The Savage Detectives elicits mixed feelings. An instant classic in the Spanish-speaking world upon its 1998 publication, a critical and commercial smash on its 2007 translation into English, Roberto Bolaño’s novel has also been called an exercise in 1970s nostalgia, an escapist fantasy of a romanticized Latin America, and a publicity event propped up by the myth of the bad-boy artist.
David Kurnick argues that the controversies surrounding Bolaño’s life and work have obscured his achievements—and that The Savage Detectives is still underappreciated for the subtlety and vitality of its portrait of collective life. Kurnick explores The Savage Detectives as an epic of social structure and its decomposition, a novel that restlessly moves between the big configurations—of states, continents, and generations—and the everyday stuff—parties, jobs, moods, sex, conversation—of which they’re made. For Kurnick, Bolaño’s book is a necromantic invocation of life in history, one that demands surrender as much as analysis.
Kurnick alternates literary-critical arguments with explorations of the novel’s microclimates and neighborhoods—the little atmospheric zones where some of Bolaño’s most interesting rethinking of sexuality, politics, and literature takes place. He also claims that The Savage Detectives holds particular interest for U.S. readers: not because it panders to them but because it heralds the exhilarating prospect of a world in which American culture has lost its presumptive centrality.
"Named one of the Best Scholarly Books of 2022" - The Chronicle of Higher Education
"A warm and patient critical revaluation of Bolaño’s novel . . . By attending closely to technical detail, Kurnick demonstrates the power of careful analysis to cut through mythmaking; by countering sloppy interpretations of The Savage Detectives with a thoughtful, historically conscious one, he demonstrates the importance of criticizing with one’s own background and biases in mind. In so doing, he provides an example of the power of criticism: At its best, it can cut through embarrassment and bad faith to give readers a clearer view of a writer’s world." - The Nation
"Thrilling. The Savage Detectives Reread is not so much a readers’ guide as a sharp, playful, deeply poignant companion piece." - Times Literary Supplement
"Incandescent . . . It’s a work of living, electric, palpably humane literary theory." - The Chronicle of Higher Education
"[This book’s] meaningful contribution to Latin American literary studies is to analyze Bolaño from the outside: outside of the commercial fetish with world literature and the critical fetish with challenging it. Ultimately, the joy of reading Kurnick’s book is that, unlike a sizeable portion of today’s literary criticism, it never forgets its object of study." - Critical Inquiry
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David Kurnick argues that the controversies surrounding Bolaño’s life and work have obscured his achievements—and that The Savage Detectives is still underappreciated for the subtlety and vitality of its portrait of collective life. Kurnick explores The Savage Detectives as an epic of social structure and its decomposition, a novel that restlessly moves between the big configurations—of states, continents, and generations—and the everyday stuff—parties, jobs, moods, sex, conversation—of which they’re made. For Kurnick, Bolaño’s book is a necromantic invocation of life in history, one that demands surrender as much as analysis.
Kurnick alternates literary-critical arguments with explorations of the novel’s microclimates and neighborhoods—the little atmospheric zones where some of Bolaño’s most interesting rethinking of sexuality, politics, and literature takes place. He also claims that The Savage Detectives holds particular interest for U.S. readers: not because it panders to them but because it heralds the exhilarating prospect of a world in which American culture has lost its presumptive centrality.
"Named one of the Best Scholarly Books of 2022" - The Chronicle of Higher Education
"A warm and patient critical revaluation of Bolaño’s novel . . . By attending closely to technical detail, Kurnick demonstrates the power of careful analysis to cut through mythmaking; by countering sloppy interpretations of The Savage Detectives with a thoughtful, historically conscious one, he demonstrates the importance of criticizing with one’s own background and biases in mind. In so doing, he provides an example of the power of criticism: At its best, it can cut through embarrassment and bad faith to give readers a clearer view of a writer’s world." - The Nation
"Thrilling. The Savage Detectives Reread is not so much a readers’ guide as a sharp, playful, deeply poignant companion piece." - Times Literary Supplement
"Incandescent . . . It’s a work of living, electric, palpably humane literary theory." - The Chronicle of Higher Education
"[This book’s] meaningful contribution to Latin American literary studies is to analyze Bolaño from the outside: outside of the commercial fetish with world literature and the critical fetish with challenging it. Ultimately, the joy of reading Kurnick’s book is that, unlike a sizeable portion of today’s literary criticism, it never forgets its object of study." - Critical Inquiry
Формат: Скан PDf
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