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    #26
    Well, this thread is funny to me for two reasons. First, early on Sam and Inca still exist as posters yet I started the thread and listed as a Guest. Second, I ordered the book and followed Inca's advice but forgetting about his advice. My cousin recommended Savage Detectives many years ago and I forgot that the missus bought that book based on his recommendation. She didn't dig it, but at some point I shifted to reading novels during my commute and pulled Savage Detectives off the shelf. I loved it. I had ordered the paperback for 2666 since it's broken up into different parts (much easier to carry in an already heavy backpack). But I have had no time to get to it. The plan was to start after I finished some other reading for a research project and then COVID hit. But I'm glad to see the positive reviews in this thread so will keep it on the top of the pile whenever I start commuting again: perhaps 2022???????.

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      #27
      Well into "Hopscotch" by Julio Cortazar now, really enjoying it. Like reading a book of a film by Jean Luc Goddard and easy to see the influence on Bolano. Hate to define it this way, but a real man's novel, much like Bolano.Some really difficult sections to read in English, so I'd advise Sam to give it a miss in Spanish. The translation is amazing.

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        #28
        Interesting, cheers steveeeeeeeee. I've read some Cort?zar in Spanish, but that was just a single story called Casa tomada, about a couple living in an old house in Buenos Aires who one day realise that squatters have moved into their front room, so ... well you'll have to read it to find out, but it's exactly the sort of political allegory for Argentina in the twentieth century that it sounds like. Google tells me it's called 'House Taken Over' in English, and I recommend it if you can find it. My girlfriend and I found an edition of it – just this one story – which had just a few words on each page, with the plan of the house on each page, which gets steadily blacked out as you read on. We gave it to her brother, but not before I'd read it.

        I have read Blow Up and other stories as well, but think that was in English, although I can't remember. It might have been in Spanish.

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          #29
          Originally posted by Sam View Post
          , but think that was in English, although I can't remember. It might have been in Spanish.
          Haha, miss that feeling when you're living in a foreign country. What language did I speak to that person in last night?

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            #30
            Haha! I can't actually remember whether I read it before or after I moved here, but I think it was while I was living here.

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              #31
              Originally posted by danielmak View Post
              Well, this thread is funny to me for two reasons. First, early on Sam and Inca still exist as posters yet I started the thread and listed as a Guest. Second, I ordered the book and followed Inca's advice but forgetting about his advice. My cousin recommended Savage Detectives many years ago and I forgot that the missus bought that book based on his recommendation. She didn't dig it, but at some point I shifted to reading novels during my commute and pulled Savage Detectives off the shelf. I loved it. I had ordered the paperback for 2666 since it's broken up into different parts (much easier to carry in an already heavy backpack). But I have had no time to get to it. The plan was to start after I finished some other reading for a research project and then COVID hit. But I'm glad to see the positive reviews in this thread so will keep it on the top of the pile whenever I start commuting again: perhaps 2022???????.
              Replying to my own post to note that I finally started 2666 last week. I'm about 50 pages in. I had been in a football book mood so my cynical 2022 prediction was off in terms of my return to commuting and when I would start this book. So far I am enjoying it but I can't see that I am going to read the entire book in one go. The paperback split into 3 means I will probably read the first, go back to a couple football books and then come back. I'll update the thread in 3 years.

              EDIT: And reading back through this thread, there is a post attributed to me that wasn't written by me. At first, I started questioning if I had started the book and then put it down and forgot. But I've never read anything from Roth, so the OTF site transfer did some crazy stuff to this thread.
              Last edited by danielmak; 03-02-2023, 05:23.

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                #32
                Could be another guest poster?

                Anyway, I can safely say that 2666 is the book I think about more than any other, 3 years after reading it. It definitely changed my view on humanity.

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                  #33
                  Yes, has to be another 'Guest' poster, especially since that post also says they've started reading 2666, which danielmak has only just started. Bear in mind, danielmak, that Guest posters always show up with our own Location, Favourite Teams, Biscuit etc. below the 'Guest' name, so if you're assuming it's attributed to you because of that, don't worry. If you were looking at the thread over my shoulder right now you'd see those same posts with my profile details rather than yours.

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                    #34
                    Sam Ah, interesting. Thanks for clarifying.

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                      #35
                      Originally posted by danielmak View Post
                      Well, this thread is funny to me for two reasons. First, early on Sam and Inca still exist as posters yet I started the thread and listed as a Guest.
                      The details appearing on my screen have my usual team preferences listed under the name of whoever started the thread. I know its not one I started in a previous OTF life. The same thing occurs on a few posts and its a bit weird. If its you that started it do your team preferences etc appear beneath the "Guest" name on your screen?
                      When I first noticed this stuff occurring I thought I was losing my mind. Some of my previous posts under a different ID were as Guest but definitely my drivel and other posts were concerning books, films and subjects I knew nothing about.

                      edit: I should've read all the way through the thread. Sorry.

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                        #36
                        In business terms, I will close the loop. Finally finished the book. Only read it during commute time and a few other random times (waiting in the dentist office, that kind of thing). I think the general story was interesting and certainly taps into a relatively recent and continuing problem with gendered violence in Northern Mexico. I had read Savage Detectives and I like the way this novel repeats the weaving of characters that mirrored Savage Detectives. As I wrote above, I went with the paperback since it's busted up into 3 books versus one large hardback. Much easier on the shoulders when carrying in a backpack loaded with other work junk. The third book had way too much bloat. It's the first time in my life that I have found myself either skimming or skipping 20-30 pages and that move having no effect on my understanding of the plotline. That's a lot to skim/skip. I wonder if an editor would have pressured him to trim the fat had the book been edited while he was alive. In the end, I enjoyed Savage Detectives a lot more than 2666 but glad I read it.

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                          #37
                          I'm guessing the 3rd book contained The Part about the Crimes and The Part about Archimboldi, and you skipped large parts of the crimes? If so, it was one of the hardest reads I've ever put myself through - totally unrelenting in its grim descriptions of repeated femicides. But that's the genius of that section, I believe Bolano wants to you to become numb to the descriptions, maybe he even wants you to skip pages and pretend it's not there. Isn't that the whole message of the book, turn your head, deny atrocity is before your very eyes? Whether that atrocity is in Santa Teresa, Stalinist Russia or Nazi Germany, we are all complicit if we are lucky enough to not be victims.

                          I also enjoyed Savage Detectives way more than 2666, but Savage Detectives is a mad, long, enjoyable and anarchic road trip around Mexico City and Catalonia. Whereas 2666 is possibly the best comment on humanity I have ever read.

                          On separate note, I had to go to Mexico City for a few days last week to start my new job. Loved it the second time as much as the first and decided to visit Cafe la Habana, where Bolano would meet up with his fellow Infrarealists. It was a lovely, old-school cafe, I had a nice "Habana Club" sandwich and a couple of Bohemia Clara beers. I'd post a picture, but I've got issues with my Google One account payment, so I'm blocked from Google Photos until I sort it out.
                          Last edited by steveeeeeeeee; 25-04-2023, 18:00.

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                            #38
                            steveeeeeeeee The paperback third book is about Archimboldi as a kid, off to war, then becoming Archimboldi, then his sister, her kid (who is in prison in Mexico). It was the stuff about the war that dragged on and on and seemed irrelevant. By the stuff about the war, I mean the mundane stuff about guarding the castle, about being in Russia (which then jumps to a Russian author). I agree with you 100% about the comparison between the atrocities of war and the killing of the women. And agree that the paragraph after paragraph of murdered women was a rough read (this was the second book in the paperback) but at least it was at the center of the plot.

                            Mexico City is a fascinating city. I have really enjoyed my time there. The last time I went was April 2021. I doubt I will get back there given other work locations and the desire to visit other cities that I have not visited. I usually stated in Condesa and there was an old school cantina there called El Centenario where my friend and I would go watch Sudamericana matches. There was always a steady stream of people coming through with a hustle: kids selling gum. women selling trinkets, bolero singers with their guitars, and a dude who had a car battery hooked up to to metal handles and he would crank up the voltage based on the customer's wishes.

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                              #39
                              We stayed near Condessa, last time we visited. This time I stayed in Zona Rosa, enjoying the 45 minute walk each day to the office in upmarket Polanco.

                              I know no city like it, just the crazy mix of architecture (ancient past, the past, the recent past and then some crazy futuristic sky scrapers). It's one of the most walkable cities I have visited. I appreciate I only see the wealthy, more secure parts of the city, but even still, I love it there.

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                                #40
                                It is a city that blends ways of living that I have never experienced anywhere else (rich, modern and then impoverished and somehow expresses the internal immigration from more rural parts of Mexico). I have mostly stayed in Condesa, but have stayed in Zona Rosa, did a homestay in Mixcoac, and the last time stayed in Col Buena Vista (which someone described to me as a middle class ghetto). Dropping the streetview Google map pin into the neighborhood will show why. I didn't realize until now (looking back at the map) that Buenavista is so close to the neighborhoods that feature in Savage Detective.

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