As you may or may not know, the latest Nobel prize winner in literature is the Peruvian writer Mario Vargas Llosa, one of the most lauded Spanish speaking writers from the last 30-35 years, ”for his cartography of structures of power and his trenchant images of the individual’s resistance, revolt, and defeat”.
My parents have always liked him, they had read many of his books in the 80′s and 90′s, and about 4 years ago they bought almost everyone of his novels as they appeared with a local newspaper at a right price. In contrast, my relation with this author wasn’t that good. In Language class the teacher made my entire class read ‘The Leaders and The Cubs’, which was a collection of short stories and a novella. I ended up finding the writing of this author quite boring, and got a not-so-good grade on the test that came after it.
You can guess my reaction towards the news that he had been awarded with the Nobel prize for Literature, I was literally freaking out, cursing and screaming against him, I asked how could they award him with that prize, while authors like Haruki Murakami remained without a recognition? I ranted and ranted, and you know the worse part? No one agreed with me, not even a random troll on the internet, they said I was biased because of his politics, and I was the first to say no, as I love all Jorge Luis Borges’s work, and he was probably centimeters away from being a Nazi.
So I guessed it was just that I hadn’t read enough of him, just one book wasn’t enough, and given that I had the books around, I decided to do it. Then, I figured it would be a whole lot better if people knew of my progress, so I contacted Sam who gave me his support to go on and post a series of reviews on all Mario Vargas Llosa’s fiction work (plays not included) in chronological order, all before the next Nobel prize winner in literature is announced.
Now, the bad news was that I had to read again the book that bored me once, whose first half I review here, and I was kind of certain that it’d bore me, so here I go.
‘The Leaders’, better known as ‘Los Jefes’ in Spanish, was the first formal book form publication of Mario Vargas Llosa in 1959. This is a short story collection, featuring a total amount of six, all from the first period of his life, as it was released when he was 26 years old. This book is usually paired with the novella ‘The Cubs’ by the same author, released in 1967, which will also have its own review, and it’s named ‘Los Jefes y los Cachorros’ in Spanish, but it has been published in the English speaking market as ‘The Cubs and Other Stories’.
As this is a short story compilation, I’ll take the following approach: I’ll go through every one of the stories, telling something about them, going through their plot, characteristics and overall critical analysis. Then, after all of them are covered, I’ll take a global look and make my final verdict. So, let’s start with that.
‘The Leaders’ is the first short story, and the one who names this volume, it’s divided in 5 chapters and it tells the story of a group of high school students who try to put up a strike, against the director of the school, which doesn’t want to put fixed dates for the final exams. While the cause is noble, they don’t want to be surprised without having studied, the process of avoiding people to get inside of the school may be a bit violent. This one feels like a personal experience, as if Mario Vargas Llosa was one of the high school students narrating a experience he had when he was a child, still fresh in his memory at the age of 26, or whenever he did write this one. The dialogue may be a bit clunky and doesn’t sound at all like young people talking, not even from that time, which is a flaw that keep repeating in the other stories, the lack of distinct voice, all the characters talk the same, and it doesn’t matter if they’re from the countryside or the lower depths, they always construct their phrases perfectly and with excellent adjectives, but maybe here I’m going over my final conclusion, so I’ll leave it there.
‘The Challenge’ is the next story on my edition, and it plays on typical Latin-American plot devices, a knife fight between two people due to reasons unknown to the reader. There have been a lot of stories like this by many authors, and to make themselves distinct, they usually put some interesting narrative devices, a certain speech pattern, or at least a curious character, but neither is present in this one. The only thing worth noting is a twist towards the identity of one of the characters who witness the knife fight, that really doesn’t matter and just adds to an unnecessary sentimentalism through the toughness of these criminal personages.
‘The Younger Brother’ follows, and it may be the most interesting short story of the whole collection, it has a sense of place and locality which the other stories lack, this does feature customs and some language proper of Peru, which is the thing I’m looking for when I read short stories by Latin-American authors, which most likely are based on facts or news heard by Mario when he was young. The plot of this one is about two brothers who are looking for an indigene (which are called ‘indios’ or ‘indians’ in the story) who has supposedly taken advantage of their sister, sexual harassment most likely. While it does play with young sexuality, even incest, but it mostly deals with racial stereotypes and a feeling of hatred to the world, more acute to a philosophical reading than to a simple short story. It’s one of the best pieces, but still lacks a distinct voice.
‘On Sunday’ felt like a tremendous opportunity that was lamentably wasted due to the writer’s inexperience and young age. The protagonists of this story are youngsters, most probably of the same age as Mario Vargas Llosa had when he wrote it, and certainly inspired by a real event in which he may have been protagonist or not. A guy confesses his love to a girl, but she rejects the offer to go to the movies, this guy is so full of hate towards another guy, one of his friends, that’s actually fascinating to see into his mind and what is he thinking and planning. He thinks that his friend will seduce and have sex with the girl he has just confessed his love to, just because his friend is a swimming champ. When they confront each other they decide to compete for the chance to be with her, swimming in the open sea, which is always a bad idea. The rest of the story goes on a profound detail of every feel of the protagonist as he swims and battles against the waves, reminding me of a ‘Gattaca’ sequence. The story has many chances to name things as they are, but it doesn’t and it finally just stays as a good swimming story, on behalf of the great psychological portrait of male domination it could have been.
‘A Visitor’ is another one of those stories that approaches a native Peruvian voice, and this is mainly due to the circumstances of the story, where it’s placed and certain names and ranks of the military. This is a revenge story, in a lonely place, out in the wilderness, surrounded by forests, lives an old lady that it’s threatened and tied up by a visitor, who’s just come out of jail in exchange for this service, lure a dangerous criminal using the old lady as a hostage. The police waits in the woods, but the criminal does not come alone, ultimately the whole story centers in its extremely good yet predictable ending, while the rest of the story just wanders here and there, without making any strong points towards the peculiarities, if any, of the place or the criminals. Another wasted opportunity, but fun to read.
‘The Grandfather’ is the strangest story of the bunch, and also the last one in my edition. It’s about a grandfather who waits his grandson… I can’t say much about it without spoiling it, it has to be read to be believed, because the nature of the acts presented in the narration are so random and baseless, that one feels lost, as if I missed something, and that’s because of a lack of characterization of the grandfather, being more specific. I could recommend this book only on this story and ‘The Younger Brother’, because they truly are a fine example of good latinamerican storytelling, full of mysteries and unusual narration.
Now, as you may have guessed, this is a very minor work, this collection feature many weak stories, but still it’s interesting regarding two things, first it’s an easy aproach for those who aren’t accustomed to latinamerican narrative, as I think many of you are (if not, please excuse me), and second because the stories even if they’re quite hollow at first sight, they’re still quite entertaining.
Mario Vargas Llosa fails in giving his stories a sense of place, Peru, specifically because one can feel that these are his memories, or stories he heard from its very protagonists, these are all possible stories and the realism is there, palpable, but not quite attained, because of the lack of care from the perspective of the author to give each one of the phrases a distinctive voice, given through the situation of the characters. Everyone speaks as if they studied in the most prestigious university in the world, and not as what they really are, and that’s a flaw I can’t really accept from a latinamerican writer.
I do recommend it for those curious enough with the plots presented here, as they are well written and entertaining stories, the only thing is that one starts scratching a bit and looking under them and find nothing, maybe due to inexperience or lazyness.
Next: ‘The Time of the Hero‘
When one ponders the scope of Latino literature, the name of Columbian Gabriel Garcia Marquez reigns supreme. He is in fact one of the greatest writers in any language for well over the past half century, and was honored with the Nobel Prize in 1982. Of course several of his novels like LOVE IN THE TIME OF CHOLERA are literary masterpieces. In Argentina, the most revered writer is probably Jorge Luis Borges, and back in home turf in Chile, the most venerated of course is Pablo Neruda, who was the subject in Michael Radford’s IL POSTINO. Neruda won the Nobel Prize as well.
I am completely unfamiliar with Llosa Vergas, but very much appreciate this magnificent discussion of his early-career short story collection, where you pull no punches. You admirably skirt around language and translation issues beautifully, and have made your debut here at WitD an extraordinary one. At least you found this collection entertaining, which does go a long way towards ingratiation.
Thanks for the opportunity Sam, I’m now reading the next book, which is huge.
The thing with chilean authors, they are unknown and I assure you there are way better poets and prose writers than Neruda, which I like, but not love.
I’m sure this won’t be the last time that you will find a well-regarded writer not up to snuff. It’s the same with literature as it is with film or any other form; what’s one person’s joy is another’s drudgery. It’s interesting that your parents found some value, but you didn’t. Reading through your terrific story descriptions I did find a few I would like to read. ex. “The Younger Brother,” “The Grandfather,” “On Sunday.” I’d like to see you continue on with the series.
testing testing
I must agree with Sam that of the few Latin American authors I have read Garcia Marquez is my favorite. A Hundred Years Of Solitude is one of greatest books I have ever enjoyed (translation or not), Love In The Time Of Cholera is stupendous: I particularly enjoyed the description of the husband who forced his wife to cook asparagus for him every night for dinner so he could bask in “the fragrant garden of his urine”. The General In His Labyrinth was tragic beyond words…Marquez described it as “this horrible book” and he didn’t mean “bad” book (I got the impression that Gabo was suffering through the whole writing of the thing). The loss of Simon Bolivar at such a young age was quite arguably an unmitigated catastrophe for all Latin America.
As for Chilean authors, “Burning Patience” by Antonio Skarmeta is simply the best short novel I have ever read. Movies make me weep from time to time but usually not books…I wept a bit reading this one.
Sam recommended that I check out your article on Chilean authors and lo and behold Mario Vargas LLosa is staring me in the face. My brilliant sister Gina (I have two dullard sisters as well) gave me a copy of his “The War Of The End Of The World” which sat around my place gathering dust for a year or two until I finally picked it up. What I found when I began reading it was a fantastic tale of a young messiah who goes from village to village rebuilding the dilapidated churches as well as he could whilst trying to re-instill that “old time religion” back into the peasants lives and who ends up starting a revolution to overthrow the new United States Of Brazil and reinstate the power of the church and the monarchy in the state of Bahia. It seemed so fantastic that it took me a while before I realized I was reading a novelization of actual events. This is a dark tale of religious fanaticism and the desperation of the poor and how the two factors worked together to create the bloodiest civil war in Brazilian history. I was shaken as profoundly as a person of my girth could be shaken by this book and I highly recommend it to those who are seeking a profound reading experience.
Politics is not really the issue as I see it or I would probably have been rooting for the Republic whose armies tried to stamp out the movement. Vargas who was supposedly some kind of right wing nut shows deep compassion for the poor in the story.
The book is based on the Canudos War of 1893-1897.
“Burning Patience”, I’ve seen the play and the movie, and I read the first pages of the book… I don’t think it’s the best example of chilean narrative. María Luisa Bombal is a GREAT author and a truly master of short novels and short stories, truly recommended. Besides, she published a lot of books in english in USA, so maybe they’re a bit easier to find.
I’m looking forward to this survey. The Nobel reminded me that I’d wanted to give Vargas Llosa a try for a while — I even have a paperback of WAR OF THE END OF THE WORLD — but have never gotten around to it. My feeling on the announcement was slightly similar to Jaime’s, if only because I feel the Nobel committee is still snubbing the American worthies — Roth, Pynchon, DeLillo, (your favorite here), etc. Llosa’s win surprised me because there’s supposedly a left bias on the committee and thus a hostility to a writer supposedly on the right. I know I’ve read accounts of anger at his selection and his politics. Why politics should matter eludes me. I’ve never read Marquez, but I’ll take it for granted that his literary merit should not have been disqualified by his apparent toadying to Castro. His peers on the “right” (these categories really annoy me, anyway) should enjoy the same respect as writers rather than politicians. In any event, thanks to Jaime and Sam for launching this project.
Agree with Samuel: Roth, Pynchon, DeLillo, all worthy, and I love all three (I agree again that DeLillo is my favorite).
I wonder if Jaime has read any Roberto Bolaño, specifically his absolute stone cold brilliant masterpiece ’2666′. He’s Chilean (or was he died in 2003), so I’m sure he’s at least aware of him. But to everyone else– I can’t recommend that book enough. (and yeah, obviously Gabriel Garcia Marquez is a titan, I just reread his ‘Memories of My Melancholy Whores’– now THERE is a book that should be a film). But either way Jaime this is a nice piece, and a topic (literature) that is somewhat of a void around here.
I’m just ecstatic that there is another Haruki Marakami fan amongst the Wonders community. I love him, and push him onto friends at every opportunity.
I haven’t read Bolaño yet, he’s one of those whose reputation is high in my mind and can’t wait to actually read 2666.
I’m a bit surprised that you have found Vargas a bore, but you are a native Chilean, and and can feel the pulse. I’ll wait for your judgement on the full novels.
Like others, I will enjoy reading this series without being familiar with Llosa’s work (though I am very familiar with his name, for reasons I’m uncertain with; it may have to do with his criticisms of Fidel Castro, as a while back I was fascinated by the dictator and read several biographies of him).
What I celebrate the most here is that writing on literature has found its way to Wonders – though Jamie presented his Rilke series here a while back, that was more of a design series than a literary one (and certainly not a review); as the blog is intended to focus on movies but also embrace all the arts, it’s great to see this sort of approach enter the fold, alongside opera, theater, music (which is increasingly becoming the main secondary topic here between Sam, Maurizio, and Jamie’s contributions), and of course cinema. Now we just need dance, painting, and sculpture I guess!
I read Llosa’ s short novel Who Killed Palomino Molero (1985) recently. Written before his shift to the right, it is a dark hard-boiled noir, narrated by a junior cop in a hot and dry coastal burg investigating the brutal murder of a young enlisted man from a nearby air-force base. No actual violence, but a palpable sense of ennui and menace, and like the best of Chandler, subversive but not preachy. There is a an existential emptiness that has no real locus nor an overt political agenda, but perhaps the beginnings of Llosa’s reactionary path are evident in the focus on individual psychosis – the same limitation you see in a film-maker like Scorsese.
Llosa is certainly a corrective to the ‘fantasism’ – a new word
– of more celebrated latino novelists.
I do think that latinamerican ‘fantasism’ as you call it, is needed and a must in a world where adult novels are taken way too seriously (AKA Dull).
Thanks for all the comments guys, You’ve made this a good day out of crappy one.
Something I forgot to mention. It is my opinion that for what ever it’s worth, LLosa deserves the Nobel Prize for The War Of The End Of The World alone.
[...] Previous: ‘The Leaders‘ [...]
Maybe it is too late to comment on this, but hey, you cannot expect to judge a writer from only one of his works, and that being his first. “The cubs” should be excluded, of course – by the way, this is one of my favourites – since it was written years later and is included in the collection of short stories only because it has a similar argument with some of the rest, but “The leaders” in whole is the work of a youngster, almost a teenager, and in that light I consider it rather promising.
Try the “Green House” and “Conversation in the Cathedral” or even “The storyteller” (my personal favourite) and bear in mind that not all his books are written in the same style (I definitely do NOT like “The bad girl”, but I do love his erotic novels, such as “In praise of the stepmother”).
On the whole, however, I have to agree with you: much as I like Vargas Llosa, I feel that there are other writers more worthy. Nobel prizes are not always a good guide. As far as Latin America goes, I do not think Garcia Marquez reigns at all. Personally, I think Julio Cortázar deserves to be better known and appraised, as well as the Cuban writer Alejo Carpentier (both dead, and therefore not possible candidates for a Nobel, unfortunately).