25 of 27 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Nobel Academy, are you there?, May 31, 2006
This review is from: Travesuras de la niña mala (The Bad Girl: A Novel) (Paperback)
This is another terrific one from MVLL and something really new is that the style is totally different from most of his other novels, the story goes in a straight line to the end, no flashbacks or mixed dialogues among different characters in mixed places or times, it is just a straight tale but a superb one, this fact is important because it will surely content to most people who used to think that his novels were excessively complicated to allow a clear reading.
Personally I believe that MVLL has been telling the stories as he has been feeling them, e.g. Conversation in the Cathedral is precisely that, as a conversation one tends to go by the branches and forgets the main line sometimes, however, all the facts help to construct a view of the story.
Along these years MVLL has also been constructing with each of his novels a complex and a unique technique that probably he abandons now to tell a story from a very simple perspective coming from a simple character and why not to finally reach all kind of readers.
I prefer not to take so much time doing what most people will do reviewing the story, I would just say that it is a lovely but real one (I liked more than Love in time of the Cholera of Garcia Marquez simply because it is just more realistic without a happy ending but with a more likely ending)
This story basically deals with a man who loves a woman without conditions along all his life and even though he regrets his decisions and feelings he concludes that his only inner force comes from this weird love and moreover that the only reason to be alive is to believe that some day they will be together, the story occurs in different times and places all of them described masterfully by MVLL, we can almost see and smell Paris in the 60's, London in the 70's and the things that happened during those years.
What I think is the most important fact of this novel is that MVLL used to have a debt with his public, he probably never constructed before so rich a female character as he does with the Bad Girl in this novel, he didn't make it as well with the Aunt Julia nor with Flora Tristan and the other women in his novels, this character (the Bad Girl) is so rich and complex that shines itself, Bad Girl's intricate mind is finally almost comprehended at the end of the story when Ricardo can join all the pieces of her story and knows her father in Peru, well MVLL has just paid his debt.
With this novel MVLL shows to the world that he possesses one of the widest horizons in the contemporaneous writing, after a very hard research work, he is able of telling a story based on himself as a school boy (La Ciudad y los Perros or Time of the Hero), of describing the most terrible "misunderstanding" in the Brazilian backlands during the XIX century (The War of the end of the world, for me one of his best two novels, the other is Conversation in the Cathedral), of telling vividly the story of one of the scariest dictators in the XX century (the superb Fest of the Goat), of telling the story of Gaugin and Flora Tristan and their search for "paradise" whatever it meant for them and now, with this extraordinary tale, of giving us an extraordinarily strong story about love but fundamentally about the human nature and the inevitable flow of time.
I'm so tempted of writing an open letter to the Nobel's Academy to ask for him this year's Literature Nobel award, I cross my fingers to avoid the idea that like Borges he could die without win it, If someone wants to join my crusade just write to my e-mail.
I wrote this comment in English but I red the novel in Spanish, I think it will be translated soon to the English.
Enjoy this extremely nice reading.
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9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
what a voice, July 22, 2006
This review is from: Travesuras de la niña mala (The Bad Girl: A Novel) (Paperback)
Vargas Llosa has a powerful and dynamic storytelling style. It reminds me of Nabokov. The characters, the descriptions, the cameo appearances of various relatives and friends- all lend a depth that makes this more than just a memoir-like novel.
Su manera de escribir es poderosa y encantadora. Que escritor mas imponente- antes de este libro, he leido solamente La tia Julia y el escribidor, pero ahora quiero leer otros de sus libros. Sugeriencias? La violencia no me apetece.
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8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Correction, June 25, 2006
This review is from: Travesuras de la niña mala (The Bad Girl: A Novel) (Paperback)
I just want to make a correction to jC "iRebel" (Andover MASS). This book is a novel written by Mario Vargas Llosa. The author of "Liberty for Latin America" is Mario's son, Alvaro Vargas Llosa, who is a journalist. This novel does not have anything to do with politics or economics, it is a love story.
By the way, I read the book in spanish and it was just great, however it is not one the greatest of Mario.
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