First of all, I am not one to read introductions, but this is a translation so I feel it necessary to glean as much information as I can in order to better understand the author and his work.

Natasha Wimmer, the translator, provides wonderful insights I know will help me in approaching this read:

Bolaño once described The Savage Detectives as his own answer to Huckleberry Finn. Like its precursor, The Savage Detectivesis about friendship – not just between Belano and Lima, but between them and the chorus of fellow writers who help narrate the book. It is also, like Huckleberry Finn, a story of lost innocence. Beginning in Mexico City, the novel travels to Paris, Israel, Vienna, and Barcelona, and, most of all, through twenty years of irreversible experience and generalized disappointment. As Bolaño said in his acceptance speech for the Premio Rómulo Gallegos, “All of Latin America is sown with the bones of its forgotten youths.” In The Savage Detectives, he brings those youths back to life.

The first section of the book is narrated by a teenage boy in Mexico City, apparently patterned after the author’s own experiences and of those who dropped “out of school to devote himself to reading and writing and adolescent rebellion”. It was also at this time that the passion for poetry came to the forefront of the author, and his narrator’s, life.

I agree with Bibliolatrist that there is more humor than expected, but also bittersweet feelings as Juan García Madero loses himself and his innocence. It’s just as the title of the section says: Mexicans Lost In Mexico.

Just as we discover that Madero and others are seeking someone, we also come to see they are also seeking something: an identity.

This is a book about friends, but more so a journey of discovery.

I am intrigued enough, so far, to follow them as they wander.

If you are interested in joining, please read this post.

Publishing: The Revolutionary Future

This article floored me. After I was able to pick myself up from the floor, I began to mull over what the author said. I re-read the article. Then mulled some more.

I then felt compelled to write out my thoughts on some of the points raised by Mr. Epstein.

Primarily I thought of connectivity, since the digital age depends on it.

And when discussing digitizing books, connectivity takes on a whole new meaning: physically, culturally, and globally.

GROWTH IS GOOD, OR IS IT?

As Mr. Epstein notes, the transition from physical to digital is irreversible.

Which leaves me with a question: Will those of us hanging onto the love of a soon to be outdated medium, merely become caretakers and docents, where our personal libraries become a type of literary museum?

A worrying thought, but books will not die. They cannot. Just as technology seems to eliminate, it also helps to keep alive what we fear to lose.

To see what I mean, check out Espresso Book Machine, a way to produce (on demand) a library quality paperback. It is my great hope that this type of innovation keeps up with the warp speed of technology.

The benefit of digital distribution to a global market is that people will have access to a diversity of knowledge nearly unimaginable and a way that brings all of us together in a better understanding of one another: separation becomes integration.

Books available any time, by anyone. The only constraints being affordability, access, and control. Will the content be filtered? Should it? The ethical and moral implications are a debate for another time. My concern being that since many still attempt to ban or limit the publication of material they consider inappropriate or obscene, they would do the same in this new digital age. Even today, we see some governments (i.e. China) attempting to control internet content aggressively.

In addition, and the most important point of all, is education. Literacy is the tool, the skill, the requirement, to make all this happen. Otherwise, this is merely a dinner table conversation held by literary elitists.

BEYOND OUR OWN BACKYARD

Digitizing literature will impact our global society in unimaginable ways, but not so much as teaching the ability to read. All these points are moot, if as a whole, we do not advocate literacy for all.

In addition, for those cultures such as the Australian Aboriginals, oral tradition and storytelling must be preserved and fostered. But the method to do so must be approached and handled cautiously and with respect.

A unique feature of Aboriginal stories is that they do not belong to anyone. They cannot be inherited or legitimately used without permission. Each clan has specific stories that they learn and hand down. Even so, no one member of any clan can claim personal ownership of a story. Each group will appoint a member to be a ‘custodian’ and this person becomes the keeper and protector of clan stories. It is their obligation to pass them down.

This poses an interesting question, as theirs is not the only culture that relies on oral tradition to preserve their heritage and pass on ancestral knowledge.

It becomes clear then that the digital age will impact our culture greatly, but how it does, and what path it takes remains to be seen, and in many regards, frightens, as well as thrills me.

THE PAST WE CANNOT LEAVE BEHIND

Another point made by Mr. Epstein, one that I agree with, is the need to maintain and provide access to backlists.

As societies and people gain equal footing in regards to literacy and access to digital literature, it will be essential that classics and other great works remain in print. It is my belief that backlists may indeed disappear from publishing houses, but will remain alive and well in ours, as we are not concerned with the financial aspects of warehousing materials as much as corporations are in attempting to remain solvent.

Digital content is fragile. The secure retention, therefore, of physical books safe from electronic meddlers, predators, and the hazards of electronic storage is essential.

I do not feel I’m exaggerating when I say that a library made up of diverse and thought-provoking works is the backbone of the community. Keeping a home library then takes on a whole new meaning.

Without the contents of our libraries – our collective backlist, our cultural memory – our civilization would collapse.

It is not our ability to walk upright that makes us an evolved species. It is the ability to learn, to think and think well, to disseminate information in order to form opinions, to understand the world around us as well as the people living in it. This is what takes us to a higher state.

ACCESS IS EVERYTHING-CONNECTIVITY ESSENTIAL

Having ready and instant access to a vast database of knowledge is a good thing. As long as that connectivity is available to all. That for those who are not able financially or otherwise to obtain a device that makes it all possible, the physical connection – a lifeline to a better world – is preserved through community and personal libraries.

It is through this connectivity our cultural world will survive.

E-books will be a significant factor in this uncertain future, but actual books printed and bound will continue to be the irreplaceable repository of our collective wisdom.

Mr. Epstein ends his article with a declaration of his bias that touched me deeply.

I cannot help but feel the same way. That if by some unforeseeable event, my heaving shelves evaporated into nothingness, so would my spirit. I would be forever broken and bereft.

His last sentence is the most powerful:

I mention this so that you will know the prejudice with which I celebrate the inevitability of digitization as an unimaginably powerful, but infinitely fragile, enhancement of the worldwide literacy on which we all – readers and nonreaders – depend.

Well said sir, well said.

Books are our past and our future.

What say you?

Other articles by this author related to this subject:
Reading: The Digital Future
The Coming Revolution

About Jason Epstein (courtesy of The New York Review of Books):
In the 1950s Jason Epstein created Anchor Books, the first American series of so-called quality paperbacks. In the 1960s he helped found The New York Review of Books. In the 1980s he created the Library of America and the Reader’s Catalog, the precursor to on-line retailing. He is the first recipient of the National Book Award for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters and also received the Curtis Benjamin Award of the American Association of Publishers for inventing new kinds of editing and publishing.

I never like to be snarky in my book reviews, although I admit, I love reading them. Call it a guilty pleasure, but when done well, I find them entertaining and not as rude as some think they are. 

At times, I really feel like doing one. But I can’t. I just don’t think I can pull it off in a way that others can. There’s a fine, thin line when writing a review of a book you didn’t like in a tone that doesn’t come off mean-spirited, yet is obvious in its disdain for the author’s work. 

Why bring this up? Recent reads have me banging my head against the standards I’ve set forth for my blog and me. 

Over the course of the last year, and even recently, I’ve read books others have liked and I have not. It makes me think sometimes that I’m missing something. Then I remember the most important thing that keeps me grounded: I am entitled to my opinion, as are we all. 

Is it always informed? No.
Is it always right? No.
Is it always set in stone? No.
Also, and this is most important, it is not to deliberately hurt others. If it does so, that was not my intent. 

Hence, why I always try to be fair and impartial. 

But forming an opinion is anything but impartial. Due to one’s environment and upbringing, there is always some kind of bias and a certain amount of preformed ideas used to develop a decision as to whether or not you like a book, a movie, a person, etc. 

This conundrum makes reviewing books challenging, especially when they are books that have let me down. Perhaps my fault for having such high expectations. However, isn’t that what makes reading so interesting? No matter what you hear or read, ultimately, it is your choice to like or dislike the work. 

Many times an author has changed my mind, for the positive, in that I wasn’t sure they could pull it off, but they did and in spades. 

How much more my disappointment when it is an author I’ve read before and the magic is lost. 

Again, this is the specialness of reading, discovering the good and the bad. And it happens every time, regardless of whether or not you are familiar with the writer. 

My challenge remains how to handle the disappointment: Honestly, yet kindly. 

It’s the most frustrating thing in the world to write a bad review. I hate it. But it is part and parcel of what I agreed to (with myself), when I decided to be a book blogger. So I will do it, and move on, hoping that the next one will bring back that sparkle, that excitement I get when reading an engrossing and enjoyable story.