One afternoon in the late 1960s somewhere in the streets of Lima, Santiago, goes out in search of the family dog. At the pound, he meets the aging Ambrosio, his father's former chauffeur, whom he has not seen for 15 years. Later, in a lengthy conversation over beers, Santiago and Ambrosio talk of their lives under the Odria dictatorship two decades earlier.

Santiago is a journalist in a small paper, the son of an influential politician, an idealist who has rejected his social position by embracing an alternative way of life. When Santiago cut his ties with family years ago, many questions were left unanswered, some of them he didn't dare even seek answers to. He tried to eke out a living, found a wife, and fought to get the next story out. This was his life now. The meeting with Ambrosio turns into an intense examination of those years when decisions and acts of people very close to them, and by their own response, would scar and torment them slowly over time. Secrets, a complex web of intrigues, scandals and crimes, repression, were necessary to maintain a "stable" society. Even then, there was an imminent sense of degradation and frustration. Not just a historical narrative, the novel is as much a political and social critique.

The complexity of their stories which detail the corruption and perversions of the few individuals who kept the machinery of the dictatorship oiled and running, is further emphasized by Vargas Llosa's narrative style. Most of this immense book (600+ pages) is composed of snatches of several events or dialogues, happening in different timeframes, interlaced at the level of the sentence. They are stories within the big story, and dialogues within the big dialogue.

Though at times I felt it dragging, overall, the novel is brilliant and Vargas Llosa here is most impressive. Compared with several of his other books which I've read, this is easily his best. And definitely one of the best novels that have come out of Latin America. Highly recommended, of course. ( )

Santiago Zavala is the 30 year old son of a powerful Peruvian senator, who is estranged from his upper middle class family and eking out a meager existence as a investigational journalist in Lima. One day during an afternoon siesta his wife tells him that two black men snatched her beloved dog out of her arms, and he goes to the nearest pound to look for the animal. He finds the dog, and one of the men who took it is also there. Santiago quickly recognizes this man as his father's former chauffeur Ambrosio, who has obviously fallen on hard times. Ambrosio takes him to a local dive, La Catedral, where they reminisce about their former lives over the remainder of the afternoon.

The conversation is interspersed with other conversations that take place a few years before, during the dictatorial presidency of Manuel Odría (1948-56). Ambrosio was also formerly employed by the despicable and cunning Don Cayo Bermúdez, who was Odría's Director of Security and Minister for Public Order and the enemy of the senator. Santiago had previously learned that Ambrosio had been accused of the brutal murder of Bermúdez's mistress while he worked for Senatory Zavala, but Ambrosio reveals much more unsavory information about himself, the senator and Bermúdez, and the extent of the depravity of the Odría regime.

Llosa gives us an unsettling and unforgettable view of the effect of dictatorship and corruption on individuals of all levels of Peruvian society during and after Odría. All are adversely affected, even Bermúdez, who profits more than anyone from the regime.

This book was not an easy read, particularly in its first half, as the different conversations are woven together at times, which requires close attention and occasional review of previous pages or chapters. I'd encourage anyone who reads this book to be aware of this in advance, as lriley did in his review, and to stick with it, as most of the latter half in the book does not use this technique, making for a faster read. ( )

First MVL's novel I read.
Great story of a young generation - a guy who's meant to make things move and keep them moving, in spite of a family who's ever wanted a different kinda future for him. Miraflores - Lima, wealthy people, the revolution.
Very daring novel... tough and cruel. A fair introduction to the following MVL's novels I read. ( )

Conversation in the Cathedral is a terrific book. Lest anyone be put off with the prospect of a lengthy religious conversation in a place of worship, the "Cathedral" is La Catedral, a rundown, dingy bar where Santiago has a long talk with Ambrosio, a black man who once worked as a chauffeur for Santiago's father. Through the book we learn of Santiago's turbulent relations with his family (mother, father, brother and sister) and of Ambrosio's own very different life. When they meet in La Catedral, Santiago is married and has been working for some years as a reporter for a tabloid newspaper (having much earlier given up university much to the chagrin of his father) and Ambrosio is down on his luck, working in a stinking dog pound where unwanted animals are trussed up in sacks and beaten to death. Elements of the conversation are interspersed throughout the book as various events are recounted.

The book is a story about the rise and fall, the twists and turns of political and social power, about pervasive and specific corruption, about personal freedom and the violence of politics and life in Peru in the 1950s during the dictatorship of Manuel Odria, about the corruption of lives that collapse once the ephemera of money and power and influence disappear, about a search for identity and the entanglements of personal and family relations and pressures, about love found quietly and unostentatiously, about respect and honour even within a maelstrom of conflicting passions, about how different people deal with society and the pressures it brings to bear, and about how no matter how much you think you know a person, you can never know everything and there may be dark and seemingly inexplicable sides.

Not only does the book have a large canvas of characters and actions, Llosa's style of writing is unique and quite wonderful. Whole chapters of conversations and descriptions switch back and forth changing characters, time, place and perspective. At first I found it disconcerting, not helped when the same character can be called different names (e.g. a nickname, the family name, the first name), but once you catch the rhythm, the effect is terrific. There is no linear progression, or very little of it. Llosa collapses space and time and creates a sense of the simultaneity of life whereby different people are discussing, or acting upon, or considering the same event or action but from very different perspectives, or you see the results of an action or event before you understand the causes, again often through varying perspectives. This greatly enriches an already wonderful story.

I would highly recommend this book. ( )

Set during the time of the Odria dictatorship in Peru this novel examines the gap between the poor and the powerful probably as well as anything that I have ever read. Santiago the son of an extremely wealthy industrialist rejects that life by first joining a communist party cell and after it is squashed becoming a newspaperman over the strident objections of his family especially his doting father (Don Fermin) who plans for him to one day take over his business interests. Ambrosio--the second major voice in this conversation that takes place in a bar called the Cathedral had been connected to Santiago's youth as his fathers black chauffeur and also reluctantly on occasion as his father's lover who when depressed has a taste for masochistic sex. Ambrosio is in the meantime really in love with one of the households maids and more or less all his plans unravel over time as the maid is fired and he becomes involved in various demonstrations against the government leaving the family himself eventually and winding up poverty stricken. Behind all this are the policies and politics of the dictatorship a lot of which we see through the eyes of another character an important government minister Don Cayo and also through his mistress a former nightclub singer Malvina. As for the novel itself this is not a short work but it moves along very nicely--the reader might want to take note of personalities though as there are many and some are sometimes called by nicknames. Vargas Llosa is an excellent writer and this may be his best work. ( )