Bolaño is spectacular and lives up to all the hype. Trying to describe what happens in this book is futile, no review can really do it justice, because it's pretty shapeless, it's a collection of impressions, vignettes, and interpretations which, contrary to all logic, work brilliantly. I saw one critic describe this book as a form of mapmaking and there's an element of truth to that I think: it's a puzzle, a quest, and a commentary on the complex - sometimes futile - process of creation. But I also think it's a far more elemental book as well. When I think of many of the great works of fiction which we broadly term postmodern, they are often impersonal, even a cold (I'm thinking Pynchon, DFW, perhaps even a writer like Cartarescu in spite of how much I love him). The Savage Detectives is nothing of the sort. It's a book about being lost, about losing things, and, most of all, about disillusionment. 

Arturo and Ulises are lost, both in the sense that they're searching for something and constantly losing things, principally people. Their desperate pursuit of their visceral realist ideal, of Caesera Tinajero, of the mirage in the Sonoran Desert is a jaded vision and I have a sense that there's an implicit condemnation of the fascination with, of the stubborn attraction to grand abstractions and lofty ideals, so characteristic of youth in general, but very specific to a Latin American context where concepts like revolution, utopia, and differing forms of transcendence have long had so much currency. The intellectual and mental domains, the labyrinths, in which we are liable to go insane. 

Bolaño offers what I think is a counterpoint to this. In very simple terms, you could say the magic lies in the journey not the destination and Arturo and Ulises come to realise this perhaps too late (or perhaps not at all). I get the sense that there is a deep humanism in Bolaño's writing, an unwillingness to blindly condemn, and a desperation to deeply understand. Among the squalor and poverty, between the gunshots and seething resentment, he shows us that real connections are possible, that love can be found in the most unlikely places, that people possess the capacity to be kind and brave, even where human nature as a whole is a whirling maelstrom of insanity and violence. I think perhaps most of all though, he demonstrates how complex people are, his characters are so rich and textured, Bolaño's characters aren't predictable and the general haziness of their motivations, their obvious foibles, in some cases their fatal flaws, gives this book a rawness and emotional power which, at times, sweeps you away as a reader. 

Finally, the writing at times is exhilarating. All 650 odd pages of this book are great, but there are certain sections which reach that level of immortal prose. The obvious standouts are the sections in Liberia, Israel/Vienna, and the Sonoran Desert, but I think the initial section is flawless from start to finish and has some of the best, most evocative writing about adolescence and the early, passionate experiences of love, sex, jealousy, and self-discovery I've read recently and ever. 

It's tragic Bolaño died at 50, but I am extremely glad he left such a huge body of work.