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Aunt Julia and the Scriptwriter
Mario Vargas Llosa's brilliant, multilayered novel is set in the Lima, Peru, of the author's youth, where a young student named Marito is toiling away in the news department of a local radio station. His young life is disrupted by two arrivals.
The first is his aunt Julia, recently divorced and thirteen years older, with whom he begins a secret affair. The second is a manic radio scriptwriter named Pedro Camacho, whose racy, vituperative soap operas are holding the city's listeners in thrall. Pedro chooses young Marito to be his confidant as he slowly goes insane.
Interweaving the story of Marito's life with the ever-more-fevered tales of Pedro Camacho, Vargas Llosa's novel is hilarious, mischievous, and masterful, a classic named one of the best books of the year by the New York Times Book Review.
The first is his aunt Julia, recently divorced and thirteen years older, with whom he begins a secret affair. The second is a manic radio scriptwriter named Pedro Camacho, whose racy, vituperative soap operas are holding the city's listeners in thrall. Pedro chooses young Marito to be his confidant as he slowly goes insane.
Interweaving the story of Marito's life with the ever-more-fevered tales of Pedro Camacho, Vargas Llosa's novel is hilarious, mischievous, and masterful, a classic named one of the best books of the year by the New York Times Book Review.
388 pages, Kindle Edition
First published March 1, 1977
About the author
Mario Vargas Llosa
461 books8,523 followersMario Vargas Llosa, born in Peru in 1936, is the author of some of the most significant writing to come out of South America in the past fifty years. His novels include The Green House, about a brothel in a Peruvian town that brings together the innocent and the corrupt; The Feast of the Goat, a vivid re-creation of the Dominican Republic during the final days of General Rafael Trujillo’s insidious regime; and Aunt Julia and the Scriptwriter, a comedic semi-autobiographical account of an aspiring writer named Marito Varguitas, who falls in love with Julia, the divorced sister-in-law of his Uncle Lucho.
He is also a widely read and respected essayist, writing everything from newspaper opinion pieces to critical works on other writers, including The Perpetual Orgy on Flaubert.
Vargas Llosa is also active outside the literary arena, and was a serious contender for the presidency of Peru in 1990 (eventually losing to the now disgraced Alberto Fujimori), an experience he documented in his memoir, A Fish in the Water.
On the controversial nature of some of his work he said, “The writer’s job is to write with rigor, with commitment, to defend what they believe with all the talent they have. I think that’s part of the moral obligation of a writer, which cannot be only purely artistic. I think a writer has some kind of responsibility at least to participate in the civic debate. I think literature is impoverished, if it becomes cut from the main agenda of people, of society, of life.”
He was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature for the year 2010, "for his cartography of structures of power & his trenchant images of the individual's resistance, revolt, and defeat".
http://us.macmillan.com/author/mariov...
He is also a widely read and respected essayist, writing everything from newspaper opinion pieces to critical works on other writers, including The Perpetual Orgy on Flaubert.
Vargas Llosa is also active outside the literary arena, and was a serious contender for the presidency of Peru in 1990 (eventually losing to the now disgraced Alberto Fujimori), an experience he documented in his memoir, A Fish in the Water.
On the controversial nature of some of his work he said, “The writer’s job is to write with rigor, with commitment, to defend what they believe with all the talent they have. I think that’s part of the moral obligation of a writer, which cannot be only purely artistic. I think a writer has some kind of responsibility at least to participate in the civic debate. I think literature is impoverished, if it becomes cut from the main agenda of people, of society, of life.”
He was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature for the year 2010, "for his cartography of structures of power & his trenchant images of the individual's resistance, revolt, and defeat".
http://us.macmillan.com/author/mariov...
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October 12, 2024
Aunt Julia and the Scriptwriter is a love comedy… And there is a triangle – a boy, his aunt and a middle-aged scriptwriter… However it isn’t a love triangle…
The eighteen-year-old youth gets infatuated with his aunt… He is a main hero and narrator of the story…
Suddenly his thirty-two-year-old aunt Julia arrives…
At the same time a very promising scriptwriter, employed by the radio station to write soap opera serials, enters the stage…
Aunt and nephew’s relationship keeps constantly developing… And actually their love story becomes a frame tale for the flowery and odd soap opera episodes, every one of which ends leaving listeners in the state of suspense… Gradually everything grows more and more entangled and confused… And episodes turn more and more bizarre and even ridiculous… The denouement is near…
When our desires overpass the bonds of common sense strange things start happening.
The eighteen-year-old youth gets infatuated with his aunt… He is a main hero and narrator of the story…
In those long-ago days, I was very young and lived with my grandparents in a villa with white walls in the Calle Ocharán, in Miraflores. I was studying at the University of San Marcos, law, as I remember, resigned to earning myself a living later on by practicing a liberal profession, although deep down what I really wanted was to become a writer someday. I had a job with a pompous-sounding title, a modest salary, duties as a plagiarist, and flexible working hours…
Suddenly his thirty-two-year-old aunt Julia arrives…
She was my Uncle Lucho’s sister-in-law and had arrived from Bolivia the night before. She had just been divorced, and had come to rest and recover from the breakup of her marriage. “She’s really come to look for another husband,” Aunt Hortensia, the biggest backbiter of all my relatives, had said straight out at a family gathering. I ate lunch every Thursday with my Uncle Lucho and Aunt Olga, and when I arrived that noon I found the whole family still in their pajamas, eating mussels in hot sauce and drinking ice-cold beer to get over a hangover. They’d stayed up till dawn gossiping with Aunt Julia, and finished off an entire bottle of whiskey between the three of them.
At the same time a very promising scriptwriter, employed by the radio station to write soap opera serials, enters the stage…
…a most unusual silhouette appeared in the doorway of the shack: a minuscule figure, on the very borderline between a man extremely short in stature and a dwarf, with a huge nose and unusually bright eyes with a disturbing, downright abnormal gleam in them. He was dressed in a black suit that was quite obviously old and threadbare, and a shirt and bow tie with visible stains, but at the same time he gave the impression of being extremely neat, fastidious, and proper with regard to his standard of dress, like those gentlemen in old photographs who appear to be imprisoned in their stiff frock coats and tight-fitting silk hats. He might have been anywhere between thirty and fifty, with oily black shoulder-length hair. His bearing, his movements, his expression appeared to be the absolute contrary of the natural and spontaneous, immediately mindful of an articulated doll, of puppet strings.
Aunt and nephew’s relationship keeps constantly developing… And actually their love story becomes a frame tale for the flowery and odd soap opera episodes, every one of which ends leaving listeners in the state of suspense… Gradually everything grows more and more entangled and confused… And episodes turn more and more bizarre and even ridiculous… The denouement is near…
But at precisely 4:13 p.m., the fifty thousand spectators saw the totally unexpected happen, before their very eyes. From the most crowded section of the southern grandstand, an apparition suddenly emerged – black, thin, very tall, one enormous tooth – nimbly scaled the fence, and rushed out onto the playing field uttering incomprehensible cries. The people in the stands were less surprised to see that the man was nearly naked – all he had on was a tiny loincloth – than they were to see that his body was covered, from head to foot, with scars. A collective gasp shook the stands; everyone realized that the tattooed man intended to kill the referee. There could be no doubt of it: the shrieking giant was running straight toward the idol of the world of soccer, who, totally absorbed in his art, had not seen him and was going on modeling the match.
When our desires overpass the bonds of common sense strange things start happening.
April 27, 2023
My second novel in a row by this author. This one was named one of the best books of the year (1982) by the New York Times Book Review. There’s a lot going on in this multilayered novel so I’ll add my comments to the basic summary on GR.
The story is set in the Lima of the author's youth, where a young student named Marito is toiling away in the news department of a local radio station. His young life is disrupted by two arrivals.
The first is his aunt Julia, recently divorced and thirteen years older, with whom he begins a secret affair. The second is a manic radio scriptwriter named Pedro Camacho, whose racy, vituperative soap operas are holding the city's listeners in thrall. Crowds line up to see him at work through the window of a tiny cubicle. Pedro chooses young Marito to be his confidant as he slowly goes insane. He mixes up his radio characters from one saga to another. People die in a fire and re-appear in the next episode. The doctor in one episode becomes a judge the next day in another.
In alternating chapters the book interweaves the story of Marito's life with the ever-more-fevered tales of Pedro Camacho, so it’s also like a collection of short stories. We are also treated to the plots of a few short stories written by the aspiring author.
All of the scriptwriter’s stories are spellbinding but bizarre, and in imitation of the nature of cliffhanger serials we are left wondering with episode endings like “will the accused rapist castrate himself in court to prove he is innocent?” A childhood trauma leads a man to create a rodent-killing business and to become an abusive husband and father. A misshapen man is in love with a cloistered nun yet somehow they manage to die in each other’s arms.
Marito has a big, gossipy, interconnected family. When he takes up with his 'aunt' (she is really the sister of an uncle by marriage) the drama and trauma is daily.
Vargas Llosa gives us a lot of local color of Lima and of Peru in the 1950s. True to that timeframe, we hear of 'darkies, sambos, queers, and fags,' and we hear malicious slanders about Argentines, Bolivians and everyone else. If you haven’t read him, here’s an example of that detail and of his writing style:
“An office had been set up for him in the concierge’s cubbyhole. In this tiny room, with a low ceiling and walls badly damaged by the dampness and by the ravages of time and desecrated by countless graffiti, there was now a monumental wooden desk, so dilapidated that it was about to fall apart, but nonetheless as imposing as the enormous typewriter rumbling away on it. The outsize dimensions of the desk and the Remington literally swallowed up the little runt. He had put a couple of cushions on the seat of his chair, but even so, his face came up no higher than the keyboard, so that he was typing away with his hands at eye level, thus causing him to appear to be boxing. He was so totally absorbed in his work that he didn’t even notice my presence, despite the fact that I was leaning right over him. His pop-eyes were riveted on the paper as he picked at the keys with his two forefingers, biting his tongue….I couldn’t decide whether the whole scene was pitiful or wildly funny."
It took me a while to understand exactly what was going on and maybe the novel is a bit longer than it needed to be, but in the end I really enjoyed it. The GR blurb calls it masterfully done, hilarious, mischievous, and a classic, and I agree.
[Revised, edited for typos 4/27/23]
Top two photos of Lima in the 1950s from postcards on eBay
The author from theparisreview.org
The story is set in the Lima of the author's youth, where a young student named Marito is toiling away in the news department of a local radio station. His young life is disrupted by two arrivals.
The first is his aunt Julia, recently divorced and thirteen years older, with whom he begins a secret affair. The second is a manic radio scriptwriter named Pedro Camacho, whose racy, vituperative soap operas are holding the city's listeners in thrall. Crowds line up to see him at work through the window of a tiny cubicle. Pedro chooses young Marito to be his confidant as he slowly goes insane. He mixes up his radio characters from one saga to another. People die in a fire and re-appear in the next episode. The doctor in one episode becomes a judge the next day in another.
In alternating chapters the book interweaves the story of Marito's life with the ever-more-fevered tales of Pedro Camacho, so it’s also like a collection of short stories. We are also treated to the plots of a few short stories written by the aspiring author.
All of the scriptwriter’s stories are spellbinding but bizarre, and in imitation of the nature of cliffhanger serials we are left wondering with episode endings like “will the accused rapist castrate himself in court to prove he is innocent?” A childhood trauma leads a man to create a rodent-killing business and to become an abusive husband and father. A misshapen man is in love with a cloistered nun yet somehow they manage to die in each other’s arms.
Marito has a big, gossipy, interconnected family. When he takes up with his 'aunt' (she is really the sister of an uncle by marriage) the drama and trauma is daily.
Vargas Llosa gives us a lot of local color of Lima and of Peru in the 1950s. True to that timeframe, we hear of 'darkies, sambos, queers, and fags,' and we hear malicious slanders about Argentines, Bolivians and everyone else. If you haven’t read him, here’s an example of that detail and of his writing style:
“An office had been set up for him in the concierge’s cubbyhole. In this tiny room, with a low ceiling and walls badly damaged by the dampness and by the ravages of time and desecrated by countless graffiti, there was now a monumental wooden desk, so dilapidated that it was about to fall apart, but nonetheless as imposing as the enormous typewriter rumbling away on it. The outsize dimensions of the desk and the Remington literally swallowed up the little runt. He had put a couple of cushions on the seat of his chair, but even so, his face came up no higher than the keyboard, so that he was typing away with his hands at eye level, thus causing him to appear to be boxing. He was so totally absorbed in his work that he didn’t even notice my presence, despite the fact that I was leaning right over him. His pop-eyes were riveted on the paper as he picked at the keys with his two forefingers, biting his tongue….I couldn’t decide whether the whole scene was pitiful or wildly funny."
It took me a while to understand exactly what was going on and maybe the novel is a bit longer than it needed to be, but in the end I really enjoyed it. The GR blurb calls it masterfully done, hilarious, mischievous, and a classic, and I agree.
[Revised, edited for typos 4/27/23]
Top two photos of Lima in the 1950s from postcards on eBay
The author from theparisreview.org
September 24, 2024
Surely one of the most entertaining novels ever written. A sheer joy to read.
Mario Vargas Llosa tells us: "With Aunt Julia and the Scriptwriter my idea was to write a novel with stereotypes, with clichés, with all the instruments of the popular novel, the soap opera, and the radio serial, but in such a way that these elements could be transformed into an artistic work, into something personal and original.”
The result: a comic novel that's both highly polished literature and fun, fun, fun, a comic novel that's actually funny.
Did you know the 1990 film Tune in Tomorrow starring Keanu Reeves, Peter Falk and Barbara Hershey is based on the novel? I'm generally not a moviegoer but I did catch this one, the funniest movie I've ever seen.
Back on the novel. We're in 1950s Lima, Peru and the novel's narrator is eighteen-year-old Mario, writer of news blurbs for a Lima radio station (actually, Mario simply rewords existing bulletins so the station can't be sued for plagiarism). However, Mario's real passion is fiction; he submits short stories to local literary journals; they're usually rejected but Mario presses on, dreaming of some day becoming a famous novelist living in a Parisian garret.
But Mario's heart is about to be set aflame. His beautiful, saucy, sexy thirty-two-year-old Aunt Julia, a recent divorcee, makes her way from Bolivia to Lima to live among all their upper-class relatives, a brood reveling in family gossip. As if an episode from a soap opera, Mario falls ever so deeply in love with Julia (a sister of his uncle's, thus an aunt by marriage, no by blood).
Speaking of soap opera, there's another recent transplant from Bolivia to Lima: Pedro Camacho, a scriptwriter, an artist obsessed with his craft - and that's obsessed as in working seventeen hours a day, seven days a week.
But Mario Vargas Llosa's novel is much more than simply Mario and Aunt Julia and Pedro Camacho - the even numbered chapters feature separate dramas of other men, women and children. We're eventually given the context of these dramas, the 'how' and 'why' they appear in the novel in the first place, but our more complete understanding unfolds progressively, chapter by chapter.
I purposely kept this review short. By my reckoning, a reader is best discovering the details of the multiple intertwining plots page by page.
The writing sizzles - and it's oh, so tasty. Thus I'll conclude with a trio of direct quotes:
Mario on Pedro Camacho - "For him, to live was to write. Whether or not his works would endure didn't matter in the least to him. Once his scripts had been broadcast, he forgot about them. He assured me he didn't have a single copy of any of his serials. They had been composed with the tacit conviction that they would cease to exist as such once they had been digested by the public."
Mario on writing: "It was becoming clearer and clearer to me each day that the only thing I wanted to be in life was a writer, and I was also becoming more and more convinced each day that the only way to be one was to devote oneself heart and soul to literature. I didn't want in the least to be a hack writer or a part-time one, but a real one, like - who? The person I 'd met who came closest to being this full-time writer, obsessed and impassioned by his vocation, was the Bolivian author of radio serials: that was why he fascinated me so."
Mario on his relationship with Aunt Julia - "I think that what had begun as a game little by little became serious in the course of these chaste meetings in the smoke-filled cafés of downtown Lima. It was in such places that, without our realizing it, we gradually fell in love."
Mario Vargas Llosa, photo of the artist as a joyful young man
November 20, 2015
He was in the prime of his life, his fifties, and his distinguishing traits - a broad forehead, an aquiline nose, a penetrating gaze, the very soul of rectitude and goodness.
Genius and insanity may or may not have a close concordat but stories of this kind never fail to fascinate me; and even more when they are subjected to satire, as Llosa does with great effect in this case. Pedro Camacho – the man behind the metrically balanced name is an unbalanced maverick of singular mind to whom the only thing that matters in life is his art. Every week he churns out radio serials by the dozens, casting a hypnotic spell on his vast audience. It is not long before he cracks under the strain of extreme overwork he is wont to justify as total devotion to his art. When his narrator-friend asks him if he intends to start a family and settle down, Camacho shakes his head at the stupid question and replies incredulously:
As I read I was perplexed by the two-dimensional clichés perfectly embodied in their exaggerated and flawless character traits. It was as though Jeffrey Archer's ghost had got into Llosa’s bloodstream. Is that the best you could do, Mr. Llosa? Come on!. My hunch that I were missing something turned out to be right. It was in the middle of the third story I realised what was happening: Pedro Camacho hadn’t made appearance by that time, but his electrifying radio serials were reproduced verbatim with all their pulpy gloss, alternated by the second narrative stream that concerns the narrator Marito’s account of his love affair with Aunt Julia. The novel came truly to life in the second half when Camacho’s stories took on the comical effect.
The scriptwriter has signature devices set in motion to churn out his theories of fiction. Heroes of radio serials reflect what I’d call their creator's obsessive-compulsive disorder. Each of them is highly committed to their ideals to the detriment of their personal lives, their relationships, and to everything that does not concern their preoccupation. It’s as though Pedro Camacho reinvents himself in every play he writes. Soon the reader discerns formulaic storylines, incessant repetitions, taboo subjects, predilection to catastrophic coincidences to shock the listener (like accidents, drownings, burnings), but most importantly characters from one story start popping up into other serials and those that he’d killed in one episode make reappearance in another, mixing up settings and plots, confusing up situations and endings. There was nothing when his patterns of thought and habits of writing collapsed. Everything was a mess by the end. Pedro Camacho was going mad and funny.
It would not exaggerate to say that the novel is anchored in the character of Pedro Camacho round which Llosa weaves the semi-autobiographical story through Marito’s struggles as an aspiring writer who falls in love in an odd way, with Julia who is his aunt by marriage and thirteen years his senior, a divorcee. Reminiscing on old days, Marito relates his struggles to make sense of his life at the time when he and Aunt Julia had challenged a big social taboo with their romance. Even at its most intense, they both know that their amorous relationship is a passing fantasy which is fated ab initio even if they defy their families and get married. Still, the certainty of eventual failure does not diminish the thrill of the adventure.
I do not know if a conjunction had ever been more inappropriately employed to strike out a novel’s title as in this case. When we hear Adam and Eve, we think of some association between them even if we don’t know anything more about them. Conjunctive titles indicate a connection between the two subjects. There is no such association between Aunt Julia and the scriptwriter save their separate links with Marito. Except for a small and inconsequential meeting between them the two main characters of the novel keep orbiting in their separate spheres, which means the two narrative streams are held together tenuously.
Marito’s love story with Julia is held out in dramatic tension in the larger narrative but unfortunately Llosa struggles to round it off. The reader is made to care about their passionate romance till the final twist when the whole thing crumbles in a self-imposed drop scene. Or perhaps Llosa divests too much information for it to leave any lingering effect on the reader. Leaving it uncertain would probably have worked out better. But then I’m not the author of this novel, Mario Vargas Llosa is; and he is eloquent, engaging, endearing. He writes beautiful sentences dripping with wit and humour (or at least his translator Helen Lane does in this case, great work Helen!).
The novel is best enjoyed for its dramatic episodic quality; seen in whole from a critic’s distance it might not stand up to the scrutiny of a sharper eye. I want to rate it moderately good at three stars but the bemused reader in me wants to award four stars for the entertaining tragicomic vein Llosa has strung me on. I am even prepared to say that in satirising pulp fiction Llosa has made it seem much more intellectually pleasing than the real pulp fiction ever is. Another angle to the satire is some writers' self-indulgence. We understand that Llosa is partly involved in self-mockery as he makes his character utilise the same self-adulatory language some "high" writers bestow on each other and elevate their art to a sublime level as though fiction writing, or for that matter poetry, is an otherworldly pursuit that cannot be understood by the herd-like masses. Yet beneath high-sounding verbal games their work turns out to be quite ordinary and banal.
October '15
Genius and insanity may or may not have a close concordat but stories of this kind never fail to fascinate me; and even more when they are subjected to satire, as Llosa does with great effect in this case. Pedro Camacho – the man behind the metrically balanced name is an unbalanced maverick of singular mind to whom the only thing that matters in life is his art. Every week he churns out radio serials by the dozens, casting a hypnotic spell on his vast audience. It is not long before he cracks under the strain of extreme overwork he is wont to justify as total devotion to his art. When his narrator-friend asks him if he intends to start a family and settle down, Camacho shakes his head at the stupid question and replies incredulously:
Do you think it’s possible to produce offspring and stories at the same time? That one can invent, imagine, if one lives under the threat of syphilis? Women and art are mutually exclusive, my friend. In every vagina an artist is buried. What pleasure is there in reproducing? Isn’t that what dogs, spiders, cats do? We must be original my friend.
As I read I was perplexed by the two-dimensional clichés perfectly embodied in their exaggerated and flawless character traits. It was as though Jeffrey Archer's ghost had got into Llosa’s bloodstream. Is that the best you could do, Mr. Llosa? Come on!. My hunch that I were missing something turned out to be right. It was in the middle of the third story I realised what was happening: Pedro Camacho hadn’t made appearance by that time, but his electrifying radio serials were reproduced verbatim with all their pulpy gloss, alternated by the second narrative stream that concerns the narrator Marito’s account of his love affair with Aunt Julia. The novel came truly to life in the second half when Camacho’s stories took on the comical effect.
The scriptwriter has signature devices set in motion to churn out his theories of fiction. Heroes of radio serials reflect what I’d call their creator's obsessive-compulsive disorder. Each of them is highly committed to their ideals to the detriment of their personal lives, their relationships, and to everything that does not concern their preoccupation. It’s as though Pedro Camacho reinvents himself in every play he writes. Soon the reader discerns formulaic storylines, incessant repetitions, taboo subjects, predilection to catastrophic coincidences to shock the listener (like accidents, drownings, burnings), but most importantly characters from one story start popping up into other serials and those that he’d killed in one episode make reappearance in another, mixing up settings and plots, confusing up situations and endings. There was nothing when his patterns of thought and habits of writing collapsed. Everything was a mess by the end. Pedro Camacho was going mad and funny.
It would not exaggerate to say that the novel is anchored in the character of Pedro Camacho round which Llosa weaves the semi-autobiographical story through Marito’s struggles as an aspiring writer who falls in love in an odd way, with Julia who is his aunt by marriage and thirteen years his senior, a divorcee. Reminiscing on old days, Marito relates his struggles to make sense of his life at the time when he and Aunt Julia had challenged a big social taboo with their romance. Even at its most intense, they both know that their amorous relationship is a passing fantasy which is fated ab initio even if they defy their families and get married. Still, the certainty of eventual failure does not diminish the thrill of the adventure.
I do not know if a conjunction had ever been more inappropriately employed to strike out a novel’s title as in this case. When we hear Adam and Eve, we think of some association between them even if we don’t know anything more about them. Conjunctive titles indicate a connection between the two subjects. There is no such association between Aunt Julia and the scriptwriter save their separate links with Marito. Except for a small and inconsequential meeting between them the two main characters of the novel keep orbiting in their separate spheres, which means the two narrative streams are held together tenuously.
Marito’s love story with Julia is held out in dramatic tension in the larger narrative but unfortunately Llosa struggles to round it off. The reader is made to care about their passionate romance till the final twist when the whole thing crumbles in a self-imposed drop scene. Or perhaps Llosa divests too much information for it to leave any lingering effect on the reader. Leaving it uncertain would probably have worked out better. But then I’m not the author of this novel, Mario Vargas Llosa is; and he is eloquent, engaging, endearing. He writes beautiful sentences dripping with wit and humour (or at least his translator Helen Lane does in this case, great work Helen!).
The novel is best enjoyed for its dramatic episodic quality; seen in whole from a critic’s distance it might not stand up to the scrutiny of a sharper eye. I want to rate it moderately good at three stars but the bemused reader in me wants to award four stars for the entertaining tragicomic vein Llosa has strung me on. I am even prepared to say that in satirising pulp fiction Llosa has made it seem much more intellectually pleasing than the real pulp fiction ever is. Another angle to the satire is some writers' self-indulgence. We understand that Llosa is partly involved in self-mockery as he makes his character utilise the same self-adulatory language some "high" writers bestow on each other and elevate their art to a sublime level as though fiction writing, or for that matter poetry, is an otherworldly pursuit that cannot be understood by the herd-like masses. Yet beneath high-sounding verbal games their work turns out to be quite ordinary and banal.
How could he be, at one and the same time, a parody of the writer and the only person in Peru who, by virtue of the time he devoted to his craft and the works he produced, was worthy of that name?
October '15
September 1, 2022
Mario Vargas Llosa is one of few Nobel winning writers I have wanted to read for ages, but I have to admit, he wasn't near the top of the list, until I came across this novel (which I knew nothing about), But for whatever reason it just appealed to me, it called my name, tempting me in, so I took the Peruvian plunge. Having never read a book set there before I didn't know what to expect, but my literary trip to Lima worked out pretty well in the end. I thought (or I'd hoped) his style may have been similar to that of Latin American counterparts Roberto Bolaño or Gabriel García Márquez, but no, not really, Llosa has a distinctive style all of his own, which, on the whole I much enjoyed.
'Aunt Julia and the Scriptwriter' is set with a profusion of circumstance in the Lima of the 1950s. The central character, who narrates about half the chapters (the others are made up of short-stories) is called Mario (presumably Llosa, although it's down to readers discretion) who writes in the first person of a sequence of events apparently taken from the author’s own life. He himself worked in his youth as a news editor for Radio Pana-mericana, studied law and wrote short stories in his spare time – and seems also to have conducted a secret and much-obstructed affair, against the will of his family, with his aunt-by-marriage, the Julia to whom the book is supposedly dedicated. The narrator’s work at the radio station plagiarising newspaper reports for news bulletins, his seldom successful persistence at composing short stories, and his increasingly secret rendezvous with his Bolivian aunt make up a large chunk of the narrative. The other element in this narration is his friendship with the scriptwriter of the title, the tiny, starry eyed, and self-important Pedro, an extraordinary prolific Bolivian import with a big fan base, who writes and stars in several daily soap operas all at once for the next-door Radio Central. He is intensely devoted to his work that he even dresses up as his characters would while he writes, throwing himself utterly and with priestly artistic purity, into his crazy, over-the-top, but beautifully filled-out serials.
llosa includes these stories in every other chapter (away from the main story of Mario & Julia), they start of quite normal, before becoming more darkly humorous, grotesque and ghastly, until eventually he ends up killing off all his characters through mass destruction due to his confused state of mind, which leads to total burn out, landing him in the nut house. Some of these chapters are really good, others don't make a blind bit of sense, before accumulating in one final story that was seriously distorted as Camacho's mind starts to crack.
The love affair between Mario and Julia I really took to heart, llosa handles this well, and there is little in the way of melodrama, which sits fine with me. The lovers would flee Lima with his friend Javier included, in the hope of finding someone to wed them, turning this part of the story into a sort of road movie, all to the annoyance of both family's. As for it's main setting, my knowledge of Lima was zero, and llosa does like to use street names, area's, and reference points throughout the city a hell of a lot of the time, (google maps is always a click away for those who want a guided tour).
As for llosa (this being my first time in his company) I liked his style, and he makes this book seem like it was written effortlessly, with a great deal of joy. It's comical, gets close to speculative fiction at times, but still carries with it deeper political undertones that are picked up on here and there. In fact I didn't realise llosa is a writer who has landed himself in hot water before, his reputation as a writer is trammelled by the controversial public events in his own life, namely the political voyage he has made from the left of South American politics to the libertarian right, add to that the fact copies of his first novel were burned in his homeland, perhaps explain why his Nobel prize win was late in coming, but then he wouldn't be the first writer getting on in years to receive this great accolade. I found him a novelist who combines his continent's vibrant and malign profusion, its energy and crazy humour, with what might be termed a European intellectual sensibility.
Look forward to reading llosa again with much confidence.
March 1, 2008
I consider my experience with this book a love affair gone horribly wrong. Once again I'm harshly reminded of the dangers of praising a book before I've finished it. What began as an amazing wonder promising to be a masterpiece, hitting a still patch towards the half-way mark and quickening its pace towards the end, died an awful death in Chapter 20, a hateful, misogynistic, self-absorbed, malicious end that made me regret all the time I'd spent with Llosa, all the times I'd raved about him, all the books I'd ordered of his in anticipation of heartache after this one had ended. But after reading the last chapter, I felt heartsick instead, as if I'd been betrayed even. And in retrospect, it revealed the insidious virgin-whore dichotomies Llosa had woven into his plot and many subplots, all the while masquerading as a lover. So consider this an anti-spoiler warning and, if you do venture to read this would-be beauty, stop at Chapter 19. I'm certain any ending you'll imagine will be more gratifying than the one Llosa would like to attack you with.
May 24, 2024
Полуавтобиографический роман Нобелевского лауреата Марио Варгаса Льосы читается легко. Ее основу составляет реальная история женитьбы писателя на своей тётушке, которую звали также, как и героиню романа с такой же разницей в возрасте. Формально она не совсем тетя, а сестра жены дяди. Также, как и реальная жена Льосы Джулия или (Хулия) Уркиди, была с ним в браке восемь лет. Как минимум, роман представляет интерес с биографической точки зрения.
Композиция романа усложнена вставными новеллами - сюжетами предшественников телевизионных мыльных опер, которыми в 1940-1950-х были радиопостановки, которые тиражировал приглашенный боливийский сценарист и озвучиватель спецэффектов Педро Камачо. Сверхпопулярность привела к тому, что пришлось писать одновременно сценарии сразу для нескольких многосерийных радиоспектаклей с типичными для жанра страстями, тиражами и приключениями, и он до того заработался, что начал путать персонажей и сюжеты, так, что герой одного сериала внезапно оказывался в другом. (Также, как сержант Литума Льосы!) Гнев слушателей постепенно переходит в восторг, и все истории сплелись в одну. Но что же в реальной жизни? Точно такой же мыльный сценарий с отцом, грозящим застрелить влюбленного сына, многочисленными родственниками, чудесами находчивости по преодолению ограничений по возрасту, налагаемыми законом. Жизнь, проживаемая ��ак сериал с ��эппи-эндом и заключением брака. Ирония здесь двойная - множественность сюжетов, поначалу разрозненных, но в конце сплетающихся в одну, также частый прием для постмодернистской литературы.
Композиция романа усложнена вставными новеллами - сюжетами предшественников телевизионных мыльных опер, которыми в 1940-1950-х были радиопостановки, которые тиражировал приглашенный боливийский сценарист и озвучиватель спецэффектов Педро Камачо. Сверхпопулярность привела к тому, что пришлось писать одновременно сценарии сразу для нескольких многосерийных радиоспектаклей с типичными для жанра страстями, тиражами и приключениями, и он до того заработался, что начал путать персонажей и сюжеты, так, что герой одного сериала внезапно оказывался в другом. (Также, как сержант Литума Льосы!) Гнев слушателей постепенно переходит в восторг, и все истории сплелись в одну. Но что же в реальной жизни? Точно такой же мыльный сценарий с отцом, грозящим застрелить влюбленного сына, многочисленными родственниками, чудесами находчивости по преодолению ограничений по возрасту, налагаемыми законом. Жизнь, проживаемая ��ак сериал с ��эппи-эндом и заключением брака. Ирония здесь двойная - множественность сюжетов, поначалу разрозненных, но в конце сплетающихся в одну, также частый прием для постмодернистской литературы.
May 3, 2018
[9/10]
In those long ago days, I was very young and lived with my grandparents in a villa with white walls in the Calle Ocharan, in Miraflores. I was studying at the University of San Marcos, law, as I remember, resigned to earning myself a living later on by practicing a liberal profession, although deep down what I really wanted was to become a writer someday.
Blurring the line between autobiography and fiction, challenging distinctions between highbrow and lowbrow art, this highly entertaining account of the tribulations of a young man in Lima is a fine example of why Mario Vargas Llosa deserved his Nobel Prize in literature. Bittersweet reminscences of falling in love with an older woman, to the consternation of his extensive and colourful Latin family, are interweaved with episodes from popular radio soap operas and with early attempts at writing from Marito. All of it against the background of an oppressive dictatorship, of growing up and moving away from the things you love the most: the city and its people in all their irrepressible lust for life.
I explained to her that love didn't exist, that it was the invention of an Italian named Petrarch and the Provencal troubadours. That what people thought was a crystal-clear outpouring of emotions, a pure effusion of sentiment, was merely the instinctive desire of cats in heat hidden beneath the poetic words and myths of literature. I didn't really believe a word of what I was saying and was simply trying to impress her. My erotico-biological theory, however, left Aunt Julia quite skeptical: did I honestly believe such nonsense?
Told in first person narration, from a point of reference far in the future, the seducing of his Aunt Julia, recently come to Lima as a divorcee from Bolivia, is told with great comedic timing and subtle transitions from cocky posturing to earnest endeavour, to bittersweet remembrance. But it is only half of the story told here.
A greater shadow over the proceeds is cast by the diminutive, energetic, ascetic, antisocial, weird actor and scriptwriter that arrives in the city at about the same time. Don Pedro Camacho is a either clown or a genius, the exact opposite of the alter ego he always uses as the lead character in all of his soap operas.
( 'He was a man who had reached the prime of life, his fifties, and in his person – broad forehead, aquiline nose, a penetrating gaze, the very soul of rectitude and goodness – and in his bearing his spotless moral virtue was so apparent as to earn him people's immediate respect.' )
Almost half of the novel consists of burlesque episodes from Pedro Camacho's popular shows, a recluse who hides from the real world and lives only though his imagination, yet somehow manages to capture not only the hearts of his audience, but the very essence of what it means to be alive in South America at the tail end of the 50's. If he could learn his secret, maybe Marito could figure out both how to become a writer, and how to conquer the heart of his beloved Aunt Julia.
When I asked them why they liked soap operas more than books, they protested: what nonsense, there was no comparison, books were culture and radio serials mere claptrap to help pass the time. But the truth of the matter was that they lived with their ears glued to the radio and that I'd never seen a one of them open a book.
Asking for romantic advice from the guru of the Radio Days in Lima is not an easy task though:
Most of the time, so-called heartaches et cetera are simply indigestion – tough beans that won't dissolve in the stomach, fish that's not as fresh as it should be, constipation. A good laxative blasts the folly of love to bits.
—«»—«»—«»—
Read on to discover how Marito can get out of his youthful predicament. For me, this novel was a blast, often making me laugh out loud at one passage only to throw me in a funk a couple of chapters later. It's a hard world out there, full of misery and loss, but a sense of humour is as essential as hard work and dedication. The author himself would soon become an exile from his homeland, and some of his other novels I read are a lot darker in tone. The seeds of this sadness maybe can be found in this youthful story of love and radio shows.
Why should those persons who used literature as an ornament or a pretext have any more right to be considered real writers than Pedro Camacho, who lived 'only' to write? Because they had read (or at least knew that they should have read) Proust, Faulkner, Joyce, while Pedro Camacho was very nearly illiterate? When I thought about such things, I felt sad and upset.
Highly recommended!
In those long ago days, I was very young and lived with my grandparents in a villa with white walls in the Calle Ocharan, in Miraflores. I was studying at the University of San Marcos, law, as I remember, resigned to earning myself a living later on by practicing a liberal profession, although deep down what I really wanted was to become a writer someday.
Blurring the line between autobiography and fiction, challenging distinctions between highbrow and lowbrow art, this highly entertaining account of the tribulations of a young man in Lima is a fine example of why Mario Vargas Llosa deserved his Nobel Prize in literature. Bittersweet reminscences of falling in love with an older woman, to the consternation of his extensive and colourful Latin family, are interweaved with episodes from popular radio soap operas and with early attempts at writing from Marito. All of it against the background of an oppressive dictatorship, of growing up and moving away from the things you love the most: the city and its people in all their irrepressible lust for life.
I explained to her that love didn't exist, that it was the invention of an Italian named Petrarch and the Provencal troubadours. That what people thought was a crystal-clear outpouring of emotions, a pure effusion of sentiment, was merely the instinctive desire of cats in heat hidden beneath the poetic words and myths of literature. I didn't really believe a word of what I was saying and was simply trying to impress her. My erotico-biological theory, however, left Aunt Julia quite skeptical: did I honestly believe such nonsense?
Told in first person narration, from a point of reference far in the future, the seducing of his Aunt Julia, recently come to Lima as a divorcee from Bolivia, is told with great comedic timing and subtle transitions from cocky posturing to earnest endeavour, to bittersweet remembrance. But it is only half of the story told here.
A greater shadow over the proceeds is cast by the diminutive, energetic, ascetic, antisocial, weird actor and scriptwriter that arrives in the city at about the same time. Don Pedro Camacho is a either clown or a genius, the exact opposite of the alter ego he always uses as the lead character in all of his soap operas.
( 'He was a man who had reached the prime of life, his fifties, and in his person – broad forehead, aquiline nose, a penetrating gaze, the very soul of rectitude and goodness – and in his bearing his spotless moral virtue was so apparent as to earn him people's immediate respect.' )
Almost half of the novel consists of burlesque episodes from Pedro Camacho's popular shows, a recluse who hides from the real world and lives only though his imagination, yet somehow manages to capture not only the hearts of his audience, but the very essence of what it means to be alive in South America at the tail end of the 50's. If he could learn his secret, maybe Marito could figure out both how to become a writer, and how to conquer the heart of his beloved Aunt Julia.
When I asked them why they liked soap operas more than books, they protested: what nonsense, there was no comparison, books were culture and radio serials mere claptrap to help pass the time. But the truth of the matter was that they lived with their ears glued to the radio and that I'd never seen a one of them open a book.
Asking for romantic advice from the guru of the Radio Days in Lima is not an easy task though:
Most of the time, so-called heartaches et cetera are simply indigestion – tough beans that won't dissolve in the stomach, fish that's not as fresh as it should be, constipation. A good laxative blasts the folly of love to bits.
—«»—«»—«»—
Read on to discover how Marito can get out of his youthful predicament. For me, this novel was a blast, often making me laugh out loud at one passage only to throw me in a funk a couple of chapters later. It's a hard world out there, full of misery and loss, but a sense of humour is as essential as hard work and dedication. The author himself would soon become an exile from his homeland, and some of his other novels I read are a lot darker in tone. The seeds of this sadness maybe can be found in this youthful story of love and radio shows.
Why should those persons who used literature as an ornament or a pretext have any more right to be considered real writers than Pedro Camacho, who lived 'only' to write? Because they had read (or at least knew that they should have read) Proust, Faulkner, Joyce, while Pedro Camacho was very nearly illiterate? When I thought about such things, I felt sad and upset.
Highly recommended!
October 14, 2018
3.5/Leer a Mario Vargas Llosa se está convirtiendo en un placer. Una historia bonita pero (en mi modesta opinión) no memorable.
August 21, 2024
الخالة خوليا وكاتب السيناريو أو كيف تُحول الواقع إلى خيال مُمتع؟
التجربة الثانية لي مع الكاتب البيروفي "ماريو بارغاس يوسا" بعد تجربة ساخرة سياسية أكثر من رائعة في "بانتاليون والزائرات"، تأتي هذه التجربة الاجتماعية الإنسانية التي تحمل حكايات مُتضافرة من سيرته الحقيقية عندما تزوج في عمر ما قبل العشرين، وعن كاتب السيناريو الذي قابله في بداية حياته، والكثير من الخيال الذي أضافه للحكايتين، ليكون المنتج النهائي عملاً رائعاً مليء بالتفاصيل المُدهشة والحكايات الساحرة، ورغم حجم الرواية الكبير ما يقترب من خمسمائة صفحة، ولكن، الرواية كانت ممتعة للغاية، تجعلك تلتهم الفصول ولا تتمنى أن تنتهي هذه الرواية المُدهشة.
وهناك عدة عوامل مُدهشة في الرواية، فبعد أن تتجاوز الفصل الأول بشخصياته وتركيبتهم الفريدة، وخلفياتهم الثقافية والحضارية، فـ"ماريتو بارغيتاس" –تمويه ساخر ولطيف لشخصية تُمثل الكاتب نفسه- البيروفي الذي يعمل في مجال الأدب بشكلاً ما، فهو يُعيد صياغة الاخبار بأحد الإذاعات الصوتية، ويحاول أن يكتب أدباً ويدرس الحقوق في نفس الوقت، يأتي وافدان إلى بلده، الأولى هي الخالة خوليا، البوليفية التي كانت صديقة والدته وقريبة للعائلة، و"بدرو كاماتشو" كاتب السيناريو البوليفي، غريب الأطوار، والمُبدع، والذي لا يجف نهر إبداعه، والذي بسببه ازدهرت الإذاعة الصوتية، لجمال مسلسلاته الإذاعية، وتشويقها، فجعل المستمعون يتوافدون على سماع أعماله، بل وترقبها وتصبح حديث البلد.
بالإضافة لعامل مهم جداً؛ وهو سرد "ماريو بارغاس يوسا"، فهو حكاء ماهر، يُجيد غزل حكايته بمهارة ودقة، بذكاء وبعبقرية، فعندما تقرأ الفصل الأول، ثم تبدأ في الفصل الثاني، ستشعر أنك تقرأ رواية أخرى، أو ربما خط أحداث موازي سيلتقي مع خط الأحداث الرئيسي، لتكتشف بعد ذلك اللعبة التي قام بها الكاتب، وهو أنه يُضيف المسلسلات الإذاعية التي يكتبها "بدرو كاماتشو" بداخل الرواية، فتصبح الفصول بمثابة تتبع رواية ومجموعة قصصية في نفس الوقت، فكل حلقة كانت مختلفة عن الأخرى، في البداية بالطبع، حتى تظهر بعض المفاجآت في النهاية، وذلك السرد الملتوي ساعدنا لكي نكون -كقراء- في صورة الأحداث، فـ"يوسا" لم يكفي بأن يصف ويُدلل أن كاتب السيناريو بارع، هو أيضاً كان يبرهن على ذلك بتلك الفصول المأخوذة من مسلسلاته، والتي كانت جيدة ومُمتعة ولا تخلو من سخرية، والأهم من كل ذلك، إنه لها هدف حقيقي بداخل الأحداث، هدف سينكشف بتروي وبهدوء، لنفهم شخصية "بدرو كاماتشو" وخلفيته، ولماذا يدفن نفسه في كتابة الأعمال، وسب الأرجنتينين، وشرب نبتة الليمون والنعناع، والعيش في هذا الفندق القذر.
ختاماً..
رواية مُدهشة وساحرة ستجذبك بداخل أحداثها، ستشعر أنك في أجواء مغامرة في آخر الفصول، الذي كان يزداد تعقيداً وتعقيداً، حكايات مُختلفة ومُستقاة من حياة "يوسا" نفسه، سخرية لاذعة لنظام الحكم حتى لو كان بشكل طفيف في هذا العمل، ولكن كانت بشكل مؤثر، والأهم من ذلك، فهي النهاية، التي كانت سوداوية من وجهة نظري، تلك المصائر التي توجهنا فيها الحياة، كل تلك الأشياء التي نُريدها بشدة، ثم بعد استحواذنا عليها، نجد أنفسنا نمل منها بعد عدة سنوات، وكيف أن الموهبة التي نمتلكها لو لم نستغلها بشكل جيد، لضاعت وغيرت طريقنا، وأن الحب يفعل الكثير فينا إلى درجة أننا يُمكن أن نعادي عائلتنا أو بلد أخرى كاملة بسبب شخص واحد!
رواية مُمتعة، وبالتأكيد كانت الترجمة أكثر من رائعة، فـ"مارك جمال" أصبح بلا شك واحد من المترجمين الذي سأقتني أعماله المترجمة بدون أي تردد.
يُنصح بها بكل تأكيد.
February 12, 2018
If you should happen to read it-just ignore me. Ignore all I’ve written about. It’s not a real review. In fact, this is not review at all.
It’s been some years I read Aunt Julia and the Scriptwriter for the first time. It was at hospital, after my surgery, waiting for.. Oh, I didn’t know what I was waiting for. Anyway, I was lying in bed like some miserable Lazarius, looking like shit and feeling the same, in a strange city, with no one to talk. Ok, it doesn’t matter. So, I was lying and thinking, and more thinking. Chemotherapy, radiation therapy and whatever. Dreadful thoughts were flashing through my mind. Screw it.
Like Picasso, who had blue and rose periods in his painting, I had then Latin American period in my reading life. Full of Macondos, labyrinths, imaginary beings. I’m sure you know what I mean. No wonder that I took with me such book. O dear me, we’ve got everything here: romance of young boy with his sophisticated aunt Julia, scandalized at this family, oohs and aahs, gosh, how she could, she’s older, she’s divorced, she’s amoral, poor Marito, she’s ruining his life. Meanwhile Marito wants to be a writer and settle one day in Paris. But now his studying law and working at the local radio station Panamerica. There he meets Pedro Camacho from next door Radio Central. Oh Pedro, what the guy he was. I’m pretty sure that was him who invented all that idiotic and stupid soap operas in all televisions. Yes, Pedro scripts the most ridiculous radio soap operas full of degenerations, fires, murders, incest. Name it, he can do it. Protagonists from one story appear in another just in purpose to be killed by drowning. No matter that in the first one our hero was killed in fire already. Apparently he was no lucky, poor thing. All events are more and more bizarre and finally are looping itself like some Möebius strip.
Besides we have cramped cafés full of tobacco smoke, crowded streets of Lima, sultry nights. Atmosphere of passion. Oh, there is a bourgeoisie here with all its hypocrisy and dullness. Prose of Llosa is vivid, full of South American temperament and appetite for life.
It was January frosty night and with every page I was like that freaking Cheshire cat, grinned from ear to ear. Don’t get me wrong. I’m not saying that this book saved my life; this book is neither the wisest nor the funniest I’ve ever read. I’m only saying it helped me to survive that night. I couldn’t wish for more then. I made it, others weren’t so lucky. And this book will always be reminding me of it.
August 13, 2024
This is the eleventh novel I’ve read by Mario Vargas Llosa, and it’s one of his best-known. I’ve mentioned in other reviews that he writes across a wide range of genres, and this counts amongst his comic novels. I read it in English translation. I’m always a bit wary of humour in translation. It must be a very tricky thing to pull off, though the translator makes a decent job of it here.
The story is set in the 1950s and is at least partly autobiographical. As the novel opens the 18-year-old Mario, our narrator, combines studying for a law degree with working as the news editor at a radio station in Lima. His workplace has a fun cast of characters. Mario’s sub-editor, Pascual, is obsessed with disasters, murders etc, and likes nothing better than to fill the news with lurid details about such events. Most entertaining of all though, is Pedro Camacho, an eccentric Bolivian scriptwriter and workaholic who churns out the radio station’s wildly popular soap operas, and who has an obsessive hatred of Argentines.
Meanwhile, in his personal life, Mario develops a romantic relationship with his “Aunt” Julia, (actually his uncle’s wife’s sister) who is 32 and divorced.
The novel is structured into two threads. One tells the above story of the narrator’s complicated work and romantic life, and it’s pretty good. It’s not hilarious like some comic novels I’ve read, but it is consistently funny. The other thread involves the plots of Pedro Camacho’s soap operas. Unfortunately this fell flat for me, and whenever I got to one of these chapters I lost my enthusiasm for the book. I don’t know whether MVL was using these chapters to parody soap operas. I always feel the problem with that is that the plots of the soap operas themselves are often so ridiculous as to simply be beyond parody.
Most people seem to have liked the novel more than me. I didn’t dislike it, but my favourite MVL novels are Conversation in the Cathedral, The War of the End of the World, and The Feast of the Goat, with The Storyteller and Death in the Andes following on. I think therefore I prefer his more “serious” books. Each to their own.
The story is set in the 1950s and is at least partly autobiographical. As the novel opens the 18-year-old Mario, our narrator, combines studying for a law degree with working as the news editor at a radio station in Lima. His workplace has a fun cast of characters. Mario’s sub-editor, Pascual, is obsessed with disasters, murders etc, and likes nothing better than to fill the news with lurid details about such events. Most entertaining of all though, is Pedro Camacho, an eccentric Bolivian scriptwriter and workaholic who churns out the radio station’s wildly popular soap operas, and who has an obsessive hatred of Argentines.
Meanwhile, in his personal life, Mario develops a romantic relationship with his “Aunt” Julia, (actually his uncle’s wife’s sister) who is 32 and divorced.
The novel is structured into two threads. One tells the above story of the narrator’s complicated work and romantic life, and it’s pretty good. It’s not hilarious like some comic novels I’ve read, but it is consistently funny. The other thread involves the plots of Pedro Camacho’s soap operas. Unfortunately this fell flat for me, and whenever I got to one of these chapters I lost my enthusiasm for the book. I don’t know whether MVL was using these chapters to parody soap operas. I always feel the problem with that is that the plots of the soap operas themselves are often so ridiculous as to simply be beyond parody.
Most people seem to have liked the novel more than me. I didn’t dislike it, but my favourite MVL novels are Conversation in the Cathedral, The War of the End of the World, and The Feast of the Goat, with The Storyteller and Death in the Andes following on. I think therefore I prefer his more “serious” books. Each to their own.
February 6, 2019
The modern novel is a conglomeration of different literary techniques & styles, true. But which ones to use? must be The preliminary question of every writer before he begins his novel. MVL has decided, in this one, to split himself in two: the separate entities living inside the man are Marito/”Varguitas”, the ingenue romantic, who experiences a rich life, full of romance, adventures & comical characters, and Pedro Camacho, the ugly dwarf only producing and producing serial dramas with a soldier-like discipline and a robotic capacity until turning completely mad. The writer must have these two qualities, robust living (the intrepid experience of extremes, loves, etc.) & discipline, discipline, discipline. How else will the writer ever get his product finished?
December 15, 2018
Pur non avendo ancora raggiunto il “fiore dell’età”, con sguardo penetrante, rettitudine e bontà nello spirito leggo questo libro dopo una serie di capolavori 'tragici' di Vargas Llosa e mi ritrovo più volte a ridacchiare soddisfatto. E mentre leggo, oziosamente mi viene in mente che sia una specie di incrocio tra Angel di Elizabeth Taylor (che è di una ventina d’anni precedente) e Se una notte d’inverno un viaggiatore di Italo Calvino (che è invece successivo di due anni), ma più divertente di entrambi. E, dopo aver finito, non è male passare subito ad alcuni racconti del Balzac francese dopo aver seguito i vertiginosi exploit del “Balzac creolo” Pedro Camacho.
Siamo di nuovo in Perù durante la dittatura di Odría (anni 1953-1954; ma il contesto politico è praticamente invisibile rispetto alla Conversazione ); il protagonista è un personaggio ancora più apertamente autobiografico: a 19 anni (ancora minorenne), di buona (e molto larga) famiglia, svogliato studente di legge all’università di San Marcos, aspirante scrittore che produce con difficoltà, legge agli amici e infine distrugge tutta una serie di racconti, dirige comunicati giornalistici per una radio di Lima, che ha come attrazione principale per il grande pubblico i romanzi radiofonici sentimentali e sensazionalistici: prima li comprano da Cuba, poi assumono appunto Pedro Camacho, "boliviano e artista". E intanto, dalla Bolivia, arriva anche l'ex moglie, divorziata, dello zio Lucho...
L'avrebbe fatto? Sarebbe riuscito don Pedro a scrivere in tempo tutto quello che migliaia di ascoltatori attendono frementi? Oppure il cammino incorrotto dell'arte sarebbe stato intralciato dalle pressioni di un paese noto per le sue mucche e i suoi tanghi? Avrebbe il giovane autore di sudati racconti culminato il suo amore contrastato? Come sarebbe andata a finire questa parabola di vita e arte, di amore e vocazione?
Siamo di nuovo in Perù durante la dittatura di Odría (anni 1953-1954; ma il contesto politico è praticamente invisibile rispetto alla Conversazione ); il protagonista è un personaggio ancora più apertamente autobiografico: a 19 anni (ancora minorenne), di buona (e molto larga) famiglia, svogliato studente di legge all’università di San Marcos, aspirante scrittore che produce con difficoltà, legge agli amici e infine distrugge tutta una serie di racconti, dirige comunicati giornalistici per una radio di Lima, che ha come attrazione principale per il grande pubblico i romanzi radiofonici sentimentali e sensazionalistici: prima li comprano da Cuba, poi assumono appunto Pedro Camacho, "boliviano e artista". E intanto, dalla Bolivia, arriva anche l'ex moglie, divorziata, dello zio Lucho...
L'avrebbe fatto? Sarebbe riuscito don Pedro a scrivere in tempo tutto quello che migliaia di ascoltatori attendono frementi? Oppure il cammino incorrotto dell'arte sarebbe stato intralciato dalle pressioni di un paese noto per le sue mucche e i suoi tanghi? Avrebbe il giovane autore di sudati racconti culminato il suo amore contrastato? Come sarebbe andata a finire questa parabola di vita e arte, di amore e vocazione?
September 27, 2017
That is what Contrafactus is all about. In everyday thought, we are constantly manufacturing mental variants on situations we face, ideas we have, or events that happen, and we let some features stay exactly the same while others "slip". What features do we let slip? What ones do we not even consider letting slip? What events are perceived on some deep intuitive level as being close relatives of ones which really happened? What do we think "almost" happened or "could have" happened, even though it unambiguously did not? What alternative versions of events pop without any conscious thought into our minds when we hear a story? Why do some counterfactuals strike us as "less counterfactual" than other counterfactuals? After all, it is obvious that anything that didn't happen didn't happen. There aren't degrees of "didn't-happen-ness". And the same goes for "almost" situations. There are times when one plaintively says, "It almost happened", and other times when one says the same thing, full of relief. But the "almost" lies in the mind, not in the external facts.
-DOUGLAS R. HOFSTADTER/Gödel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid
I write. I write that I am writing. Mentally I see myself writing that I am writing and I can also see myself seeing that I am writing. I remember writing and also seeing myself writing. And I see myself remembering that I see myself writing and I remember seeing myself remembering that I was writing and I write seeing myself write that I remember having seen myself write that I saw myself writing that I was writing and that I was writing that I was writing that I was writing. I can also imagine myself writing that I had already written that I would imagine myself writing that I had written that I was imagining myself writing that I see myself writing that I am writing.
-SALVADOR ELIZONDO / The Graphographer
(Quoted in Aunt Julia and the Scriptwriter)
Aunt Julia and the Scriptwriter is a humorous surreal novel by Mario Vargos Llosa, the Peruvian writer who is the recipient of the 2010 Nobel Prize in Literature. The story’s structure is like a Russian nesting doll and its variants. It contains two main plot lines. The first is the realistic anchor of the 18 year old Varguitas (diminutive for Vargos) falling for his 32 year old divorced aunt by marriage, Julia. The story anchor is based on the author’s memory of his youth passionately pursuing his decade older aunt, Julia Urquidi Illanes. The second follows an obsessive Bolivian scriptwriter, Pedro Camacho, hired by the station Varguitas works for, to churn out numerous soap serials daily. In his interview, Vargas Llosa said that although Pedro Camacho is not a real person, he was based on a man Llosa knew who wrote radio serials for Radio Central in Lima. The man would churn out countless scripts with ease, barely taking time to review them. The man was the first professional writer Llosa has known. Llosa was fascinated with the unlimited world the man was able to create. One day, the man’s stories started to overlap, with the plots and characters getting mixed up. This inspired Vargas Llosa’s main theme.
Camacho’s plot line includes the short stories from the serials created by him. The stories are full of uproariously funny details with a cliffhanger as to how the situation would turn out. The increasingly surreal stories abruptly weaves in and out of the Varguitas plot line as he passionately pursues his aunt and observes Camacho’s mental decline from overwork. This goes in tandem with Varguitas’ and Julia’s increasingly risking family scandal and disapproval.
This semi-autobiography is more about his development as a writer than about his affair with his aunt Julia. Varguitas had dreams of being a serious writer of literature, living a bohemian life in a Paris garret. The young writer believed that serious writing should be a descriptive painting of real life. He tried to recreate the humor from situations, such as the hilarity of an actor playing Christ on the cross falling from prop malfunction. Unfortunately, he was unable to recapture the humor of the situation he witnessed. Meanwhile, Camacho was spitting out stories after stories right out of his head, with legions of radio listeners glued to the box. The story ended with the young writer learning a lesson about the need for balance between unlimited creative freedom with the grounding of real life structures.
The interesting Russian nesting doll structure effectively paints the internal and self-reflective autobiographical nature of Vargos Llosa’s story, and his relationship with writing. At the outermost, we are reading about his life and his relationship to writing. Vargos Llosa is observing, recalling, and writing about his past with his aunt Julia and his memory of the scriptwriter on which the character of Camacho is based. Pedro Camacho never existed, but Vargos Llosa was inspired by a scriptwriter who wrote for Radio Central in Lima. Vargas Llosa recalled his memory of this scriptwriter, piecing his own observation about himself as a developing young writer, and creating another man, Pedro Camacho, to help tell his semi-autobiography. The character Pedro Camacho, in turn, creates his own characters, which came to life for Camacho and his audience. They became so lifelike that Camacho sweared that they were the one that went out of control on their own, and he had to do damage control.
Questions were raised as to what is successful literature. Is literature influential if it inspired ardent followers? Or is literature considered effective if it has high intellectual and artistic significance? The young Varguitas made an informal survey of friends and relatives as to why they like radio serials so much. The answers ranges were “they were entertaining, sad, or dramatic”, and were able to take them out of the drudgery of daily life. Although the people remained glued to the radio for the serials instead of cracking open a book of literature, they demurred that literature is culture while radio serials were only trivial entertainment.
“Could have” elements are woven throughout the story. All of Camacho’s stories end with the dramatic questions asking the listeners to wonder how the situation will turn out. Camacho’s short stories are full of hilarious turns, sometimes bordering on the bizarre, with some containing taboo topics. There are situations of sibling incest, the encounter with an African slave that was stowed away on a ship and abandoned in the area, the trial in the rape of a young teen girl, the nervous breakdown of a man who accidentally caused the death of a girl, and a compulsive rat killer. The overworked Camacho eventually mixed up the characters and plots in his serials. He declared that the characters have a life of their own and he was only trying to fix their misbehaviors. His fixing resulted in a hilarious resolution.
As a mature writer, Vargas Llosa’s stories contain a balance of real and surreal. They make no moral judgment, but merely depict his observations of real life, mixed in with his creative manipulation of the characters and situations. Although the characters sometimes have immoral qualities and are demoralized, they never are less than human, trying to survive through life’s tragedies and incomprehension, making their sometimes warped interpretations of it. In the end, when Varguitas came to the conclusion that soaps are just as important as high literature, he and Vargas Llosa were able to find the sublime within the plebeian.
May 6, 2018
Gruppo di lettura del gruppo Letture in corso - Inizio 17/01/2011
Come un funambolo della parola
La zia Julia e lo scribacchino è un romanzo in equilibrio sopra la follia che ammalia, irretisce, indigna, infastidisce e diverte, in un turbinio che sembra infinito di storie che si intrecciano, si toccano e si palpano in una continua altalena in cui l'autore dà prova del proprio virtuosismo.
Ad uno stile vivace e scoppiettante, quello dei "capitoli dispari" è più pacato ma in crescendo man mano che si va avanti con la lettura, si contrappone una realtà sociale, quella del Perù degli anni Cinquanta, moralista e bigotta cui corrisponde una certa rigidità di costumi e maniere che Vargas Llosa si diverte a provocare e a scardinare con il proprio linguaggio dissacratorio e irriverente; i "capitoli pari" sono invece tutta un'altra storia; anzi, per meglio dire sono proprio "altre storie", storie in cui affiora tutto il realismo magico di cui solo il Sud America è intriso fino alle radici e che non mancheranno di sorprendere e disorientare il lettore.
Se da una parte sarà possibile immergersi nella calda e umida città di Lima, passeggiare per le sue lunghe avenida e per i vicoli polverosi, riuscire a malapena a vedere il cielo sempre oscurato da una cappa appiccicosa di nuvole basse e a seguire con palpitazione le vicende amorose del giovane aspirante scrittore Mari(t)o e della zia Julia, della radio Panamericana e dello scribacchino - autore di romanzi radiofonici - Pedro Camacho, dall'altra basterà allungare lo sguardo per ampliare il proprio l'orizzonte ed entrare in villaggi sul mare dove il cielo è così azzurro da abbagliare la vista, dove le foreste sono intricate e popolate da spiriti sconosciuti e le case, le pensioni, le ville, i tribunali e gli uffici del comune sembrano accogliere fra le proprie mura tutta l'eredità di una tradizione che parte dagli Inca e arriva fino ai giorni nostri, in una incredibile miscellanea di colori, suoni, parole e odori e personaggi che rende incredibile e impossibile il fatto che possa trattarsi di luoghi magici e reali allo stesso tempo.
Ma sia che a scrivere si tratti di Marito Varguitas (!) piuttosto che di Pedro Camacho, scommettiamo che Vargas Llosa - fronte spaziosa, naso aquilino, sguardo penetrante, rettitudine e bontà di spirito - vi farà perdere la testa e catturerà la vostra attenzione fino all'ultima parola?
Scommettiamo che inizierete a ripercorrere avanti e indietro le pagine già lette? E che anche alla fine non sarete del tutto convinti e tornerete indietro ancora una volta a rileggere almeno un paio di righe?
Vogliamo scommettere?
Riprendo dall'articolo che accompagnò l'uscita di La zia Julia e lo scribacchino per la Biblioteca di Repubblica: L'ascesa del giovane scrittore è una sorte di autobiografia di Vargas Llosa? Zia Julia Urquidi Illanes, nella realtà prima moglie dello scrittore, la lesse così, mandando alle stampe un contro-volume con la sua verità. Vargas Llosa ha invece sempre rivendicato il dovere della menzogna dello scrittore, ribelle anche a Dio come costruttore della realtà. «Non si scrivono romanzi per raccontare la verità, ma per trasformarla». Benvenuti nel mondo parallelo di Vargas Llosa.
Certo è che, vista anche la dedica dell'autore posta all'inizio del romanzo - «A Julia Urquidi Illanes, cui tanto dobbiamo io e questo romanzo» - leggere il contro-volume della ex-moglie sarebbe stato molto interessante: peccato che non se ne trovi traccia.
Come un funambolo della parola
La zia Julia e lo scribacchino è un romanzo in equilibrio sopra la follia che ammalia, irretisce, indigna, infastidisce e diverte, in un turbinio che sembra infinito di storie che si intrecciano, si toccano e si palpano in una continua altalena in cui l'autore dà prova del proprio virtuosismo.
Ad uno stile vivace e scoppiettante, quello dei "capitoli dispari" è più pacato ma in crescendo man mano che si va avanti con la lettura, si contrappone una realtà sociale, quella del Perù degli anni Cinquanta, moralista e bigotta cui corrisponde una certa rigidità di costumi e maniere che Vargas Llosa si diverte a provocare e a scardinare con il proprio linguaggio dissacratorio e irriverente; i "capitoli pari" sono invece tutta un'altra storia; anzi, per meglio dire sono proprio "altre storie", storie in cui affiora tutto il realismo magico di cui solo il Sud America è intriso fino alle radici e che non mancheranno di sorprendere e disorientare il lettore.
Se da una parte sarà possibile immergersi nella calda e umida città di Lima, passeggiare per le sue lunghe avenida e per i vicoli polverosi, riuscire a malapena a vedere il cielo sempre oscurato da una cappa appiccicosa di nuvole basse e a seguire con palpitazione le vicende amorose del giovane aspirante scrittore Mari(t)o e della zia Julia, della radio Panamericana e dello scribacchino - autore di romanzi radiofonici - Pedro Camacho, dall'altra basterà allungare lo sguardo per ampliare il proprio l'orizzonte ed entrare in villaggi sul mare dove il cielo è così azzurro da abbagliare la vista, dove le foreste sono intricate e popolate da spiriti sconosciuti e le case, le pensioni, le ville, i tribunali e gli uffici del comune sembrano accogliere fra le proprie mura tutta l'eredità di una tradizione che parte dagli Inca e arriva fino ai giorni nostri, in una incredibile miscellanea di colori, suoni, parole e odori e personaggi che rende incredibile e impossibile il fatto che possa trattarsi di luoghi magici e reali allo stesso tempo.
Ma sia che a scrivere si tratti di Marito Varguitas (!) piuttosto che di Pedro Camacho, scommettiamo che Vargas Llosa - fronte spaziosa, naso aquilino, sguardo penetrante, rettitudine e bontà di spirito - vi farà perdere la testa e catturerà la vostra attenzione fino all'ultima parola?
Scommettiamo che inizierete a ripercorrere avanti e indietro le pagine già lette? E che anche alla fine non sarete del tutto convinti e tornerete indietro ancora una volta a rileggere almeno un paio di righe?
Vogliamo scommettere?
Riprendo dall'articolo che accompagnò l'uscita di La zia Julia e lo scribacchino per la Biblioteca di Repubblica: L'ascesa del giovane scrittore è una sorte di autobiografia di Vargas Llosa? Zia Julia Urquidi Illanes, nella realtà prima moglie dello scrittore, la lesse così, mandando alle stampe un contro-volume con la sua verità. Vargas Llosa ha invece sempre rivendicato il dovere della menzogna dello scrittore, ribelle anche a Dio come costruttore della realtà. «Non si scrivono romanzi per raccontare la verità, ma per trasformarla». Benvenuti nel mondo parallelo di Vargas Llosa.
Certo è che, vista anche la dedica dell'autore posta all'inizio del romanzo - «A Julia Urquidi Illanes, cui tanto dobbiamo io e questo romanzo» - leggere il contro-volume della ex-moglie sarebbe stato molto interessante: peccato che non se ne trovi traccia.
November 14, 2021
FLASH! Mario moves on mellow matron: scribe’s serials star sensational schemes and sins
If you don’t get any pleasure out of reading this book, forget about reading and take up tiddlywinks!
Eighteen year-old Peruvian wanna-be writer from a large, old Lima family, Mario works at a radio station and falls madly in love with his divorced Aunt Julia (aunt by marriage, not by blood). She’s only fourteen years older than he, no bloody worries! At the same time, a proud but diminutive Bolivian weirdo gets hired at the radio station to write scripts for soap operas. And boy, does he write them! He eventually winds up writing ten different series all at the same time. They are performed throughout the day to a rapidly rising audience that makes the station owners a fortune. But things start to go bad, things get “a bit” confused. At the same time, young Mario’s love affairs resemble a soap opera too. Can we separate the comedy of soap operas from the comedy of life? What crazy stuff will Pedro Camacho write next? What dilemma will the two mismatched lovers face next? Tune in next Wednesday at 4 o’clock on Channel……….wait, what am I writing here? This is Goodreads. Yes, sorry, but seeing that a flaming comet is about to crash into my hometown, I’m doing a Camacho here, will Bob Newman survive until the next book review? Will he relent and tell you all the outcome of this story or a few intimate details of the lives of Lima residents, real or fantastic, before Marblehead, Mass is obliterated in a giant explosion? Tune in next Thursday at 6 p.m. to………wait, what am I writing here? Again????
No, damn it, I’m not going to reveal the secrets of this most ingenious and amusing novel. Read some other reviews. I will just warn you that every soap opera hero (be he rat catcher, aspirin salesman, crippled composer, idiot soccer referee or stolid policeman) is “a man who had reached the prime of life, his fifties, and in his person—broad forehead, aquiline nose, a penetrating gaze--the very soul of rectitude and goodness”. You’ll have to ferret out the other comic aspects of AJ & TS by your lonesome. And if you want to know if Mario and Aunt Julia ever hopped into bed together, read the bloody book for God’s sake. It's a very good one.
Just do it.
If you don’t get any pleasure out of reading this book, forget about reading and take up tiddlywinks!
Eighteen year-old Peruvian wanna-be writer from a large, old Lima family, Mario works at a radio station and falls madly in love with his divorced Aunt Julia (aunt by marriage, not by blood). She’s only fourteen years older than he, no bloody worries! At the same time, a proud but diminutive Bolivian weirdo gets hired at the radio station to write scripts for soap operas. And boy, does he write them! He eventually winds up writing ten different series all at the same time. They are performed throughout the day to a rapidly rising audience that makes the station owners a fortune. But things start to go bad, things get “a bit” confused. At the same time, young Mario’s love affairs resemble a soap opera too. Can we separate the comedy of soap operas from the comedy of life? What crazy stuff will Pedro Camacho write next? What dilemma will the two mismatched lovers face next? Tune in next Wednesday at 4 o’clock on Channel……….wait, what am I writing here? This is Goodreads. Yes, sorry, but seeing that a flaming comet is about to crash into my hometown, I’m doing a Camacho here, will Bob Newman survive until the next book review? Will he relent and tell you all the outcome of this story or a few intimate details of the lives of Lima residents, real or fantastic, before Marblehead, Mass is obliterated in a giant explosion? Tune in next Thursday at 6 p.m. to………wait, what am I writing here? Again????
No, damn it, I’m not going to reveal the secrets of this most ingenious and amusing novel. Read some other reviews. I will just warn you that every soap opera hero (be he rat catcher, aspirin salesman, crippled composer, idiot soccer referee or stolid policeman) is “a man who had reached the prime of life, his fifties, and in his person—broad forehead, aquiline nose, a penetrating gaze--the very soul of rectitude and goodness”. You’ll have to ferret out the other comic aspects of AJ & TS by your lonesome. And if you want to know if Mario and Aunt Julia ever hopped into bed together, read the bloody book for God’s sake. It's a very good one.
Just do it.
April 19, 2019
Storie di vita limegna
Sebbene non si incontrino quasi mai nel corso del romanzo, la zia Julia e Pedro Camacho, lo scribacchino, ne condividono il titolo a buon diritto: rappresentano i due poli della vita del giovane protagonista narrante, rampollo di buona famiglia della capitale Lima, nei cui panni non è difficile individuare molti tratti biografici dell’autore.
Per inciso, sulla questione biografia o romanzo si è dibattuto a lungo ma francamente mi interessa poco quanto di veramente accaduto ci sia nelle vicende narrate, mentre mi sembra, quello sì, indiscutibile che ci troviamo di fronte ad un’altra opera pregevole dell’autore peruviano (per quanto mi riguarda, la quarta perla su quattro) che ne conferma anche la grande versatilità, percorrendo territori creativi e stilistici quanto mai distanti da “La festa del caprone” o “La guerra della fine del mondo”.
Qui l’elemento principale è quello del melodramma che, strutturato in modo molto originale, presenta un’alternanza di capitoli (dispari e pari) apparentemente scollegati: da una parte la realtà, con il progressivo nascere e crescere della passione corrisposta del diciottenne Mario per la zia divorziata e quasi “straniera”, appena ritornata in patria dalla Bolivia. Fanno parte dei capitoli dispari anche i prodromi della vita professionale del protagonista, un divertente arrabattarsi fra radio commerciali, articoletti sui periodici, stesura di brevi racconti al fine di imboccare la lunga strada per diventare uno scrittore di fama internazionale.
Nei capitoli pari sta la fantasia: racconti mirabolanti di vita peruviana che riguardano soggetti sconnessi dal contesto e si fanno via via più stravaganti, disseminando il testo di “anomalie” che talora mettono in difficoltà la comprensione del lettore finché questi non realizza che si tratta dei radiodrammi di Pedro Camacho, idolo dell’audience popolare, personaggio in carne (poca…) ed ossa nei capitoli dispari ed artefice bizzarro delle storie limegne dei capitoli pari.
Da questo strano miscuglio di ingredienti prende forma (ma lo si comprende appieno solo retrospettivamente) il romanzo di Mario Vargas Llosa, un romanzo che parte in modo tradizionale per poi trasformarsi via via in qualcosa di folle e geniale, quasi sperimentale nell’accompagnare lo scollamento della mente creativa dell’ineffabile scribacchino con le ripercussioni che questo genera nella coerenza delle storie narrate, con personaggi che scivolano da un racconto all’altro con connotati diversi, nomi propri che si riferiscono ad una bambina morta in tenera età e poi ad un’attempata maitresse…, ad un giovane rappresentante farmaceutico e poi ad un feroce assassino, per non parlare delle infinite specializzazioni del dottor Quinteros, psichiatra o cardiologo, ginecologo o pediatra !
Il tutto mentre, nei capitoli dispari, quelli della realtà, problemi e guai concreti si accumulano sul protagonista Mario (chiamato dalla zia Julia col nomignolo affettuoso Varguitas!), fino a un finale malinconico e per certi versi commovente.
Sebbene non si incontrino quasi mai nel corso del romanzo, la zia Julia e Pedro Camacho, lo scribacchino, ne condividono il titolo a buon diritto: rappresentano i due poli della vita del giovane protagonista narrante, rampollo di buona famiglia della capitale Lima, nei cui panni non è difficile individuare molti tratti biografici dell’autore.
Per inciso, sulla questione biografia o romanzo si è dibattuto a lungo ma francamente mi interessa poco quanto di veramente accaduto ci sia nelle vicende narrate, mentre mi sembra, quello sì, indiscutibile che ci troviamo di fronte ad un’altra opera pregevole dell’autore peruviano (per quanto mi riguarda, la quarta perla su quattro) che ne conferma anche la grande versatilità, percorrendo territori creativi e stilistici quanto mai distanti da “La festa del caprone” o “La guerra della fine del mondo”.
Qui l’elemento principale è quello del melodramma che, strutturato in modo molto originale, presenta un’alternanza di capitoli (dispari e pari) apparentemente scollegati: da una parte la realtà, con il progressivo nascere e crescere della passione corrisposta del diciottenne Mario per la zia divorziata e quasi “straniera”, appena ritornata in patria dalla Bolivia. Fanno parte dei capitoli dispari anche i prodromi della vita professionale del protagonista, un divertente arrabattarsi fra radio commerciali, articoletti sui periodici, stesura di brevi racconti al fine di imboccare la lunga strada per diventare uno scrittore di fama internazionale.
Nei capitoli pari sta la fantasia: racconti mirabolanti di vita peruviana che riguardano soggetti sconnessi dal contesto e si fanno via via più stravaganti, disseminando il testo di “anomalie” che talora mettono in difficoltà la comprensione del lettore finché questi non realizza che si tratta dei radiodrammi di Pedro Camacho, idolo dell’audience popolare, personaggio in carne (poca…) ed ossa nei capitoli dispari ed artefice bizzarro delle storie limegne dei capitoli pari.
Da questo strano miscuglio di ingredienti prende forma (ma lo si comprende appieno solo retrospettivamente) il romanzo di Mario Vargas Llosa, un romanzo che parte in modo tradizionale per poi trasformarsi via via in qualcosa di folle e geniale, quasi sperimentale nell’accompagnare lo scollamento della mente creativa dell’ineffabile scribacchino con le ripercussioni che questo genera nella coerenza delle storie narrate, con personaggi che scivolano da un racconto all’altro con connotati diversi, nomi propri che si riferiscono ad una bambina morta in tenera età e poi ad un’attempata maitresse…, ad un giovane rappresentante farmaceutico e poi ad un feroce assassino, per non parlare delle infinite specializzazioni del dottor Quinteros, psichiatra o cardiologo, ginecologo o pediatra !
Il tutto mentre, nei capitoli dispari, quelli della realtà, problemi e guai concreti si accumulano sul protagonista Mario (chiamato dalla zia Julia col nomignolo affettuoso Varguitas!), fino a un finale malinconico e per certi versi commovente.
February 13, 2019
Marito is a young law student living in Lima, Peru, making a living at a local radio station by plagiarizing from the newspapers for the hourly newscasts. When the owners of the station hire the famous Bolivian radio personality Pedro Camacho, Marito is fascinated by the dwarf-like scriptwriter and actor, who can work at a manic pace and produce scripts for six different radio serials every day effortlessly, though it becomes apparent from the content of the serials as the months go by that Camacho is going through a serious meltdown. Marito has aspirations of moving into a Parisian hovel and becoming a literary sensation one day, and while he labours over short stories that he's never quite satisfied with, he can't help but ask himself whether Camacho is not the better writer of the two; he might produce nothing but drivel, but he does spend his days and nights doing nothing but writing, which must surely weight in the balance?
His fascination with Camacho is only equaled by his obsession for his 'aunt' Julia (she's actually his uncle's ex-wife). Julia, like Camacho, also hails from Bolivia, but after a failed marriage, she has moved to Lima to try to find herself another husband, a role Marito has hopes to take on himself, even though he's thirteen years her junior and a relationship between these two is bound to create a scandal within the family.
One of the best parts of the novel is the alternation between Marito's narration and episodes from Camacho's serials, which go from being over the top soap opera fare to complete insane "postmodern" happenings, with the heroes of his scripts always described as being "in the prime of his life—his fifties" and of "broad forehead, aquiline nose, penetrating gaze, the very soul of rectitude and goodness." This was a highly original novel, and in my opinion the first half belonged to Camacho completely, both the character himself and his zany creations, and as these became more and more convoluted and he slowly but surely lost his mind, young Marito and aunt Julia's love affair took on the allure of a soap opera script on steroids, which all told, made for plenty of hilarious moments. I couldn't help but be disappointed with an ending that seemed to belong to another book altogether and fell completely flat. Still much recommended—Unlike anything anything I’ve read before. Thanks to Donna for recommending this one. — From December 2011
His fascination with Camacho is only equaled by his obsession for his 'aunt' Julia (she's actually his uncle's ex-wife). Julia, like Camacho, also hails from Bolivia, but after a failed marriage, she has moved to Lima to try to find herself another husband, a role Marito has hopes to take on himself, even though he's thirteen years her junior and a relationship between these two is bound to create a scandal within the family.
One of the best parts of the novel is the alternation between Marito's narration and episodes from Camacho's serials, which go from being over the top soap opera fare to complete insane "postmodern" happenings, with the heroes of his scripts always described as being "in the prime of his life—his fifties" and of "broad forehead, aquiline nose, penetrating gaze, the very soul of rectitude and goodness." This was a highly original novel, and in my opinion the first half belonged to Camacho completely, both the character himself and his zany creations, and as these became more and more convoluted and he slowly but surely lost his mind, young Marito and aunt Julia's love affair took on the allure of a soap opera script on steroids, which all told, made for plenty of hilarious moments. I couldn't help but be disappointed with an ending that seemed to belong to another book altogether and fell completely flat. Still much recommended—Unlike anything anything I’ve read before. Thanks to Donna for recommending this one. — From December 2011
Read
February 4, 2019I read this after The Time Of The Hero and was relieved by the simpler narrative form with its clear alteration between the narrator, presumably loosely based on the author, who is pursuing a romantic relationship with his aunt and the radio soap opera story episodes written by the eponymous scriptwriter, who eventually crashes over into a nervous breakdown.
The narrative paths progress on different trajectories with the scriptwriter's stories all starting off featuring a man of his own age - at the peak of his powers (naturally), always a direct, powerful patriarchal figure, however as time goes on his soap operas become more confused, interlinked and overlapping as characters leak, then flow, from one story into another this in contrast to the narrator who achieves eventual success in his relationship with his kinswoman.
The narrative paths progress on different trajectories with the scriptwriter's stories all starting off featuring a man of his own age - at the peak of his powers (naturally), always a direct, powerful patriarchal figure, however as time goes on his soap operas become more confused, interlinked and overlapping as characters leak, then flow, from one story into another this in contrast to the narrator who achieves eventual success in his relationship with his kinswoman.
January 22, 2023
Mulți îl apreciază pentru că e un roman semi-autobiografic, cu numele protagoniștilor păstrate, dar pentru mine acest lucru nu a contat aproape deloc. Deși gândul că ar putea fi o poveste reală mă face să zâmbesc o dată în plus.
Mario e un tânăr de 18 ani, redactor de știri la Radio Panamericana. La postul de radio vecin, Radio Central (posturi de radio surori), se dă, în schimb, mai mult teatru radiofonic, foarte popular în rândul ascultătorilor, într-un timp în care nu existau încă televizoare. Teatrul radiofonic serializat e un fel de precursor al telenovelelor latino-americane.
La Radio Central e angajat un nou fenomen, un scenarist care scrie pe bandă rulantă astfel de telenovele radiofonice, de foarte mare succes, Pedro Camacho, din Bolivia. În același timp, Mario se îndrăgostește de mătușa sa Julia (nu e o mătușă biologică), proaspăt divorțată, mai în vârstă cu 13 ani decât el. Dragostea lor, pornită aproape în glumă, devine o pasiune adolescentină în toată regula, care se manifestă ca atare.
Cele două planuri, relația lui Mario cu Julia și relația profesională cu noul condeier, cu o poftă de muncă incredibilă și aproape neobosit, nu prea se intersectează, dar au loc concomitent. Dragostea evoluează, deși niciodată nu se consumă, până când se întrezărește iscarea unui scandal în familie, iar familia peruviană e un adevărat trib, cu care nu trebuie să te pui. Cariera lui Pedro Camacho cucerește noi culmi, după care se năruie la fel de repede. Pentru cititor și pentru Mario, mai importante decât piesele de teatru radiofonic ale lui Pedro sunt naivitatea și lipsa lui de umor, astfel încât Mario, deși de doar 18 ani, îl tratează mereu ca pe un bătrânel simpatic, care spune vorbe amuzante cu toată seriozitatea.
Scribul/condeierul/scenaristul dă, însă, semne de oboseală. După multe luni în care urmează un program creator draconic, începe să-și uite personajele, să le confunde între ele, astfel încât își fac apariția, tot mai des, în serialele nepotrivite. Lucru pe care îl putem urmări și noi, citind episoadele din roman, care sunt deosebit de amuzante.
Contactul acesta cu Llosa, cu unul din primele lui romane, a fost mult mai plăcut decât cel inițial, cu cel mai recent roman al său. Aici e amuzant, deși nu intențional și forțat; e interesant, natural. Nu pare să înflorească și nici nu mă interesează dacă a făcut-o. Povestea e plauzibilă, te simți chiar cumva implicat, și progresează într-un ritm potrivit. Aici scrie literatură, nu dramatizează fișe biografice din cărți de istorie, și scrie expresiv, diversificat, cu multe personaje colorate. Mi-a plăcut, deși eram sceptic înainte de lectură. A fost o recomandare și mulțumesc cui mi-a făcut-o!
4,5/5
Mario e un tânăr de 18 ani, redactor de știri la Radio Panamericana. La postul de radio vecin, Radio Central (posturi de radio surori), se dă, în schimb, mai mult teatru radiofonic, foarte popular în rândul ascultătorilor, într-un timp în care nu existau încă televizoare. Teatrul radiofonic serializat e un fel de precursor al telenovelelor latino-americane.
La Radio Central e angajat un nou fenomen, un scenarist care scrie pe bandă rulantă astfel de telenovele radiofonice, de foarte mare succes, Pedro Camacho, din Bolivia. În același timp, Mario se îndrăgostește de mătușa sa Julia (nu e o mătușă biologică), proaspăt divorțată, mai în vârstă cu 13 ani decât el. Dragostea lor, pornită aproape în glumă, devine o pasiune adolescentină în toată regula, care se manifestă ca atare.
Cele două planuri, relația lui Mario cu Julia și relația profesională cu noul condeier, cu o poftă de muncă incredibilă și aproape neobosit, nu prea se intersectează, dar au loc concomitent. Dragostea evoluează, deși niciodată nu se consumă, până când se întrezărește iscarea unui scandal în familie, iar familia peruviană e un adevărat trib, cu care nu trebuie să te pui. Cariera lui Pedro Camacho cucerește noi culmi, după care se năruie la fel de repede. Pentru cititor și pentru Mario, mai importante decât piesele de teatru radiofonic ale lui Pedro sunt naivitatea și lipsa lui de umor, astfel încât Mario, deși de doar 18 ani, îl tratează mereu ca pe un bătrânel simpatic, care spune vorbe amuzante cu toată seriozitatea.
„— Dumneata crezi că aș mai putea face ceea ce fac dacă femeile m-ar stoarce de vlagă? mă dojeni el, cu dezgust în glas. Crezi că se pot zămisli copii și povestiri în același timp? Că ar putea cineva să născocească, să dea frâu imaginației, dacă trăiește sub amenințarea sifilisului? Femeia și arta se exclud, prietene. În fiecare vagin e înmormântat un artist. Mai are oare vreun haz să procreezi? N-o fac și câinii, păianjenii și pisicile? Trebuie să fim originali, amice!”Llosa e original în construcția romanului său. Printre capitolele despre idila cu mătușa Julia (îi spune mereu mătușa, ceea ce e un pic ciudat) și treburile de la radio, include capitole – episoade – din creațiile radiofonice ale lui Camacho. Toate acestea par episoade pilot ale unor noi seriale, în care sunt introduse personajele, destul de pitorești, prin descrieri detaliate despre starea lor socială și talentele lor speciale – care explică și alegerea lor ca personaje –, despre familiile lor, despre cum au ajuns unde au ajuns. La un moment dat, dacă nu chiar inițial, personajul principal ajunge în „floare vârstei”, la 50 de ani, care, coincidență!, e chiar vârsta scriitorului. Toate sunt scrise bine (mult prea bine, având în vedere că Mario cel tânăr îl plasează pe Camacho doar cu o treaptă deasupra analfabeților!), cu un vocabular foarte diversificat și original, și se termină, inevitabil, într-un punct culminant, care să te facă să-ți programezi vizita lângă aparatul de radio și în ziua următoare. Oare ce se va întâmpla? Oare va apăsa sau nu pe trăgaci?! Inevitabil, din când în când, scribul introducere ironii și răutăți la adresa argentinienilor.
Scribul/condeierul/scenaristul dă, însă, semne de oboseală. După multe luni în care urmează un program creator draconic, începe să-și uite personajele, să le confunde între ele, astfel încât își fac apariția, tot mai des, în serialele nepotrivite. Lucru pe care îl putem urmări și noi, citind episoadele din roman, care sunt deosebit de amuzante.
Contactul acesta cu Llosa, cu unul din primele lui romane, a fost mult mai plăcut decât cel inițial, cu cel mai recent roman al său. Aici e amuzant, deși nu intențional și forțat; e interesant, natural. Nu pare să înflorească și nici nu mă interesează dacă a făcut-o. Povestea e plauzibilă, te simți chiar cumva implicat, și progresează într-un ritm potrivit. Aici scrie literatură, nu dramatizează fișe biografice din cărți de istorie, și scrie expresiv, diversificat, cu multe personaje colorate. Mi-a plăcut, deși eram sceptic înainte de lectură. A fost o recomandare și mulțumesc cui mi-a făcut-o!
4,5/5
February 4, 2019
This was my first work by the award winning Mario Vargas Llosa but I hope it won't be my last. What a fantastic novel! It reminded me of other Latin American authors I read, but at the same time it feels quite unique. This novel is quite focused on a love story ( quite an original love story, I might add) but it still paints a good picture of what growing up in this particular place and time must have felt like. In fact, this novel is quite autobiographical. Llosa writes with ease, in a very straightforward and honest way. This writer definitely has that great and elusive gift of connecting with the reader.
The hero(the protagonist) of Aunt Julia and The Scriptwriter is a young aspiring writer. As the title indicates, there is a certain aunt Julia. Our eighteen year old protagonist falls in love with his aunt Julia. They are not really related, but there is an age difference to consider. At the same time, the novel follows the fate of a famous radio soap opera writer. The book is divided into chapters devoted to episodes of popular soap operas that are then followed by chapters describing the life of our protagonist. The two merge together perfectly. I quite enjoyed the bit of intertexuality that is present in this novel.
The novel is exquisite. It asks all the right questions (I especially enjoyed when our protagonists ponders what it means to be a writer) but manages to be wonderfully funny. It is not magic realism as such (for most part anyway) but a feeling of it seems to present. I got caught up into multiple stories, sudden turns and the final joining of stories really impressed me. Llosa managed to turn radio soap operas he wrote about into art by giving them additional meanings and interpretations. The fact of the scriptwriter was especially touching. Like most of the Latin American literature I read so far, this book managed to make me feel both sad and happy. It is this ambiguity of emotion and meanings that fascinates me about this novel. This was an excellent read, for sure!
I have to thank my husband for reading this one, he added this one to the pile of books I selected on my last visit to the library, saying- you know you can't go wrong with Spanish literature, this will cheer you up. He was probably referring to how we usually enjoy Spanish and Latin American films, and obviously books as well. We must have a similar sense of humor or something like that. Indeed, I do typically enjoy Latin American authors and I'm happy to have discovered another great one. I have a feeling this is going to be a beginning of a beautiful writer and reader relationship.
The hero(the protagonist) of Aunt Julia and The Scriptwriter is a young aspiring writer. As the title indicates, there is a certain aunt Julia. Our eighteen year old protagonist falls in love with his aunt Julia. They are not really related, but there is an age difference to consider. At the same time, the novel follows the fate of a famous radio soap opera writer. The book is divided into chapters devoted to episodes of popular soap operas that are then followed by chapters describing the life of our protagonist. The two merge together perfectly. I quite enjoyed the bit of intertexuality that is present in this novel.
The novel is exquisite. It asks all the right questions (I especially enjoyed when our protagonists ponders what it means to be a writer) but manages to be wonderfully funny. It is not magic realism as such (for most part anyway) but a feeling of it seems to present. I got caught up into multiple stories, sudden turns and the final joining of stories really impressed me. Llosa managed to turn radio soap operas he wrote about into art by giving them additional meanings and interpretations. The fact of the scriptwriter was especially touching. Like most of the Latin American literature I read so far, this book managed to make me feel both sad and happy. It is this ambiguity of emotion and meanings that fascinates me about this novel. This was an excellent read, for sure!
I have to thank my husband for reading this one, he added this one to the pile of books I selected on my last visit to the library, saying- you know you can't go wrong with Spanish literature, this will cheer you up. He was probably referring to how we usually enjoy Spanish and Latin American films, and obviously books as well. We must have a similar sense of humor or something like that. Indeed, I do typically enjoy Latin American authors and I'm happy to have discovered another great one. I have a feeling this is going to be a beginning of a beautiful writer and reader relationship.
October 25, 2021
Ai, Marito, Marito! Esta minha primeira, e quiçá, última incursão nas tuas letras não foi grande coisa, não foi, não. Acho que é tudo uma questão de expectativas, essas malandras que dão cabo de muita coisa (bem diz o meme: não crie expectativas, crie porcos, se tudo correr mal, pelo menos no fim terá bacon). Isto já está a resvalar perigosamente para a parvoíce, por isso vamos lá à exposição de motivos.
Comecei a ler e percebi que o livro tratava da paixão de Mario por uma irmã da mulher do seu tio materno, ou seja, tia por afinidade. Só que a coisa descambou quando, entre os capítulos da paixão do Marito, surgiram personagens que eu não percebia de onde tinham saído, isto até associar e depois ler na contracapa do livro que são os folhetins radiofónicos de Pedro Camacho, um escritor de histórias de faca de alguidar que trabalhava na mesma estação radiofónica do Marito e por quem este nutria uma certa admiração, mas que só me estava a aborrecer. Percebido isto e vendo que os capítulos folhetinescos só me enfadavam, começou a batota e só li os capítulos dedicados à paixão do Marito pela sua Tia Julia, ou seja, só li os capítulos ímpares - no regrets - e a partir daí a coisa melhorou, não muito, mas já não sofria tanto e até comecei a apreciar e a achar piada aos esforços envolvidos para arranjarem um alcaide que casasse um menor de idade, Mario de dezoito anos, com uma divorciada de trinta e dois. Depois de muitas peripécias o casamento realizou-se e chegou a altura de enfrentar a fúria do pai de Mario, um homem que estava disposto a dar uns tiros no próprio filho (!!!) caso o casamento não fosse dissolvido. Contra todas as expectativas, dos familiares e dos próprio pombinhos, o enlace ainda durou oito anos, até Julia ser trocada pela sobrinha, Patricia.
Concluindo, um livro que seria melhorzinho se os capítulos folhetinescos tivessem sido eliminados, assim, é só ok.
-Olha, Marito - a sua voz era afectuosa, tranquila. Fiz todas as loucuras do mundo na minha vida. Mas esta não vou fazer. Lançou uma gargalhada: -Eu, corruptora de menores? Isso é que não!
-Pensei muito e a coisa não me agrada, Varguitas. Não te dás conta que é absurdo? Tento trinta e dois anos, sou divorciada, queres dizer-me o que faço com um miúdo de dezoito? Isso são perversões das cinquentonas, eu ainda não estou assim.
Tia Julia engoliu as suas palavras! :D
#outubrohispanoamericano
Comecei a ler e percebi que o livro tratava da paixão de Mario por uma irmã da mulher do seu tio materno, ou seja, tia por afinidade. Só que a coisa descambou quando, entre os capítulos da paixão do Marito, surgiram personagens que eu não percebia de onde tinham saído, isto até associar e depois ler na contracapa do livro que são os folhetins radiofónicos de Pedro Camacho, um escritor de histórias de faca de alguidar que trabalhava na mesma estação radiofónica do Marito e por quem este nutria uma certa admiração, mas que só me estava a aborrecer. Percebido isto e vendo que os capítulos folhetinescos só me enfadavam, começou a batota e só li os capítulos dedicados à paixão do Marito pela sua Tia Julia, ou seja, só li os capítulos ímpares - no regrets - e a partir daí a coisa melhorou, não muito, mas já não sofria tanto e até comecei a apreciar e a achar piada aos esforços envolvidos para arranjarem um alcaide que casasse um menor de idade, Mario de dezoito anos, com uma divorciada de trinta e dois. Depois de muitas peripécias o casamento realizou-se e chegou a altura de enfrentar a fúria do pai de Mario, um homem que estava disposto a dar uns tiros no próprio filho (!!!) caso o casamento não fosse dissolvido. Contra todas as expectativas, dos familiares e dos próprio pombinhos, o enlace ainda durou oito anos, até Julia ser trocada pela sobrinha, Patricia.
Concluindo, um livro que seria melhorzinho se os capítulos folhetinescos tivessem sido eliminados, assim, é só ok.
-Olha, Marito - a sua voz era afectuosa, tranquila. Fiz todas as loucuras do mundo na minha vida. Mas esta não vou fazer. Lançou uma gargalhada: -Eu, corruptora de menores? Isso é que não!
-Pensei muito e a coisa não me agrada, Varguitas. Não te dás conta que é absurdo? Tento trinta e dois anos, sou divorciada, queres dizer-me o que faço com um miúdo de dezoito? Isso são perversões das cinquentonas, eu ainda não estou assim.
Tia Julia engoliu as suas palavras! :D
#outubrohispanoamericano
April 14, 2023
قبل سنوات عديدة، عِشت مع جَدتي في شقتها، قبل انتقالي لشقتي وارتيادي للجامعة، في تلك الفترة كنت أرى جَدتي كل جمعة تُشَّغل الراديو لِتستمتع إلى مسلسل إذاعي. لم أكُ أعلم حينها ما أهمية تلك المسلسلات بالنسبة لها، أو حتى لم أُدرك استمرار ذلك النوع من المسلسلات رغم وجود التلفاز، فضلاً عن وسائل الترفيه المُختلفة الأخرى. في ذلك الوقت، كنتُ في سِن "ماريتو" عندما عَمل في محطة الإذاعة، ولم يكُ يعرف مدى شعبية تلك المسلسلات الإذاعية أيضاً ومدى تأثيرها حتى على العجائز ورَبّات البيوت. على الرغم من اختلاف الزمن وظهور وسائل ترفيهية أكثر حداثة، مازلت أرى من يستمع إليها. فمثلاً، قبل أيام قليلة، رَكِبتُ مع سائق أجرة لأفاجئ بإنه يَستمع إلى مسلسل إذاعي قديم، يا للصدفة، في نفس الوقت الذي أقرأ فيه أحدث الأعمال التي ترجمت للكاتب البيروفي "ماريو بارغاس يوسا" والتي تدور حول كاتب سيناريو، يُعيدني ذلك السائق إلى ذكريات قديمة.
في روايته "الخالة خوليا وكاتب السيناريو" التي صَدرت مؤخراً بترجمة احترافية أصيلة، أظهرت روعة النص وعذوبته، قام عليها المترجم مارك جمال. يحكي "بارغيتاس" على تُخوم السيرة الذاتية، عن جزء من حياته، عندما عَمل في محطة إذاعية محلية، وكان عمله يقتصر على تحرير بعض الأخبار لإذاعتها في نشرات الأخبار على مدار اليوم. وفي تلك الفترة رَاجت المسلسلات الإذاعية، إلى حدٍ جعلت معه المحطات تعتمد فيه على الوكالات العالمية، التي كانت تتعامل مع المسلسلات المكتوبة بالوزن، فَلَكَ أن تتخيل سُخرية القدر بأن تُرسل الأوراق في حِزم قد تكون منقوصة أو متآكلة بفعل الفئران، لا يهم حالتها، المهم أن تجد المحطات ما يُمكن إذاعته. وعلى سبيل التفكير خارج الصندوق، استطاع أحد شركاء المحطة أن يجد رجل متعدد المواهب، يكتب السيناريوهات ويُخرِجها ويمثّلها أيضاً! "پدرو كاماتشو" رجل خمسيني -في زهرة العمر- ذو جسد ضئيل وقوام هزيل، له نبرة صوت رصينة تدل على جِدية صاحبها. وعلى الرغم من غَرابة اللقاء الأول بين پدرو وبارغيتاس، إلا أن الأخير سيصبح أقرب أصدقاء كاماتشو.
في تلك الفترة الزمنية، كان ماريو يعيش مع جَده وجَدته في ليما، وفي أحد الأيام بينما كان على موعد للغداء عند الخال "لوتشو" إلتقى بالخالة "خوليا" أخت زوجة خاله لوتشو. خوليا التي وصلت من بوليفيا بعد طلاقها مؤخراً وجاءت لتلتمس الراحة أو في حقيقة الأمر لتبحث عن زوج جديد. ويبدو أن المثل الشعبي "ما محبة إلا بعد عداوة" قد يبدو صحيحاً بعض الشيء، حيث جاء لقاء الخالة خوليا بماريو فاتراً، عاملته الخالة كطفل صغير. وعلى الرغم من ذلك تعددت لقاءاتهم في بيت الخال لوتشو أحياناً، ومرات أخرى طبع عليها السرية.
بعبقرية، يدمج يوسا في حكايته الواقع بالخيال، فيحكي عن قصة زواجه الأول من الخالة خوليا، وعن كاتب سيناريو التقاه في شبابه، اختار له بارغاس في حكايته اسم "پدرو كاماتشو" وصنع له نهاية مختلفة قليلاً عن نهاية الكاتب الحقيقي، نهاية ميلودرامية مؤثرة ربما لا يستحقها هذا المجتهد. كما ستلاحظ أيضاً أن دون ماريو أشار إلى الصحافة الصفراء والتي يستخدمها ديكتاتوريّ أميركا الجنوبية، وهي الفكرة التي بنى عليها فيما بعد روايته "خمس زوايا". وأيضاً لعلك ستلاحظ استخدامه اسم الرقيب ليتوما، وهي الشخصية الرئيسية في رواية "ليتوما في جبال الأنديز"، ربما تكون تلك مجرد تفاصيل صغيرة، ولكنها تشير إلى عُمق مشروع يوسا الأدبي وترابطه. أما عن عبقرية بارغاس في الكتابة، سنجد أنه مزج حكايته بعدة حكايات شكّلت جزء من نتاج كاماتشو الإذاعي، ليفاجئنا بتغيرات تصيب النص وتغير مصائر الشخصيات، لنعرف بعدها المغزى من ذلك كله. أثرت فيّ نهاية كاماتشو، حيث تعاطفت معه ومع حكايته. وعلى الرغم من حجم الرواية، التهمتها سريعاً بفضل سلاسة السرد وجماله. تجربة أخرى مع بارغاس، تزيد من حبي له واعجابي بكل أعماله.
في روايته "الخالة خوليا وكاتب السيناريو" التي صَدرت مؤخراً بترجمة احترافية أصيلة، أظهرت روعة النص وعذوبته، قام عليها المترجم مارك جمال. يحكي "بارغيتاس" على تُخوم السيرة الذاتية، عن جزء من حياته، عندما عَمل في محطة إذاعية محلية، وكان عمله يقتصر على تحرير بعض الأخبار لإذاعتها في نشرات الأخبار على مدار اليوم. وفي تلك الفترة رَاجت المسلسلات الإذاعية، إلى حدٍ جعلت معه المحطات تعتمد فيه على الوكالات العالمية، التي كانت تتعامل مع المسلسلات المكتوبة بالوزن، فَلَكَ أن تتخيل سُخرية القدر بأن تُرسل الأوراق في حِزم قد تكون منقوصة أو متآكلة بفعل الفئران، لا يهم حالتها، المهم أن تجد المحطات ما يُمكن إذاعته. وعلى سبيل التفكير خارج الصندوق، استطاع أحد شركاء المحطة أن يجد رجل متعدد المواهب، يكتب السيناريوهات ويُخرِجها ويمثّلها أيضاً! "پدرو كاماتشو" رجل خمسيني -في زهرة العمر- ذو جسد ضئيل وقوام هزيل، له نبرة صوت رصينة تدل على جِدية صاحبها. وعلى الرغم من غَرابة اللقاء الأول بين پدرو وبارغيتاس، إلا أن الأخير سيصبح أقرب أصدقاء كاماتشو.
في تلك الفترة الزمنية، كان ماريو يعيش مع جَده وجَدته في ليما، وفي أحد الأيام بينما كان على موعد للغداء عند الخال "لوتشو" إلتقى بالخالة "خوليا" أخت زوجة خاله لوتشو. خوليا التي وصلت من بوليفيا بعد طلاقها مؤخراً وجاءت لتلتمس الراحة أو في حقيقة الأمر لتبحث عن زوج جديد. ويبدو أن المثل الشعبي "ما محبة إلا بعد عداوة" قد يبدو صحيحاً بعض الشيء، حيث جاء لقاء الخالة خوليا بماريو فاتراً، عاملته الخالة كطفل صغير. وعلى الرغم من ذلك تعددت لقاءاتهم في بيت الخال لوتشو أحياناً، ومرات أخرى طبع عليها السرية.
بعبقرية، يدمج يوسا في حكايته الواقع بالخيال، فيحكي عن قصة زواجه الأول من الخالة خوليا، وعن كاتب سيناريو التقاه في شبابه، اختار له بارغاس في حكايته اسم "پدرو كاماتشو" وصنع له نهاية مختلفة قليلاً عن نهاية الكاتب الحقيقي، نهاية ميلودرامية مؤثرة ربما لا يستحقها هذا المجتهد. كما ستلاحظ أيضاً أن دون ماريو أشار إلى الصحافة الصفراء والتي يستخدمها ديكتاتوريّ أميركا الجنوبية، وهي الفكرة التي بنى عليها فيما بعد روايته "خمس زوايا". وأيضاً لعلك ستلاحظ استخدامه اسم الرقيب ليتوما، وهي الشخصية الرئيسية في رواية "ليتوما في جبال الأنديز"، ربما تكون تلك مجرد تفاصيل صغيرة، ولكنها تشير إلى عُمق مشروع يوسا الأدبي وترابطه. أما عن عبقرية بارغاس في الكتابة، سنجد أنه مزج حكايته بعدة حكايات شكّلت جزء من نتاج كاماتشو الإذاعي، ليفاجئنا بتغيرات تصيب النص وتغير مصائر الشخصيات، لنعرف بعدها المغزى من ذلك كله. أثرت فيّ نهاية كاماتشو، حيث تعاطفت معه ومع حكايته. وعلى الرغم من حجم الرواية، التهمتها سريعاً بفضل سلاسة السرد وجماله. تجربة أخرى مع بارغاس، تزيد من حبي له واعجابي بكل أعماله.
February 11, 2009
It’s easy to write a review of a good novel. It’s also easy to write a review of bad one. But this… It has hutzpah, it has ambition, it almost gets there but not quite.
This is novel of two lives, both at critical junctures, told in two vastly different formats. The first, semi-autobiographical, is the story of an aspiring young writer, Marito, and his courtship of his aunt by marriage. The second is the story of Pedro Camacho, an acclaimed radio scriptwriter, as he falls apart under the stress of writing ten different radio serials simultaneously.
Chapters of the love story of Marito and Julia alternate with chapters (short stories?) of the increasingly bizarre radio soap operas. As a depiction of the creative process--the twinned and contrasted portraits of the artist as young man and as mad genius--there is a strength and verve that is invigorating. As a love story, it starts strong but stumbles badly towards the finishing line.
Did Vargas-Llosa want his novel to be one or the other? We’ll never know. What we do know is that he never seems quite able to balance and reconcile the two starkly different stories and formats, and this is perhaps what accounts for the uneven (and disappointing?) ending. Nonetheless, even if a failure, it is still an ambitious and interesting one, and that made it, for me at least, a worthwhile read.
This is novel of two lives, both at critical junctures, told in two vastly different formats. The first, semi-autobiographical, is the story of an aspiring young writer, Marito, and his courtship of his aunt by marriage. The second is the story of Pedro Camacho, an acclaimed radio scriptwriter, as he falls apart under the stress of writing ten different radio serials simultaneously.
Chapters of the love story of Marito and Julia alternate with chapters (short stories?) of the increasingly bizarre radio soap operas. As a depiction of the creative process--the twinned and contrasted portraits of the artist as young man and as mad genius--there is a strength and verve that is invigorating. As a love story, it starts strong but stumbles badly towards the finishing line.
Did Vargas-Llosa want his novel to be one or the other? We’ll never know. What we do know is that he never seems quite able to balance and reconcile the two starkly different stories and formats, and this is perhaps what accounts for the uneven (and disappointing?) ending. Nonetheless, even if a failure, it is still an ambitious and interesting one, and that made it, for me at least, a worthwhile read.
December 24, 2015
My first novel read by Vargas Llosa and loved it. He recently won the Nobel Prize in Literature and whom I heard interviewed by Elenor Wachtel (CBC Podcast) and just by this book alone I can see why he won.
This is one of his earlier works and his writing style is lucid, visual and an ease to read (in translation). The story follows an 18-year old writer named Varaguitas working for a Peruvian radio programme editing the news in the late 1950s. Whike studying law and to make some extra cash, the hero and a colleague spend their shifts cutting out newspaper articles to be read on the hourly newscasts. The story unfolds when they hire a well-known Bolivian screen-writer who creates a popular radio series. This is the era before television when radio programs, even in Peru ruled the masses. The quirky man is such a hit that fans throng to the radio building to see him day and night. They become friends in the oddest sense and their friendship is challenged when people notice the writer begins interchaging names of characters.
Enter Aunt Julia who becomes his love interest. Despite the fact she is divorced and 15 years his senior, the bond is believable since movies, the radio show and her interest in staying young tie the couple in love. I won't spoil their outcome but when Varaguitas' parents return from the U.S.A. when they hear they want to get married. Apparently, this part of the story is autobiographical as Vargas Llosa did briefly marry his aunt.
What keeps the book moving is the chapters alternate between the story of the aunt and the radio stories. Each develops in such a fascinating way that I admit I wish he had written a few more stories as they were so entertaining..
An excellent intro to a maestro of literature.
This is one of his earlier works and his writing style is lucid, visual and an ease to read (in translation). The story follows an 18-year old writer named Varaguitas working for a Peruvian radio programme editing the news in the late 1950s. Whike studying law and to make some extra cash, the hero and a colleague spend their shifts cutting out newspaper articles to be read on the hourly newscasts. The story unfolds when they hire a well-known Bolivian screen-writer who creates a popular radio series. This is the era before television when radio programs, even in Peru ruled the masses. The quirky man is such a hit that fans throng to the radio building to see him day and night. They become friends in the oddest sense and their friendship is challenged when people notice the writer begins interchaging names of characters.
Enter Aunt Julia who becomes his love interest. Despite the fact she is divorced and 15 years his senior, the bond is believable since movies, the radio show and her interest in staying young tie the couple in love. I won't spoil their outcome but when Varaguitas' parents return from the U.S.A. when they hear they want to get married. Apparently, this part of the story is autobiographical as Vargas Llosa did briefly marry his aunt.
What keeps the book moving is the chapters alternate between the story of the aunt and the radio stories. Each develops in such a fascinating way that I admit I wish he had written a few more stories as they were so entertaining..
An excellent intro to a maestro of literature.
July 14, 2015
This is set in 1950s Peru and concerns Mario (Varguitas), an 18 year old law student who writes news bulletins for a radio station, but wants to become a proper writer.
The drivers of the plot are the two Bolivians of the title, both of whom Mario obsesses about in different ways: a workaholic writer of radio soaps, brought in to boost ratings, and Mario's divorced 32-year old aunt Julia. The chapters of the book alternate between the real story of Mario and episodes of Pedro Camacho's soaps, though oddly, the latter are presented as ordinary narrative, not as scripts.
The soaps are deliberately formulaic, with scandalous improbability (incest, murder, genital mutilation, rape, religious cults etc) and always ending on at least one cliffhanger. They also reflect Camacho's personal preferences and prejudices: the hero is invariably "in the prime of his life, his fifties" and there are always slurs against Argentinians (excessive flatulence, cheating at sport, mothers eating their children's lice).
Camacho's prodigious work rate takes his toll and he starts to lose track of which characters belong in which soap, so the plots become increasingly confusing. Dead characters come back to life and others change career or family in the space of a paragraph.
By the end of the book, all three main characters have undergone major upheavals in their lives, yet in some ways each is still subject to the tyrannies of work, family and mind that burdened them at the outset.
Overall, it's an intriguing structure for a story, and parts of it are quite entertaining, but it never quite takes off and I found the ending rushed and unsatisfying.
The drivers of the plot are the two Bolivians of the title, both of whom Mario obsesses about in different ways: a workaholic writer of radio soaps, brought in to boost ratings, and Mario's divorced 32-year old aunt Julia. The chapters of the book alternate between the real story of Mario and episodes of Pedro Camacho's soaps, though oddly, the latter are presented as ordinary narrative, not as scripts.
The soaps are deliberately formulaic, with scandalous improbability (incest, murder, genital mutilation, rape, religious cults etc) and always ending on at least one cliffhanger. They also reflect Camacho's personal preferences and prejudices: the hero is invariably "in the prime of his life, his fifties" and there are always slurs against Argentinians (excessive flatulence, cheating at sport, mothers eating their children's lice).
Camacho's prodigious work rate takes his toll and he starts to lose track of which characters belong in which soap, so the plots become increasingly confusing. Dead characters come back to life and others change career or family in the space of a paragraph.
By the end of the book, all three main characters have undergone major upheavals in their lives, yet in some ways each is still subject to the tyrannies of work, family and mind that burdened them at the outset.
Overall, it's an intriguing structure for a story, and parts of it are quite entertaining, but it never quite takes off and I found the ending rushed and unsatisfying.
May 17, 2021
Brilliant, funny, original
Cuốn sách này được dịch và in ở Việt Nam năm 1986, 9 năm sau bản gốc, nghĩa là khá sớm. Nhưng không hiểu sao nó không có được danh tiếng như Trăm năm cô đơn. Có lẽ vì không như tác giả Trăm năm cô đơn, cái mác nhà văn Nobel đến với Vargas Llosa khá muộn.
Cuốn sách gồm hai mưoi chương. Những chương số lẻ là chuyện tình giữa cậu sinh viên luật 18 tuổi ôm mộng trở thành nhà văn và người dì họ 32 tuổi, đã một đời chồng. Ở những chương số chẵn, thoạt đầu ta đọc được những truyện ngắn ly kỳ có kết thúc lửng lơ. Sau rồi ta sẽ biết những truyện ngắn ấy là tác phẩm của một nhà văn quèn, chuyên viết kịch truyền thanh. Dần về sau, nhân vật của các truyện ngắn lẫn lộn vào nhau, thay thế hoàn cảnh nghề nghiệp của nhau, thậm chí tên của nhân vật này bị gán cho nhân vật kia, ấy là khi nhà văn quèn bắt đầu bị tâm thần và nhầm nhọt các nhân vật trong các vở kịch truyền thanh của mình với nhau.
Vargas Llosa kể chuyện lôi cuốn và hài hước. Chẳng hạn trong một chương khi cậu sinh viên đang thất vọng vì tình, thì cậu được nhà văn khuyên hãy uống thuốc nhuận tràng, bởi lẽ “trong đa số trường hợp cái gọi là nỗi buồn trong tâm can chỉ là hậu quả của việc khó tiêu hoá món đồ quá khô, món cá thiu hoặc chứng táo bón. Một liều thuốc nhuận tràng mạnh mẽ thanh toán được những nỗi rồ dại của tình yêu.” Quả nhiên là một lý do rất tốt để trữ sẵn Antibio Pro bên người.
Sách dịch vòng qua bản tiếng Nga, so với bản tiếng Anh dịch từ tiếng Tây Ban Nha thấy sai sót không đáng kể. Tiếng Việt rất nhuần nhuyễn. Cuốn này quả là một kiệt tác bị bỏ quên (ở Việt Nam). Những năm gần đây, Vargas Llosa được dịch thêm hai cuốn nữa nhưng hình như ít người đọc.
Cuốn sách này được dịch và in ở Việt Nam năm 1986, 9 năm sau bản gốc, nghĩa là khá sớm. Nhưng không hiểu sao nó không có được danh tiếng như Trăm năm cô đơn. Có lẽ vì không như tác giả Trăm năm cô đơn, cái mác nhà văn Nobel đến với Vargas Llosa khá muộn.
Cuốn sách gồm hai mưoi chương. Những chương số lẻ là chuyện tình giữa cậu sinh viên luật 18 tuổi ôm mộng trở thành nhà văn và người dì họ 32 tuổi, đã một đời chồng. Ở những chương số chẵn, thoạt đầu ta đọc được những truyện ngắn ly kỳ có kết thúc lửng lơ. Sau rồi ta sẽ biết những truyện ngắn ấy là tác phẩm của một nhà văn quèn, chuyên viết kịch truyền thanh. Dần về sau, nhân vật của các truyện ngắn lẫn lộn vào nhau, thay thế hoàn cảnh nghề nghiệp của nhau, thậm chí tên của nhân vật này bị gán cho nhân vật kia, ấy là khi nhà văn quèn bắt đầu bị tâm thần và nhầm nhọt các nhân vật trong các vở kịch truyền thanh của mình với nhau.
Vargas Llosa kể chuyện lôi cuốn và hài hước. Chẳng hạn trong một chương khi cậu sinh viên đang thất vọng vì tình, thì cậu được nhà văn khuyên hãy uống thuốc nhuận tràng, bởi lẽ “trong đa số trường hợp cái gọi là nỗi buồn trong tâm can chỉ là hậu quả của việc khó tiêu hoá món đồ quá khô, món cá thiu hoặc chứng táo bón. Một liều thuốc nhuận tràng mạnh mẽ thanh toán được những nỗi rồ dại của tình yêu.” Quả nhiên là một lý do rất tốt để trữ sẵn Antibio Pro bên người.
Sách dịch vòng qua bản tiếng Nga, so với bản tiếng Anh dịch từ tiếng Tây Ban Nha thấy sai sót không đáng kể. Tiếng Việt rất nhuần nhuyễn. Cuốn này quả là một kiệt tác bị bỏ quên (ở Việt Nam). Những năm gần đây, Vargas Llosa được dịch thêm hai cuốn nữa nhưng hình như ít người đọc.
July 3, 2020
Quando mi accingo a leggere MVL ho sempre grandi aspettative, ma questo romanzo non è riuscito a coinvolgermi come speravo.
Mi aspettavo in continuazione che da un momento all'altro potesse succedere qualcosa che alla fine non succede.....e proprio il finale m'ha lasciato un po' l'amaro in bocca, per il modo in cui la storia di Pedro Camacho si conclude, perché oggettivamente era lui il personaggio da cui mi aspettavo quel qualcosa in più, ma Vargas Llosa non è stato della mia stessa idea.
E poi in tutta sincerità, i romanzi nel romanzo che Camacho scriveva erano la parte più divertente ed intrigante se contrapposti alla parte semiautobiografica della zia Julia, avrei voluto proseguire quei racconti per sapere come sarebbero andati a finire.
Sia ben chiaro, si tratta di un ottimo romanzo, solo non è scoccata la scintilla.
Pensó che quella era un'occasione privilegiata per mettere alla prova quella norma morale che aveva fatto sua fin da giovane e secondo la quale era preferibile capire piuttosto che giudicare gli uomini.
Mi aspettavo in continuazione che da un momento all'altro potesse succedere qualcosa che alla fine non succede.....e proprio il finale m'ha lasciato un po' l'amaro in bocca, per il modo in cui la storia di Pedro Camacho si conclude, perché oggettivamente era lui il personaggio da cui mi aspettavo quel qualcosa in più, ma Vargas Llosa non è stato della mia stessa idea.
E poi in tutta sincerità, i romanzi nel romanzo che Camacho scriveva erano la parte più divertente ed intrigante se contrapposti alla parte semiautobiografica della zia Julia, avrei voluto proseguire quei racconti per sapere come sarebbero andati a finire.
Sia ben chiaro, si tratta di un ottimo romanzo, solo non è scoccata la scintilla.
Pensó che quella era un'occasione privilegiata per mettere alla prova quella norma morale che aveva fatto sua fin da giovane e secondo la quale era preferibile capire piuttosto che giudicare gli uomini.
March 27, 2024
Çok çarpıcı olmayan ama kurgusuyla, diliyle tipik bir Llosa romanı. 1950’lerde Peru-Lima’da geçen, yazarın hayatından da kesitler sunan diğer eserlerinde olduğu gibi hacimli bir kitap. Marito adında gazeteci, üniversite öğrencisi ve hikaye yazmayı daha doğrusu edebiyatı seven bir gencin ağzından anlatılıyor roman.
Kendisinden iki kat daha büyük yaşta olan Julia teyzesine aşık olan 18’lik delikanlının serüveninin aralarına onun yazdığı hikayeleri serpiştirmiş yazar. Romanın ana konusu Marito-Julia teyze hikayesinden daha hoş geldi bu öyküler.
M. Vargas Llosa Latin Amerikanın halklarını, kültürünü, geleneklerini ve folklorunu, diktatörlüklerini, kilisenin baskısını, ülkeler arasındaki çekişmeleri çok iyi yansıtan bir yazar. Büyük çoğunluğunu okuduğum kitaplarını tamamlamak istiyorum. Ancak “Julia Teyze” Llosa okumak isteyenler için iyi bir seçim olmaz. Teke Şenliği, Katedral vb başlamayı öneririm.
Kendisinden iki kat daha büyük yaşta olan Julia teyzesine aşık olan 18’lik delikanlının serüveninin aralarına onun yazdığı hikayeleri serpiştirmiş yazar. Romanın ana konusu Marito-Julia teyze hikayesinden daha hoş geldi bu öyküler.
M. Vargas Llosa Latin Amerikanın halklarını, kültürünü, geleneklerini ve folklorunu, diktatörlüklerini, kilisenin baskısını, ülkeler arasındaki çekişmeleri çok iyi yansıtan bir yazar. Büyük çoğunluğunu okuduğum kitaplarını tamamlamak istiyorum. Ancak “Julia Teyze” Llosa okumak isteyenler için iyi bir seçim olmaz. Teke Şenliği, Katedral vb başlamayı öneririm.
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