MEXICANS LOST IN MEXICO

"DECEMBER 23
Nothing happened today. And if anything did, I'd rather not talk about it, because I didn't understand it."
—page 105, The Savage Detectives by Roberto Bolaño

Book 1 of The Savage Detectives is entitled "Mexicans Lost in Mexico (1975)." It could easily stand alone as a short novel.

The somewhat aimless wandering through the streets, bars, and homes of Mexico City on the part of Juan García Madero, seventeen-year-old poet and college student, drives the storyline. I make love to this storyline in the same way that García Madero makes love to Rosario or María Font. It is new. It seduces. I lie. We rest. I return.

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I think The Savage Detectives functions for Bolaño in a fashion similar to the way that On the Road functions for Kerouac. Autobiography blends with fiction. Story emerges from the self. If this is true, then it is interesting that the story casts Arturo Belano (Bolaño's alter ego) as a supporting character, and not an altogether likable one at that. And, what does that say about García Madero then?

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The Savage Detectives has been a good place to turn during health issues—a calm in the storm—when I am able to concentrate enough to read. The entry of García Madero quoted above describes my life right now, and that is okay. Not preferable, but manageable.