Travesuras de la niña mala (The Bad Girl: A Novel) (Paperback)

~ Mario Vargas Llosa (Author)

Editorial Reviews

Product Description

Ricardo, at an early age, sees his life-long dream fulfilled: to live in Paris. But an encounter with a past love will change everything. The young girl, adventurer, pragmatic, wicked, calculating, and mischievous, will drag him out of his small world of ambitions. This is the story of the intimate love that occupies more than three decades of Ricardo s life, and it is also a fascinating tale traveling through Europe, South America, and Japan. Starring in the backdrop are Peru s history from 1950 to 1987 and its swinging from democracy to dictatorship; Paris in the sixties and its great philosophers Sartre and Camus; the decade of the 70s in London, the birth of a new culture, drugs, music, hippies, freedom of love; Japan s big dealer lords, and, finally, Spain halfway through the 80s. Creating an admirable tension between comedy and tragedy, Mario Vargas Llosa plays with reality and fiction to release a story in which love presents itself as indefinable, owner of a thousand faces, just like the mischievous girl. Passion and distance, chance and destiny, pain and pleasure... Which is the true face of love? Description in Spanish: Ricardo ve cumplido, a una edad muy temprana, el sue que en su Lima natal aliment desde que ten uso de raz : vivir en Par . Pero el rencuentro con un amor de adolescencia lo cambiar todo. La joven, inconformista, aventurera, pragm ica e inquieta, lo arrastrar fuera del peque mundo de sus ambiciones. Testigos de ocas convulsas y florecientes en ciudades como Londres, Par , Tokio o Madrid, que aqu son mucho m que escenarios, ambos personajes ver sus vidas entrelazarse sin llegar a coincidir del todo. Sin embargo, esta danza de encuentros y desencuentros har crecer la intensidad del relato p ina a p ina hasta propiciar una verdadera fusi del lector con el universo emocional de los protagonistas. Creando una admirable tensi entre lo c ico y lo tr ico, Mario Vargas Llosa juega con la realidad y la ficci para liberar una historia en la que el amor se nos muestra indefinible, due de mil caras, como la ni mala. Pasi y distancia, azar y destino, dolor y disfrute... Cu es el verdadero rostro del amor?

About the Author

Mario Vargas Llosa nació en Arequipa, Perú, en 1936. Aunque había estrenado un drama en Piura y publicado un libro de relatos, Los jefes, que obtuvo el Premio Leopoldo Alas, su carrera literaria cobró notoriedad con la publicación de La ciudad y los perros, Premio Biblioteca Breve de 1962 y Premio de la Crítica en 1963. En 1965 apareció su segunda novela, La casa verde, que obtuvo el Premio de la Crítica y el Premio Internacional Rómulo Gallegos. Posteriormente ha publicado piezas teatrales (La señorita de Tacna, Kathie y el hipopótamo, La Chunga, El loco de los balcones y Ojos bonitos, cuadros feos), estudios y ensayos (como La orgía perpetua, La verdad de las mentiras y La tentación de lo imposible), memorias (El pez en el agua), relatos (Los cachorros) y, sobre todo, novelas: Conversación en La Catedral, Pantaleón y las visitadoras, La tía Julia y el escribidor, La guerra del fin del mundo, Historia de Mayta, ¿Quién mató a Palomino Molero?, El hablador, Elogio de la madrastra, Lituma en los Andes, Los cuadernos de don Rigoberto, La Fiesta del Chivo, El Paraíso en la otra esquina y Travesuras de la niña mala. Ha obtenido los más importantes galardones literarios, desde los ya mencionados hasta el Premio Cervantes, el Príncipe de Asturias, el PEN/Nabokov y el Grinzane Cavour.

Product Details

• Paperback: 376 pages
• Publisher: Alfaguara (December 30, 2008)
• Language: Spanish
• ISBN-10: 9707704667
• ISBN-13: 978-9707704664
• Product Dimensions: 8.9 x 5.6 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 13.6 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (33 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #108,677 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

20 of 22 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Nobel Academy, are you there?, May 31, 2006

By	Aldo F. Ramirez - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

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.

9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars what a voice, July 22, 2006

By	Lisa Dilles "sweet lisa" (santa cruz, CA USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

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.

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Correction, June 25, 2006

By	Bruno Fernandez (Arlington, VA USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

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.