It is strange the way when I start reading something, all of what I do coincidentally relates to it. I hear people at dinner parties talking about it, I see it written in the margins of notebooks, it is mentioned in international symposiums I attend (that last part makes me sound really smart, doesn't it?) It is a name I have heard uttered so many times over the past month and a half.
Roberto Bolaño
The book everyone is reading is the Savage Detectives.
Why now, why is everyone reading this book? Is it because we have this strange obsession with Visceral Realism?
I think it is because this book makes anyone's life story interesting. We all just want to tell our stories right? To have meaning, make an impact on the world, isn’t this why we tweet, blog, let out our inner monologues out on facebook, without regard that it is insanely immature or an invitation to stalk.
It is just about these kids running around town, telling you what they did, who they have unrequited love for, what cafes they have gone to, which of their friends are full of crap, how many orgasms they have had, time spent interviewing each other and writing sub-par poetry.
Hidden in there though is a list of the who’s who of counter-tradition literature, surrealist authors, that some times sounds a bit name-droppy, but is really a primer of who you should be reading. (according to him at least, an original hipster of sorts)
The overall consensus being, I might bore you, but you will learn something.
I guess the same is true, for me, I might bore you, but you will learn something.
"Unrequited love is the only love I know, the other doesn't belong to me"- Cesar Moro
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