The Savage Detectives: A Novel
The explosive first long work by “the most exciting writer to come from south of the Rio Grande in a long time” (Ilan Stavans, Los Angeles Times), The Savage Detectives follows Belano and Lima through the eyes of the people whose paths they cross in Central America, Europe, Israel, and West Africa. This chorus includes the muses of visceral realism, the beautiful Font sisters; their father, an architect interned in a Mexico City asylum; a sensitive young follower of Octavio Paz; a foul-mouthed American graduate student; a French girl with a taste for the Marquis de Sade; the great-granddaughter of Leon Trotsky; a Chilean stowaway with a mystical gift for numbers; the anorexic heiress to a Mexican underwear empire; an Argentinian photojournalist in Angola; and assorted hangers-on, detractors, critics, lovers, employers, vagabonds, real-life literary figures, and random acquaintances.
A polymathic descendant of Borges and Pynchon, Roberto Bola?o traces the hidden connection between literature and violence in a world where national boundaries are fluid and death lurks in the shadow of the avant-garde. The Savage Detectives is a dazzling original, the first great Latin American novel of the twenty-first century.
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Additional Product Information
- ISBN: 9780374191481
- Manufacturer:N/A
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42 Reviews
| From: Amazon Posted: Jun 20, 2008 Type: User Review |
just couldn't get a grip on this book
This book wanders vaguely about with little to interest. I put very few books down without finishing them-this happens to be one that hit the used book store fast.
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 2.00/5 |
| From: Amazon Posted: Jun 13, 2008 Type: User Review |
Three stars for good writing
But I really could not finish this either. I just wasn't interested enough in the story or the characters to stay with a book of this length. It's like a Mexican beat road trip in the middle -- which is only interesting if you're into that...
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 3.00/5 |
| From: Amazon Posted: May 18, 2008 Type: User Review |
You never really know where its going to take you
Its an awesome book that keeps you wondering whats going to happen next. The way the stories interweave and the dialogue between the characters is great. The translation was extremely fluid. Oh yeah and in case you haven't figured it out its not...
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 5.00/5 |
| From: Amazon Posted: Apr 28, 2008 Type: User Review |
Are you kidding me?????
The best part of the book was the prologue....after that it was the worst book I have read in a while- rambling, name dropping, misogenistic and just plain awful!
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 1.00/5 |
| From: Amazon Posted: Apr 25, 2008 Type: User Review |
Icomprehensible!
Didn't get this. Too many characters, too rambling, too convoluted. Couldn't wait to finish it, threw it in the trash and took it directly to the dumpster.
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2.00/5 |
| From: Amazon Posted: Apr 16, 2008 Type: User Review |
Nothing Savage. No Detectives.
The only possible reason people are buying this novel by the thousands is that they're expecting it to be about, oh, about some savage detectives.
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1.00/5 |
| From: Amazon Posted: Apr 15, 2008 Type: User Review |
Struggled and gave up
I wanted to like this book--I really did. But I just couldn't make it through past the first couple hundred pages, despite being used to reading challenging books. I had the same problem as some of the other reviewers regarding being unable to...
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2.00/5 |
| From: Amazon Posted: Mar 31, 2008 Type: User Review |
just not that good
I just want to agree with some the comments posted. This book starts out pretty good but that middle section is boring. I have about 6 books I want to read, and I bumped them for this- a big mistake.
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1.00/5 |
| From: Amazon Posted: Mar 29, 2008 Type: User Review |
One of the year's best???? Please!!!!
I've always considered myself someone who appreciates good literature. So when this book was nearly universally acclaimed as one of the year's best, I just HAD to read it. That was a big mistake. Why this book received such accolades is beyond me....
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1.00/5 |
| From: Amazon Posted: Mar 19, 2008 Type: User Review |
Very interesting read
If there is ever one piece of literature that I've laughed the most reading, it is this book. It is bar none the funniest piece of fiction I've ever read.
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5.00/5 |
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