The Savage Detectives Reread: (Rereadings)

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.

About the Author :
David Kurnick is associate professor of English at Rutgers University at New Brunswick. He is the author of Empty Houses: Theatrical Failure and the Novel (2012). His writing has appeared in the Village Voice, Public Books, and the Chronicle of Higher Education, and his translations from Spanish include Julio Cortázar's Fantomas Versus the Multinational Vampires (2014) and work by Álvaro Enrigue.

Review :
[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.--Bécquer Seguín "Critical Inquiry" Incandescent . . . It's a work of living, electric, palpably humane literary theory.--Anahid Nersessian "The Chronicle of Higher Education" Named one of the Best Scholarly Books of 2022-- "The Chronicle of Higher Education" Thrilling. The Savage Detectives Reread is not so much a readers' guide as a sharp, playful, deeply poignant companion piece.--Josh Weeks "Times Literary Supplement" 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. --Lily Meyer "The Nation" The vividness of David Kurnick's critique somehow matches, and extends, the vividness of The Savage Detectives itself. His contextualizations, and the keenness of his perception, both open and anchor the book in new ways. A masterful reading that takes us well beyond any shallow fascinations of the Bolaño myth to a place of deeper appreciation. --Justin Torres, author of We the Animals David Kurnick's account of The Savage Detectives shows a glittering intelligence at work. His writing is fluent; his analysis, sharp; his engagement, passionate. His account of the politics of the book and its reception is clear-eyed and wise. His close reading of the text and his insights into its complex form give real pleasure and will delight those who love this novel and enlighten those who are coming to it for the first time.--Colm Tóibín, author of Brooklyn: A Novel How to read The Savage Detectives anew? By providing a fresh, comprehensive, and detailed close reading that engages with the specificities of the book's tantalizing idiosyncrasies without pandering to reductionist critical stances. Kurnick vindicates enthusiasm as a critical point of departure, a methodology almost, without succumbing to hagiography or fandom.---Héctor Hoyos, author of Beyond Bolaño: The Global Latin American Novel Kurnick truly loves The Savage Detectives, and his affection for its poet-protagonists and their fellow-adventurers mirrors the visionary empathy of Bolaño's most personal novel. Reading The Savage Detectives in Kurnick's company is like sitting down for a long conversation with a brilliant friend (mezcal optional)--an exhilarating mix of shared recognition and initiation into the fresh mysteries of Bolaño's universe.--Natasha Wimmer, translator of Roberto Bolaño's The Savage Detectives