Roberto Bolaño's sprawling novel follows Arturo Belano and Ulises Lima, founders of an avant-garde poetry movement called visceral realism in 1970s Mexico City, as they set out in search of a vanished poet from an earlier generation. Told through a young acolyte's diary and dozens of testimonies gathered across two decades and several continents, it traces the wandering, often unraveling lives of its bohemian poets. It is at once a comic elegy for youthful literary ambition and a mystery about art, exile, and disappearance.
Books mentioned in The Savage Detectives (50)
The Red and the Black by Stendhal: “Librería El Mundo, on Río Nazas: selected poems by Byron, Shelley, and Keats; Stendhal's The Red and the Black (which I've already read); and Lichtenberg's Aphorisms, translated by Alfonso Reyes.”
Aphorisms by Georg Christoph Lichtenberg: “Stendhal's The Red and the Black (which I've already read); and Lichtenberg's Aphorisms, translated by Alfonso Reyes.”
Selected Poems by Ezra Pound: “Ezra Pound's Selected Poems.”
Aesop's Fables by Aesop: “two of the books on the first children's reading list were La Fontaine and Aesop's Fables.”
The Magic Mountain by Thomas Mann: “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 Misérables or War and Peace.”
In Search of Lost Time by Marcel Proust: “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 ... or for that matter, Les Misérables or War and Peace.”
Les Misérables by Victor Hugo: “or The Magic Mountain ... or for that matter, Les Misérables or War and Peace.”
War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy: “or The Magic Mountain ... or for that matter, Les Misérables or War and Peace.”
Death Without End by José Gorostiza: “Gorostiza's Death Without End, along with the poetry of Paz, is the 'Marseillaise' of the highly nervous and sedentary Mexican queer poets.”
On the Genealogy of Morals by Friedrich Nietzsche: “We talked about Nietzsche's Genealogy of Morals, how every time Norman reread it he found more and more points in common between the philosopher and the Nazis.”
The Betrothed by Alessandro Manzoni: “remembering a translation of I Promessi Sposi penned by Remigio López Valle ... published in Mexico in approximately 1930 ... Alessandro Manzoni?”
The Golden Age by José Martí: “Stevenson's Treasure Island and Martí's The Golden Age remained on all the lists, though they were books that the teacher considered most appropriate for adolescents.”
Treasure Island by Robert Louis Stevenson: “Stevenson's Treasure Island and Martí's The Golden Age remained on all the lists.”
The Tablets by Armand Schwerner: “beat poetry, apocryphal poems by bpNichol, John Giorno, John Cage (A Year from Monday), Ted Berrigan, Brother Antoninus, Armand Schwerner (The Tablets), lettrist poetry, calligrams...”
A Year from Monday by John Cage: “apocryphal poems by bpNichol, John Giorno, John Cage (A Year from Monday), Ted Berrigan, Brother Antoninus, Armand Schwerner (The Tablets)...”
The Underdogs by Mariano Azuela: “arbitrarily plucked from Lizardi's The Mangy Parrot, Mariano Azuela's The Underdogs, del Paso's José Trigo, the worst novels of the Onda...”
The Mangy Parrot by José Joaquín Fernández de Lizardi: “the furnishings and human specimens ... seemed arbitrarily plucked from Lizardi's The Mangy Parrot, Mariano Azuela's The Underdogs, del Paso's José Trigo...”
José Trigo by Fernando del Paso: “Lizardi's The Mangy Parrot, Mariano Azuela's The Underdogs, del Paso's José Trigo, the worst novels of the Onda...”
The Sorrows of Young Werther by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe: “He's the kind of fucking idiot (pardon my language) who committed suicide after reading Werther.”
A Night with Hamlet by Vladimír Holan: “Librería Milton, at Milton and Darwin: Vladimir Holan's A Night with Hamlet and Other Poems, a Max Jacob anthology, and a Gunnar Ekelöf anthology.”
The Lost Fire Brigade by Spike Hawkins: “Brian Patten, Adrian Henri, and another one I can't remember now. The Lost Fire Brigade, by Spike Hawkins.”
Manifeste électrique aux paupières de jupes by Michel Bulteau, Matthieu Messagier: “Ulises Lima's books were: Manifeste électrique aux paupieres de jupes, by Michel Bulteau, Matthieu Messagier, Jean-Jacques Faussot ... and other poets of the Electric Movement.”
Le Cœur volé by Arthur Rimbaud: “According to him, "Le Coeur Volé" was an autobiographical text describing a trip Rimbaud took from Charleville to Paris to join the Commune.”
Le Parfait Criminel by Alain Jouffroy: “The books Arturo Belano was carrying were: Le parfait criminel, by Alain Jouffroy.”
Astronomica by Marcus Manilius: “I stole an anthology of Marco Manilio's Astronómica, with a prologue by Alfonso Reyes.”
Santa by Federico Gamboa: “from which I left with Gamboa's Santa, a novel to give to Rosario; an anthology of poems by Kenneth Fearing.”
Robinson Crusoe by Daniel Defoe: “I felt like Robinson Crusoe when he discovers the footstep in the sand.”
Don Quixote by Miguel de Cervantes: “a face with a few wrinkles already ... the female version of Don Quixote, as Pedro Garfias once said to me.”
The Carmina of Caius Valerius Catullus by Catullus: “the aforementioned Catullus in a translation by Ernesto Cardenal, Jaime Sabines, Max Aub, Andrés Henestrosa”
Japanese Poems by Efrén Rebolledo: “His only virtue is that he was the first, if not the only, Mexican poet to publish a book in Tokyo: Japanese Poems, 1909. He was a diplomat, of course.”
Nueve novísimos poetas españoles by José María Castellet: “Librería Orozco, on Reforma, between Oxford and Praga: Nueve novísimos, the Spanish anthology; Corps et biens, by Robert Desnos; and Dr. Brodie's Report, by Borges.”
Corps et biens by Robert Desnos: “Librería Orozco, on Reforma, between Oxford and Praga: Nueve novísimos, the Spanish anthology; Corps et biens, by Robert Desnos; and Dr. Brodie's Report, by Borges.”
Doctor Brodie's Report by Jorge Luis Borges: “Librería Orozco, on Reforma, between Oxford and Praga: Nueve novísimos, the Spanish anthology; Corps et biens, by Robert Desnos; and Dr. Brodie's Report, by Borges.”
Diary of an Unknown Writer by Kan Kikuchi: “I stole an anthology of Marco Manilio's Astronómica, with a prologue by Alfonso Reyes, and Diary of an Unknown Writer by a Japanese writer from the Second World War.”
Ifigenia cruel by Alfonso Reyes: “There was Ifigenia cruel and El plano oblicuo and Retratos reales e imaginarios, in addition to the five volumes of Simpatías y diferencias, all by Alfonso Reyes.”
El plano oblicuo by Alfonso Reyes: “There was Ifigenia cruel and El plano oblicuo and Retratos reales e imaginarios, in addition to the five volumes of Simpatías y diferencias, all by Alfonso Reyes.”
Retratos reales e imaginarios by Alfonso Reyes: “There was Ifigenia cruel and El plano oblicuo and Retratos reales e imaginarios, in addition to the five volumes of Simpatías y diferencias, all by Alfonso Reyes.”
Simpatías y diferencias by Alfonso Reyes: “There was Ifigenia cruel and El plano oblicuo and Retratos reales e imaginarios, in addition to the five volumes of Simpatías y diferencias, all by Alfonso Reyes.”
Prosas dispersas by Julio Torri: “and Prosas dispersas, by Julio Torri.”
Mujeres by Eduardo Colín: “and a book of stories, Mujeres, by someone called Eduardo Colín whom I'd never heard of.”
Li-Po y otros poemas by José Juan Tablada: “and Li-Po y otros poemas, by Tablada.”
Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus by Ludwig Wittgenstein: “At the time I was reading Wittgenstein's Tractatus, and everything I saw or did only heightened my sense of vulnerability.”
L'Homme de désir by Louis-Claude de Saint-Martin: “he meant Louis Claude de Saint-Martin, author of The Man of Aspiration”
The Shining by Stephen King: “The bad guy in the movie, in The Shining, Jack Nicholson. That's right, the son of a bitch was writing a novel”
Books that mention The Savage Detectives (1)
An Unnecessary Woman by Rabih Alameddine: “The Savage Detectives required nineteen months”