The Savage Detectives  

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The Savage Detectives (Los Detectives Salvajes in Spanish) is an award-winning novel published by the Chilean author Roberto Bolaño in 1998. Natasha Wimmer's English translation was published by Farrar, Straus and Giroux in 2007. The novel tells the story of the search for a female Mexican poet, Cesárea Tinajero, by two other poets, the Chilean Arturo Belano and the Mexican Ulises Lima.

Plot summary

The novel is narrated in first person by numerous narrators and divided into three parts. The first section, "Mexicans Lost in Mexico", is told by 17-year-old aspiring poet, Juan García Madero. It centers on his admittance to a roving gang of poets who refer to themselves as the Visceral Realists. He drops out of university and travels around Mexico City, becoming increasingly involved with the adherents of Visceral Realism, although he remains uncertain about Visceral Realism.

The book's second section, "The Savage Detectives," comprises nearly two-thirds of the novel's total length. The section is a polyphonic narrative which features more than forty narrators and spans twenty years, from 1976 to 1996. It consists of interviews with a variety of characters from locations around North America, Europe, and the Middle East, all of whom have come into contact with the founding leaders of the Visceral Realists, Ulises Lima and Arturo Belano. Each narrator has his or her own opinion of the two, although the consensus is that they are drifters and literary elitists whose behavior often leaves a bitter taste in the mouths of those they meet. We learn that the two spent some years in Europe, frequenting bars and camp sites, and generally living a bohemian lifestyle. Lima, the more introverted of the two, serves a short sentence in an Israeli prison, while Belano challenges a literary critic to an absurd sword fight on a Spanish beach.

The third section of the book, "The Deserts of Sonora", is again narrated by Juan García Madero, now in the Sonora Desert with Lima, Belano and a prostitute named Lupe. The section involves the "Savage Detectives" closing in on the elusive poet and the movement's founder Cesárea Tinajero, while being chased by a pimp named Alberto and a corrupt Mexican police officer.

Partial Character List

offers Belano a job of reviewing a law school journal.

Critical reception

Several critics have compared the novel to Rayuela (translated into English as Hopscotch) by Argentinian novelist Julio Cortázar both because of its non-linear structure and its portrayal of young, bohemian artists.

Elements in Common with 2666

2666, Bolaño's final, posthumous novel has many points in common with The Savage Detectives.

• Both conclude in the fictional city of Santa Teresa, in the Mexican state of Sonora, which acts as a stand-in for Ciudad Juárez.
• In the second part of The Savage Detectives, an author named Arcimboldi is mentioned. In 2666 he will become the central character Benno von Archimboldi.
• In a dialogue about Cesárea Tinajero, the year 2600 is referred to as "the year of misfortunes".
• Late in the novel there is a section where, 'Cesárea said something about days to come... and the teacher, to change the subject, asked her what times she meant and when they would be. And Cesárea named a date, sometime around the year 2600. Two thousand six hundred and something.'

According to the Note to the First Edition of 2666, among Bolaño's notes is a line saying that "The narrator of 2666 is Arturo Belano," a character from The Savage Detectives, as well as a line for the end of 2666, "And that's it, friends. I've done it all, I've lived it all. If I had the strength, I'd cry. I bid you all goodbye, Arturo Belano".