LIQUID MODERNITY IN ROBERTO BOLAÑO'S THE SAVAGE DETECTIVES

Abstract

The following paper analyses the consequences of exile in several characters in Roberto Bolaño's The Savage Detectives [Los detectives salvajes], especially in Ulises Lima and Arturo Belano, who after the decease of Cesárea Tinajero leave Mexico and begin a tour in countries of Europe, the Middle East, Central America and Africa. Such a physical, ideological and spiritual loss of touch due to the loss of their ideals of youth makes them live "liquid lives", i.e., lives ruled by experiences of insecurity, uncertainty and vulnerability. The topic of exile affects also the structure of the novel, especially the use of multiple narrators in the second part of the work, who tell anecdotes about Lima, Belano and other members of the visceral realism. In order to deal with these topics, the paper examines Zygmunt Bauman's concept of "Liquid Modernity", bearing in mind that for him liquid modernity has encouraged extraterritoriality in contemporary men, as well as the cult of what is ephemeral which affects every single aspect of our lives, including the idea of ourselves and of the idea of our relationships.