Vargas Llosa

Conversation in the Cathedral
$14.99
I can see how this book could be off-putting to many a reader, as it was off-putting to me through a great deal of the reading of it. To begin with, there is Llosa's style: Flashbacks, interior monologues, time-frame loops (often all in a single page!) - the whole Joycean, Faulknerian kitbag - so much so that, regarding the first half of the novel, I might suggest that it wouldn't be such a bad idea for the intrepid reader to use a pen - or perhaps pens of different colours - to mark off the different time-frames and narratives.

And then there's the setting and characters: Peru - 95% set in the capital, Lima - in the 1950s, a city of dreadful night indeed, a world of whores - lots of these - cutthroats, assassins, and, above all, slews of very poor people living in squalid conditions in shantytowns---oh, and a few rich families. In short, the way most of humanity lives, are living, as I write this, on less than a dollar a day.

Fortunately, for the persevering reader, one gradually becomes accustomed to Llosa's technique and the stylistic pyrotechnics slowly ebb away to an almost straight linear narrative at the end. Also, one realises how many layers the novel touches on: political, psychological, spiritual. I should say that - more than anything - it is a Bildungsroman of Santiago (read Llosa) and his disillusionment with Marxism, Capitalism - really any "-ism" and determination to shun the venality that makes the world around him a cesspool on so many levels. At the end, the reader feels that it is the most lovely life in the world to have a small apartment with books, a spouse and let's not forget the dog with which the novel begins and ends.

Of course, it's not so simple; otherwise, this book would never have been penned. Santiago has tried to disencumber himself of the horrors of this world, even disowning his family, yet he lays bare the psychological scars of country and family for all to see here as if he is laying down a crown of thorns he has been wearing for his entire life.

The Balzac quote at the beginning is quite apt and bears repeating. It's left in the French in my copy, so the reader of this review will have to do with my perhaps somewhat clunky, though accurate translation:

"One must have searched through all social life to be a true novelist, seen that the novel is the private history of nations."

The book accomplishes this feat astoundingly well. Indeed, the history revealed is so private that, fifty years on from the events in this book, I doubt you will be ingratiating yourself to the populace if seen on the streets of Lima with this book.

It's really a very lonely, frequently depressing book, filled with what Wordsworth called "the still, sad music of humanity." Read it anyway.

The Bad Girl: A Novel
$14.00
As a Peruvian teenager, Ricardo meets a girl named Lily and falls head over heels in love with her. No matter how many times he professes his love to her, she rejects him. Years later, living in Paris, he meets her again (with a different name) and realizes he's still in love with her. Once again, he is rejected. They continue to meet in different countries throughout their lives.

The Bad Girl was a tragic love story. I found myself so mad at Ricardo for loving "the bad girl" sometimes that I wanted to slap him. It's hard to imagine a real life situation like this (I'd like to think most people wouldn't be so gullible), but it was still an interesting read. I found it a bit slow going though. I'm thinking maybe that was because it was translated from another language, but I did find myself wanting to keep reading just to find out where "the bad girl" would turn up next. Overall, an enjoyable, interesting read.

Charlie Rose with William Safire; Mario Vargas Llosa (November 28, 2001)
$24.95
Vargas Llosa appears a month and one half after 9/11 and speaks against fanaticism and terrorism. He spokes about Peru's struggle against terrorist groups and about the U.S. action in Afghanistan against the Taliban. He has come however to speak about a new book of his based on the life the dictator Trujillo. He speaks of the great role Dictatorship has had in Latin America and his hope for a process of democratization there. He also speaks about his own writing and his involvement in the political and cultural realms. The interview is informative but Vargas Llosa speaks English in a quite pained and difficult way. He also despite being a writer of considerable reputation does not converse easily, or show great humor or wit.
Therefore an informative interview but not an especially entertaining one.

Travesuras de la ni���a mala (The Bad Girl: A Novel)
$19.95
When I was last at my parents' house I saw a copy of "Travesuras" on the bookshelf and figured I might as well read it. Why not? Vargas Llosa isn't my favorite writer, but I'd really enjoyed his novel "La guerra del fin del mundo," and besides "Travesuras" was apparently about a translator living in Paris (at the time, I too was a translator living in Paris). But in the end this coincidence wasn't interesting enough to overcome what, for me, was simply pedestrian writing.

Let me say in its favor that the book is an easy read (none of the abrupt shifts in point of view MVLL was once fond of) and it is not pretentious. I also kind of liked one of the main character Ricardo's translator colleagues, a madman who spoke a dozen languages and advised Ricardo not to try to understand what he was translating (sound advice, to be sure, but I still had to laugh). The evocation of London in the early 1970s was convincing, too, despite a minor character's possibly anachronistic death of AIDS.

For me, the great problem of the novel is its lack of tension. Ricardo gets the girl when they are in their teens, after all. Call me machista, but from that point it seems to me his life-long pursuit of her is simply anti-climactic. MVLL doesn't bother to make Ricardo's obsession convincing. In fact, at each of the "bad girl's" sporadic reappearances I groaned inwardly, as it meant departing from some mildly interesting descriptions such as those of London or of Ricardo's work. Sometimes it also meant being subjected to vulgar sex scenes, with nothing sexy about them. (I wonder if MVLL's two erotic novels are as unsexy as the sex in "Travesuras." As it happens, I have also recently read the Colombian Santiago Gamboa's "El s���ndrome de Ulises," an otherwise engaging novel marred by vulgar sex scenes. I am no puritan; for me, Casanova sets the standard for explicit erotic writing, Karen Blixen for implicit. MVLL and Gamboa serve up warmed-over Henry Miller.)

An odd thing too was how much "Travesuras" called to mind the work of Julio Ram���n Ribeyro. The opening reminded me of Ribeyro's "Relatos santacrucinos;" la chilenita's story reminded me of Roberto's in Ribeyro's story "Alienaci���n." Ricardo, like Ribeyro, worked in Paris at UNESCO. If MVLL's evocation of Ribeyro and his work was intentional, it was certainly a dangerous move. "Travesuras," after all, would only suffer by comparison: I don't think anybody who has read Ribeyro's stories would prefer "Travesuras."

I thought about giving this book three stars, but I still hadn't finished it as my stay at my parents' house was coming to an end. When it was time to leave for the airport I still had ten or fifteen pages to go. I give it two stars because when I put it back on their bookshelf, I realized I had no regrets whatsoever about leaving those few pages unread.