From Alexandra Kollontai’s Love of Worker Bees to Sheena Patel’s I’m a Fan, women’s novels have long focused on the ideological stances of men versus their inability to put these political ideals into practice. Argentine writer Pola Oloixarac’s Savage Theories explores the lives of the idealists, activists and academics fighting for their sexual and political freedom at the time of Argentina’s Dirty War, while highlighting those who spout ideology and those who live it.
While unflinchingly maximalist throughout, Oloixarac’s rich prose hits its heights through characterisation, as a person’s upbringing, political philosophy and sexual preferences offer a rich tapestry of unique individuals, whose kinks may differ but are unified in their relentless pursuit of sexuality.
I will say that as the novel quickly flips from Trotsky to Aristotle, from Roman military tactic to Argentinian 1970s cinema, it is one best read without distraction rather than fumbling through these references on a busy commute. Oloixarac’s mockery of academia is quickly apparent but sometimes these passages become so convoluted that one can get lost, feeling like the joke is perhaps too smart for its own good.
The bizarre lives of the young students driven by their philosophical curiosity, which manifests in a willingness to experiment no matter how disappointing the outcome, creates a disconnect with the professors who now espouse the values of an unconventional life without living it.
Where Savage Theories succeeds best is in the drug-addled misadventures of its youth, breathing wild and chaotic life into the streets of Buenos Aires. Oloixarac’s freedom is messy and often dissatisfying but maintains open-minded praxis.
Savage Theories by Pola Oloixarac is out now (Profile Books, £10.99). You can buy it from the Big Issue shop on bookshop.org, which helps to support Big Issue and independent bookshops.
