Reading Roberto Bolano's "Savage Detectives" (1998) English translation (2007)* one of those essential, life-changing experiences. It is oddly true, what we read can alter our consciousness, expand it, deepen it, change it profoundly. That is amazing. Words on a page can be a life-changer. The power of story-telling. The magic of language to conjure up images, evoke feelings, trigger thoughts, open doors to another way of seeing, feeling, being. Can reading, totally, madly & deeply, giving oneself up to an exquisitely told narrative make us better or at least more human human beings? I do believe so. The best works can alter us fundamentally. Heady stuff.
This one is fascinating. 54 different narrators. There are peripheral characters, and primary characters, and the peripheral characters sometimes turn out to be primary, and the primary ones turn out to be peripheral. It's a mirror of our own lives.
In the pages you will find mystery, poetry, dirt, sex, violence, beauty, love, hate, the great cloud of unknowing. Like I said, a very overwhelming & profound experience. Life-affirming. Life-enhancing. Life-changing. Really.
Hat-tip to Patti Smiths' "M Train" - a mind train that goes to any station it wants.
