Mario Vargas Llosa (1936–2025)

A head-spinningly egocentric novel but young Marito has so much puckish charm and zest for life it’s impossible not to take a shine to him. Similar to Augie March in that respect. The romance with Aunt Julia is young love at its best and the chaotic energy of the radio serials boils over spectacularly. There’s only really one character here but you have to admire the sheer exuberance of it all. This is the kind of maximalist lit I can’t not dig. Did I groan at the all-pervasive show more chauvinism? Yes. Did I find the anti-Argentine running gag hilarious? Also yes. show less

Mario Vargas Llosa has the great talent here to delve into Rafael Trujillo's dictatorship, telling it through the eyes of various characters and from different era (contemporary, or, thirty years after his rule). These outlooks are like the layers of a mille-feuille, delivered with clockwork precision when it comes to the mindset of the people concerned.

We follow the dictator, his sycophants, and his family in the corrupted pomp of an absolute power, perverted even into sexual depravations. show more We live side-by-side with the conspirators who plotted his assassination, sharing the terrible consequences which resulted. We discover a woman coming back into her country, after more than thirty years spent in New York, to settle score with her father, one of Trujilo's henchmen and who had committed the unthinkable to gain the favours of his leader. We follow excitedly what happened after the plot, discover the facts as if told now and in the press (I personally knew nothing of Trujillo before reading this...).

It's a whole history which is indeed being replayed here: the 1937's Parsley massacre, which saw the deaths of 20,000 Haitians; the tense relationships with the USA; the failed invasion by Cuba in 1959; the attempts to kill Betancourt, then the president of Venezuela; the terror of the political police, those cruelty will culminate with the murders of the Mirabal sisters... It might be a novel, but for whose loving history (as I do!) there's a lot to learn too!

An engrossing masterpiece. show less

Metafiction is fun to read because it brings history alive with a mix of real and imagined characters and situations that frame what some might otherwise be dry facts. Llosa is a master of the genre. In HARSH TIMES, he relates the complex events surrounding the 1954 US-backed Guatemalan coup with a mix of historical and fictitious characters. President Jacobo Árbenz led a progressive administration aimed at land reform and taxing corporations. This was understandably opposed by the show more country’s most powerful corporation, the United Fruit Company. At the time, it was the largest worldwide distributer of bananas. I’m not sure if Guatemala was the origin of the term “banana republic” but United Fruit’s reach into its government clearly make it a candidate for the title.

With the support of the Eisenhower administration, notably the Dulles brothers and Guatemala’s creepy U.S. ambassador (John Peurifoy), a propaganda campaign was built around a “big lie” (i.e., that Guatemala was about to provide a foothold in the Western Hemisphere for Russian communism). Llosa claims there was little evidence for this. The marginally competent Lt. Col. Carlos Castillo Armas was installed as the successor to Árbenz and the bulk of the novel revolves around a successful conspiracy to remove Armas by assassination.

Llosa puts a human face on the Armas assassination by following the activities of largely fictitious coup plotters. Martita Borrero Parra is a particularly intriguing figure. Known as Miss Guatemala, despite never actually holding that title, she was impregnated at 14 by one of her father’s best friends. Papa disowned her and arranged a shotgun wedding. The marriage subsequently failed, Martita abandoned her child and eventually became Armas’ mistress. Her involvement in the murder is murky, but following the assassination, she sought safe harbor in Trujillo’s Dominican Republic. Llosa ends his novel with a fascinating epilogue where he interviews Martita at her home in Florida as a septuagenarian. He is too good a writer to answer every question surrounding Miss Guatemala, so much is left to the reader’s imagination.

Another fascinating creation is Johnny Abbes García. He is installed by Trujillo as chief of his military intelligence service and sent to Guatemala to orchestrate the Armas assassination. Trujillo’s motives for this are unclear but seem to involve perceived slights. Johnny and a “gringo who probably was not called Mike” worked to accomplish the task and eventually to extricate Martita from the country.

Llosa also describes the gruesome fate of Enrique Trinidad Oliva, Armas’ director of security, following the assassination. Oliva may (or may not?) have been implicated in the plot, but clearly was a scapegoat. He, along with Garcia and Peurifoy, eventually get their just deserts.

The novel is a wild ride filled with lots of dirty deeds along with some important insights. In point of fact, Llosa believes that the two most dastardly figures in the whole sorry saga were Sam Zemurray and Edward L. Bernays. The former was the founder of United Fruit, and the latter was a PR guru he hired to spread the big lie. More importantly, he believes that this act likely hindered democratization and contributed to corrupt, violent and undemocratic systems that persist to this day in the region.

Despite some murkiness resulting from the inherent complexity of the story, as well as Llosa’s use of a non-linear timeline and multiple perspectives in his often ironic and sexy narrative, the novel moves along at a swift pace and is a satisfying read. show less

[Segunda lectura]
Tuve que leerlo un poco apresurado, para una clase. Esta segunda vuelta ya estaba familiarizado con la historia y la estructura, se me hizo muchísimo más sencillo. Sigo pensando que es una novela genial.


[Primera lectura]
[b:La ciudad y los perros|60142|La ciudad y los perros|Mario Vargas Llosa|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1388862058s/60142.jpg|2115431] es una novela extraordinaria. A pesar de ser la primera novela que publicó Mario Vargas Llosa, está muy lejos de ser una show more obra de juventud. La novela está estructurada de una forma tan compleja y experta que resulta, al comienzo, muy difícil de leer (yo la comencé a leer un par de veces hace varios años, sin poder terminar el primer capítulo. Tal vez me hacía falta mucha experiencia lectora).
Ésta NO es una novela fácil en ningún sentido de la palabra: requiere concentración, tiempo y esfuerzo encontrarle el hilo, un hilo casi invisible que, a veces, parece desaparecer entre las líneas. Si te atreves a leerla, muchas veces sentirás que no sabes quién te está hablando, sentirás que oyes un coro de voces desconocidas. No desesperes. Llosa no te va a tomar de la mano, su obra es una trampa en la que puedes entrar solamente por tu cuenta. Tampoco es una obra fácil desde el punto de vista emocional: se requiere mucho estómago para digerir sucesos tan brutales, palabras tan incisivas, ambientes tan llenos de impotencia y humillación. Pero, cuando llegas a la última página, sientes haber atravesado un campo de batalla, sientes una libertad que sólo los náufragos conocen cuando tocan el puerto del que zarparon.
Muchas veces nos negamos el placer de leer a un puñado de autores por no estar de acuerdo con sus posturas políticas, con sus opiniones, con sus afiliaciones: Mishima, Pound, Hamsun... la lista sigue y sigue. Llosa me enseñó que hacer eso es una tremenda estupidez. Puede caerme antipático, puedo pensar lo que sea de sus ideas, pero no puedo negar que La ciudad y los perros es una pequeña obra maestra. show less