I'm not one for long books. Especially when they meander aimlessly and the length appears to be beside the point. But this one, which is both very long and very meandery, was definitely worth it by the end.
But where to start? At first glance it's structurally an interrupted diary, bisected by, well, I'll come back to that. The two diary segments cover only a few eventful months in the life of a young Mexican, Juan García Madero, a budding poet and recent recruit to a movement that calls itself the Visceral Realists. In the first part of this diptych-diary, Juan becomes increasingly entrained into the obsessions of the group and with the ardent poets that drive it, principally Arturo Belano (sound familiar?) and Ulises Lima. This culminates in a violent confrontation that forces the protagonists to flee Mexico City, and which bisects the diary.
What follows, and what makes up almost ¾ of the novel, is an extended series of seemingly disconnected narratives, mostly told by unique voices, frequently without any immediately obvious continuity. These cover the following 20 years, as well as a geographical span from South America to Europe to Africa. In this "section", the novel almost challenges the reader to do the necessary detective work to pull together the wildly disparate tapestry of tales and random interludes.
On the surface, these diverse monologues are by people who have met, however briefly, Belano or Lima. They're people who pass them on the street, encounter them working, have a minor adventure with them, or even deeper personal contact. But in tracing the outlines of their lives over this extended period, these sporadic fragments become (to get navel-gazing about it) a wistful eulogy on the vicissitudes of life, of its highs and lows, of the losses incurred along the way, and the discovery, sometimes accidentally, of purpose and direction. By the end, the lives of Belano and Lima have spooled out in the unexpected ways that lives just do, and both reach their own equilibria with that.
The above summary may give the impression of a completely coherent read, but you do have to hang in there to let it build - and I'm still not 100% sure I got the right end of the stick. The poets' quest, post-Mexico City, in the second half of Madero's diary - essentially to dig through the life of a Mexican poet lost in the mists of time - mirrors in miniature the reader's own quest in The Savage Detectives' long middle section, but I might just be seeing patterns where none exist. The parallels between Arturo Belano's life, and that of the Roberto Bolaño who's written it, makes for yet another layer of interpretation.
Anyway, all of which, given my pedestrian tastes, makes this an unexpectedly enjoyable read. Recommended if you're in the mood for something long, discursive and potentially profound, but don't come knocking for a crime yarn - despite the title.
Finally, and this is a flippant observation, for a book about poets, The Savage Detectives is almost entirely (and blessedly) free of poems.
