The Savage Detectives/YMMV

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.


  • Alternate Character Interpretation: literary built on it. We never get a truly trustworthy description on the motives, personality and backstory of Ulises, Arturo or Cesarea, and everything that is said about them is arbitrary and contradictory.
  • Non Sequitur Scene: About 70% of the novel has nothing to do with the actual "plot" and is just whatever the narrator in turn wants to talk about. It does have to do with the main idea though. Sometimes. A straighter version would be the chapters on the Book Fair at the end or the one about the 1968 Shooting in Mexico, they have nothing to do with any main character and are never referred to again. They are still some of the best loved parts of the book, though.
  • Crazy Awesome: How does Arturo react to an annoying literary critic? He challenges him to a duel in the beach. An actual duel with swords on the beach. Over books.
  • Love It or Hate It: specially in regards to the more experimental second part.
  • True Art Is Angsty: referenced, parodied and ultimately played straight
  • True Art Is Incomprehensible: also referenced, parodied and ultimately played straight
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