I never liked verse growing up. I'm not sure why, but the romantic poets all bugged me, and so did Shakespeare. Robert Frost was OK. He was cool and a little reserved. Robert Service, too, was tough and pretty funny. But I thought of the two Roberts as exceptions to the rule. The rule being that poetry sucks.Well maybe I was wrong. Maybe I don't hate poetry. Maybe I just hate poetry that's not written by Roberts, because this collection was amazing. Maybe 3.5 starsI started reading Roberto Bolaño’s The Romantic Dogs largely because it is in a bilingual English/Spanish format and I want to keep up my Spanish language abilities (with little success). I am also a Bolaño fan.Anyone familiar with the author’s novel The Savage Detectives will quickly recognize many of the concerns of the novel reflected in the style and voice of the poems. As the novel is semi-autobiographical so are the poems. Bolaño also maintains his self-centred view through many of the poems as well as his continued attempts to create his own myth as a revolutionary. It may be that he was trying to create Bolaño the revolutionary poet to substitute for Bolaño who missed the revolution in Chile, his home country.His poetry is quite idiosyncratic and focused on himself. Certain of the poems come across as almost adolescent in their self centredness and tendency to want to shock with harsh images and words. When he turns his focus on others, however, he shows, again in his own idiosyncratic way, a degree of empathy and helplessness in the face of another’s pain.In the poem Lupe, (also a character from The Savage Detectives) Bolaño tells of a 17 year old prostitute who has watched her child die “for not keeping up her bargain with la Virgen./ La Virgen carried off the little angel, payment for a broken promise”. The poet’s response: “I didn’t know what to say./ …And so I stayed quiet and thought about the eerie feel/ emerging from the silence of that hotel.” Similarly in La Francesa, the woman speaks of “…what happened to her/ Between the ages of 15 and 18./ A pornographic horror movie”. Again, the poet, the man of words is silent. “And I didn’t know what to say,/ I really didn’t know what to say”.There is an unevenness in the choice of poems in this book and we are not told who chose them or what time period they were written over. This is a real weakness in the book as it leaves me with too many questions which have nothing to do with the poetry itself. Similarly, I would have liked to see an introduction by the translator, Laura Healy. She has, for the most part, done a wonderful job of reflecting the Spanish (from my somewhat dubious point of view) but I would like to know what lies behind some of her choices in phrasing and translating certain words.Bolaño preferred to see himself primarily as a poet. Anyone wanting to know him better, wanting to better understand his novels would do well to spend time with this small collection of forty-four poems.
What do You think about Los Perros Románticos (1993)?
A rich and well-translated collection. All of the Bolanoesque modes are present here, at turns humorous, sinister, sentimental, rough, aggressive, wounded, erudite, vulgar, earthy, perverse, clear, and obscure. Bolano was a poet before he turned to writing novels (supposed out of feeling the necessity of earning some money), and I suspect that he thought of himself first and foremost as a poet. In any case, reading Bolano's poetry, together with his prose, certainly affords one a fuller 'understanding' of his unmistakable and often exhilarating style.
—LeBron
Bolaño, the poet, gets his inspiration on the crossroads, in the hanging around because of the not-having-where-to-go. Mexican north (or perhaps New Orleans Delta) could be a perfect framing for the desolation of a slow end of the world, which is nothing but a beginning of a new journey to nowhere. Reoccurring bloody moons, rains, snows, dreams and sometimes savage nightmares stuffed with geared on violence and coming from outside in, from inside going out.
—Funnychick
Patchy, but with some really excellent moments.
—palomav001
