I finished The Savage Detectives last night and really like it. The middle section definitely dragged on for a while, especially because you're missing a big chunk with no hints about what happened between the end of section one and beginning of section two, but the disjointed and "off" atmosphere definitely shines through and makes more sense after you finish the book. That was really well done I felt.
Nice! I felt the exact same way about the second part. Some stories are fun, others are kinda senseless, but the structure makes sense after you finish the book and you start to appreciate it. And yeah, the ending's just great
I'm glad you're getting into Bolano. In my personal opinion,
Amulet isn't his strongest writing. You also know the whole "plot" already, as you've read
The Savage Detectives. I thought that Auxilio Lacouture's story was one of the strongest in the second section, but there's little to discover in
Amulet. Maybe that's just me though.
I'm also planning on reading
2666 this summer. People have told me that
The Savage Detectives is the perfect starting point, while
2666 makes the most sense after you've read the whole rest. While I'm not too sure about this, I think it'd be a great idea to pick up another (short) Bolano novel before
2666.
2666 is all about the theme of evil, which is not covered too prominently in
The Savage Detectives.
Distant Star and
A Night in Chile are both very brief and great reads and they open up whole new perspectives on Bolano's writing.
The Savage Detectives is Bolano's most "innocent" writing, while
2666 is supposed to be his most serious. Both
Distant Star and
A Night in Chile kind of bridge the gap, if that makes sense...
I finished
Giovanni's Room and I absolutely loved it! I haven't read a bad book in a long while. Right now, I'm getting into the Nazi Resistance book and it's gonna be
White Teeth after that...