjunctive moments and memories?

The third section picks up where the first left off, flashing back to Lima and Bolano's desperate escape from Mexico City. Eventually the thread of the prostitute and pimp is resolved, but most of the third section focuses on the visceral realists' search for whom they consider to be the original visceral realist, an obscure poet named Cesárea Tinajero who lives in the Sonoran Desert.

The Savage Detectives is my second Bolaño. Maybe because of that, I didn't find it as stunning as 2666, although it shares many of the same elements and themes. Or maybe it's because the characters are so full of themselves, sometimes admirably but more often annoyingly so. But in the end I found their youthful spirits infectious. There is a scene where Arturo challenges a critic to a duel, and they stand on a beach with swords, awkwardly swinging at one another. It is a silly moment, surreal and poetic and farcical, but we know that at any turn it could become tragic and deadly. For me, that scene is distilled Bolaño. This is a book that has grown on me since I finished it, and I expect it will continue to do so.

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miguel
Buen libro, edición y precio
Reviewed in Spain on November 5, 2022
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Todo correcto

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Mohammed H
Bolano is Amazing
Reviewed in Germany on March 14, 2022
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There are mainly two things to talk about here. This book as a stand alone value in itself and this book in the whole picture of the works of Roberto Bolaño, I say the whole works as if I read all of his books. I didn’t- I’ve only read this and 2666! Although probably in the wrong order !
The savage detectives is one of those books that I can’t really tell what does the title have to do the content of book! There are no detectives in there and even if there were, they are certainly not savages.
This book is a plotless headless narrative that combines a huge assembly of POVs who vary in importance and number of appearances! The POVs take place all over the world basically, from Tel Aviv east to The Sonora desert west down to Chile and Argentina south.
Although the narrative here is headless and in a sense does not lead anywhere, it is still very compelling and rewarding nonetheless.
Roberto Bolaño first appeared in my life when I randomly picked up 2666 last year. One of the better memorable reads of last year. He’s very unique in that he’s prose is prone dragging. He spent a fifth of 2666 basically reporting horrific murders to the smallest terrifying details and made that readable. Challenging to get through but surely rewarding! That is the word actually - Rewarding- at times it might be difficult to get through his books but I now learned to trust his piloting skills to get me through the storm to a satisfactory conclusion.

Recommending this book is tricky, because this is a 5⭐️ for me. But you’re not me ! So I would say if anything at all triggers you or if you’re easily bored during reading or if you don’t like incoherent narrative this one isn’t for you.

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Pierre N. LeBlanc
Wild Poets in Heat.
Reviewed in Canada on June 11, 2015
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It is interesting, if I had written this comment as soon as I finished reading this excellent novel, it would have been less excellent. Some works require that some time pass between the experience of them, their filtering into existence to finally be expressed in words. Language after all is why this book is so compelling, it must be truly amazing in Spanish. In short, the reading is an experience. I came upon Bolano's work by way of D.F. Wallace and was not at all disappointed, though richer in "drama" this work also sidesteps narrative in favour of looking and taking the time to see something new. The way the landscape is explored through lists of street names was particularly effective at creating a sense of time and space of the city.

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manasvi
A must read but only for those who are looking for something intelligent
Reviewed in India on November 23, 2014
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This book is a must read, though I must caution the potential reader that if you go looking for a plot you'd come out dissatisfied, but if you are looking for an experience you might find this to be one of the best a piece of literature can offer.

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enthusiast
The best book I have read in a very long time
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on January 26, 2014
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I understand that hype can mislead some people to read something that is not for them so let's be clear this is an avant garde novel with an unusual structure and a meandering (to say the least) sense of narrative. A large part of it is made up of anecdotes by a range of people about encounters they had over several decades with the main characters, two avant garde and thoroughly disreputable poets (the savage detectives), one of whom is perhaps less of a poet and barely sane. These anecdotes, some extended, are thoroughly readable and each of the voices is distinctive and alive. Bolano's range here is impressive and he is adept at invoking a very wide variety of characters and situations, cultural and social, in masterful detail. He is a miniaturist of considerable skill. Most of these pieces are set in Mexico and Spain but we also have Israel and a number of African situations.

This long section of voices, anecdotes, is sandwiched between a straight narrative telling the story of a group of wild young radical poets in Mexico City and of the escape of the two main characters with two characters from the first part to search for a lost poet (who may not have written any poetry) from an earlier generation.

It seems only in a very sketchy way that all this - the narrative sections at the start and the end, and the long section of anecdotes in between - come together to tell a wider story but you do get a strong sense of time. And between the apparently disjointed parts you can slowly piece together the lives of the lead characters - as they age and as they go about their sometimes chaotic lives. By the end a wonderful portrait of them has been revealed.

The action includes vivid sex (the first part of the book is a coming of age story), playful discussion and not a little violence. The book is incredibly alive. It's characters are incredibly alive. I can't even begin to describe why it had such a powerful affect on me. Perhaps I feel a little sentimental about my own roughly contemporaneous wild youth? The period is caught marvellously. But it cannot be that alone. I find Bolano's writing enormously satisfying. It is complex and extremely rigorous. Yet it delivers and is extremely readable. I will read this book again soon and have no doubt I will find more in it.

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5.0 out of 5 stars Easy Riders and Invisible Woman

4.0 out of 5 stars A Messy, Fascinating Book

Top reviews from other countries

5.0 out of 5 stars Buen libro, edición y precio

5.0 out of 5 stars Bolano is Amazing

5.0 out of 5 stars Wild Poets in Heat.

5.0 out of 5 stars A must read but only for those who are looking for something intelligent

5.0 out of 5 stars The best book I have read in a very long time

Easy Riders and Invisible Woman

A Messy, Fascinating Book

Buen libro, edición y precio

Bolano is Amazing

Wild Poets in Heat.

A must read but only for those who are looking for something intelligent

The best book I have read in a very long time