Has any reader ever taught Roberto Bolaño's Los detectives salvajes? Because I am tempted to include it in my upper level lit course next semester, but I don't want to cause myself an unnecessary headache (I know it's not the easiest read, but there is a difference between being successful at engaging the students and frustrating them to the point where it poisons the atmosphere of the course for the rest of the semester). I have been quite successful teaching things like Carlos Gamerro's An Open Secret (in translation, to students with little background on Argentina's history). So I like a good teaching challenge, but I would like to hear other people's experiences.
And for those readers who do not teach in my field but have read the novel, what is your take on it?
It would depend on the precise students you had. I, for example, was induced to read it by students who had read it and were scandalized that I had not since it was so clearly something I would like. This shows that some students will like it. If you give them context and emphasize that it is fun and funny, it can go well. There is a lot of social history you can look at, the history of the calle Bucareli in Mex DF and different things like that; actually teach it along with some avant-garde texts so they will know what it is parodying lovingly and so on ... i.e. if you build the whole course such that contextualization makes this easier, it could be great.
ReplyDeleteThat's a great idea. I think I will devote part of the summer just to do research to reach the class.
ReplyDeleteI'm getting into this idea too. One would want a lot of maps and slides, I would think, so they can visualize things -- or maybe it is just that I have been to the places, so I have a certain experience of the book.
ReplyDeleteInfrarrealismo: http://cuauhtemoc.infrarrealismo.com/Diez.htm
http://manifiestos.infrarrealismo.com/primermanifiesto.html
Santiago Colás created an online Rayuela archive for teaching. His schtick was that to read that book you really needed a whole semester, with a lot of peripheral materials. He has or had an artist's site (not hosted at umich, but connected to it) and that was where the Rayuela archive was. If it is still up it might be findable. Something like that could be done for the detectives salvajes.
I read Detectives Salvajes and 2666 as an undergrad (outside of class by choice) and loved them both. But I would recommend starting with a few short stories from Putas Asesinas and see how it goes.
ReplyDeleteYes, going straight into Detectives Salvajes without knowing the students well could be teaching suicide. Maybe I will re-read it in the summer and plan what I could do with it in the future in a class.
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