THE SPECTRAL IMPALA OR A NON-ANTHROPOCENTRIC FORM OF TEMPORALITY IN ROBERTO BOLAÑO'S LOS DETECTIVES SALVAJES

Abstract

This article proposes that Roberto Bolaño’s Los detectives salvajes reveals a non-anthropocentric way of building temporality. From the concept of the spectral proposed by Jacques Derrida in Espectros de Marx, the unheimlich by Sigmund Freud, and the notion of vibrant matter by Jane Bennett, in Vibrant Matter: A Political Ecology of Things, it is posed how the Impala automobile, in its condition of an object and spectrum, indeterminates the apparent linear temporality of the novel’s narrative. Thus, it is possible to address how the novel points to a reflection of non-human bodies as generators of affect since they are capable of dismantling linear (and eminently anthropocentric) conceptions of temporal experience.