The Bad Girl - Mario Vargas Llosa

Heller McAlpin reviews Mario Vargas Llosa's Bad Girl.

Mario Vargas Llosa's wonderful new novel, "The Bad Girl," is about one man's persistent desire for a difficult woman. It is also, cunningly, about a broader persistence of hope for a better world. On one level a deliciously absorbing love story that details the eponymous bad girl's damaging lifelong hold on his narrator, Vargas Llosa's novel spans decades and continents - and, in the process, with a deftness that borders on literary sleight of hand, bridges the personal and the universal.

Although less overtly political than such earlier novels as "Death in the Andes" and "The Feast of the Goat," Vargas Llosa sets his thwarted love story against a backdrop of social turmoil, revolutions and the recurrent heartbreak of failed democracy in his native Peru. "The Bad Girl" spans 1950s Lima, 1960s revolutionary Paris, 1970s hippie London, 1980s swinging Tokyo and 1990s theatrical Spain. Vargas Llosa's novel is more similar in tone to his 1977 dazzler, "Aunt Julia and the Scriptwriter," than to his last, quasi-historical novel, "The Way to Paradise" (2003), about Paul Gauguin and his socialist grandmother. Each of its seven long chapters, separated by years, relates a new episode in the lurching, on-again-off-again saga of Ricardo Somocurcio and the bad girl, who sports a new identity each time he encounters her.

Ricardo is an unusually sympathetic narrator - modest, bookish, utterly trustworthy. Orphaned at 10 and raised by a loving aunt in Miraflores, he has fixed on a simple ambition by the time he first meets the love of his life the summer he turns 15: to live in Paris. Posing as Lily, a Chilean newcomer to the neighborhood, the bad girl is flamboyant and gorgeous, "the incarnation of coquettishness." Ricardo writes, "I fell in love with Lily like a calf, which is the most romantic way to fall in love - it was also called heating up to a hundred degrees - and during that unforgettable summer, I fell three times." In what is to become a lifelong pattern, Lily leads him on before rebuffing him - and then vanishes.

When she turns up again in Paris more than a decade later, it's as Comrade Arlette, an activist en route to Cuba for guerrilla training. Ricardo, meanwhile, is training as a simultaneous interpreter. She pretends they never met, then, with an insult, concedes that they have - "Even back then you had a sanctimonious look" - yet denies being Lily the Chilean girl. She accepts his advances passively, unresponsively, and keeps him dangling: "Never lose hope, good boy."

Comrade Arlette's political apathy is as obvious as her sexual indifference. Her outspoken credo is "to get what you want, anything goes." When she allows Ricardo to make love to her, it's clear that she's using him as a possible ticket to stay in Paris.

Three years later, she turns up as the elegant Mme. Robert Arnoux at UNESCO, where her husband is a diplomat and Ricardo works as a translator.

And so it goes. They resume their affair, abuse included. She's both a liar and brutally honest. "How naive you are, what a dreamer," she scolds when Ricardo asks her to marry him. "You don't know me. I'd only stay forever with a man who was very, very rich and powerful, which you'll never be, unfortunately."

Ricardo is repeatedly taken in and left "a human wreck." He swears it's the last time when he falls into a trap arranged to excite the bad girl's creepy, voyeuristic Japanese lover, yet a few years later he goes into debt to finance her medical care. He retreats between episodes to a "fairly normal, though empty ... dull, flat life," throwing himself into the self-effacing interpreting business at international conferences and berating himself as a "failure ... imbecile."

This works, without trying our patience, because Vargas Llosa succeeds not only in conveying the bad girl's attraction but also in pulling us into Ricardo's cycle of hopefulness, eager to learn what will happen next between them. Is it love, masochism, fate or compulsion that keeps him coming back for more? Whatever it is, most of us have been there at one time or another.

Ricardo's friendships with doomed individuals - a revolutionary in Paris, a hippie artist in London, a fellow translator in Japan - and his unexpected but satisfying discovery of la niña mala's true identity further heighten the novel's considerable allure. (One wishes translator Edith Grossman had left a "niña mala" or two in Spanish for flavor.)

Most impressively, by mirroring Ricardo and the bad girl's tug-of-war with the tug-of-war between democracy and totalitarianism that concurrently roils the world, and especially their native Peru, Vargas Llosa's novel becomes an allegory for the undauntable desire not just for love but also for freedom. Over and over again, the world dashes our hopes just as the bad girl disappoints Vargas Llosa's narrator - and yet we love it and keep hoping for the best anyway.

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Peruvian Literature

Cautiva directed by Gastón Biraben

Boyd Williamson reviews Cautiva directed by Gastón Biraben.

Quietly angry and subtly polemical, Cautiva addresses Argentina’s long period of willful amnesia following military rule from 1976 to 1983 and the “disappearance” of thousands of student activists, union members, and other dissidents. First-time director Gastón Biraben creates a poignant allegory of this historical-political amnesia and the struggle to overcome it with the story of Cristina (Bárbara Lombardo), a teenager who, one day in 1994, finds that her parents are not who she thought they were and that neither is she.

The film announces it’s political intentions, and targets, immediately. It opens with a ghostly, staticky television image of a stadium full of ecstatic soccer fans chanting and waving the cheerful light-blue and white Argentine colors. As the image becomes clearer it reveals itself to be a broadcast of Argentina’s famous 1978 World Cup victory over the Netherlands. After the Argentines score the goal putting them over the top, the home-town crowd erupts and the television camera focuses on a couple of figures sitting close to the field: “President General Videla”, reads the yellow text under a shot of a mustachioed, aristocratic-looking man in a business suit; there’s also “Admiral Massera”, who has a grin on his concrete-block face; looking grimmer and wearing a grey trench coat against a light drizzle is “Ex-U.S. Secretary of State Henry Kissinger”. After the game has ended, nine men, including Videla and Massera, are brought onto the field. “Their Excellencies, the commanders of the nation’s Armed Forces; members of the Military Junta!” announces the sportscaster as the crowd is obscured by confetti and blue and white flags.

It’s the day of the ’78 World Cup, we find out later, that Cristina is born to a blindfolded and bruised woman in the dank, fluorescent-lit basement of a military prison. Fast forward 16 years and Cristina is celebrating her “Quinceañera” in a comfortable, loving, upper-middle class home outside of Buenos Aires. Cristina is a popular, pretty girl who does well in school and is adored by her parents and godparents—but there are early hints that she doesn’t quite belong, that she’s different. She has a sober, mostly unsmiling face—reflecting the tone of the movie—that contrasts with the gregariousness of her privileged classmates and friends. She also betrays a surprising amount of sympathy for Angélica (Mercedes Funes), a rebellious and angry girl who sits in the back of class and interrupts a lecture on Argentina’s constitution with an expletive-laden diatribe against the recent presidential pardon of ex-junta officials.

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Argentine Cinema

The Complete Poetry - César Vallejo

John Timpane reviews César Vallejo's Complete Poetry.

What a year was 1922. That year, T.S. Eliot’s poem “The Waste Land” was published. So was James Joyce’s “Ulysses.” So was Jean Toomer’s “Cane.” Whatever “modernism” means, 1922 was one of its peaks.

Also that year, a poet from Peru published a book called “Trilce”—to complete silence at home and abroad. Too different, a departure too far.

The intervening 85 years have made clear that “Trilce” deserves to stand among the most original and startling productions of 20th century literature. Its author, César Vallejo (1892-1938), stood out even among Peruvian poets—he was of indigenous blood, with two grandmothers from the Chimu people of the Andes. Today he has a place among the finest of his century’s poets. And now we have this spectacular edition of his complete poetry, edited and translated, also spectacularly, by poet Clayton Eshleman. A priceless window opens on a poet who is by turns invigorating, incomprehensible, and inimitable.

There are four Vallejos, four poetries.

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Peruvian Literature

Elite Squad directed by Jose Padilha

A Washington Post article on the latest sensation of Brazilian cinema.

After taking a phone call last week, director José Padilha stepped onto the patio of his studio and told a business partner that the intense discussion provoked by his latest film had spread to yet another sphere of Brazilian society.

"Now they're going to speak about it in Congress," Padilha said, looking at his watch. "In 20 minutes, someone is going to take the floor and start."

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The film, called "Elite Squad," centers on the police officers who wage war against the drug-dealing gangs that rule Rio's slums, called favelas. The movie has put almost everyone -- from the slums, to the penthouses, to the halls of government -- in the mood to talk about this city's violence.

Even before it was released in theaters this month, "Elite Squad" was Brazil's most-watched movie of the season: The country's leading polling firm estimated that about 11.5 million adults -- as well as an unknown number of children -- had seen the movie on pirated DVDs before its first screenings.

Police initially tried to keep the movie out of theaters, fearing that scenes depicting officers torturing slum dwellers portray their ranks in a bad light. Critics of the police argued that the movie was too sympathetic to corrupt officers, because it presents the action from their point of view. Some nongovernmental organizations objected to the film's suggestion that some activists have aligned themselves with the drug gangs to get access to the favelas.

To Padilha, rather than being controversial, such suggestions should ring true to anyone who has spent any time in a city with one of the world's highest murder rates.

For decades, most of Rio's 600-plus favelas have been ruled by drug-dealing gangs. The police, both military and civil, have waged war on those groups, and they are often criticized for being as brutal -- if not more so -- than the gangs. Shootouts are common, and favela residents are often caught in the crossfire.

On Wednesday, for example, a dozen people -- including a 4-year-old boy -- were killed during a battle between police and gang members in Rio. Local television showed images of residents running in fear as police helicopters circled overhead -- images that people here have been living with for years.

"None of this is rocket science," said Padilha, 40. "These are very simple concepts, and they are all here for everyone to see. Just look around. It's obvious. But just by stating it in a way that shows a little bit of everything in there, it is making this movie an object of social discussion."

Padilha said his intention was to show the drug war from the perspective of a cop and to let the audience judge whether the cop is good, bad or both. For those with firm opinions about Rio's violence, the movie's refusal to impose its own moral is offensive.

Arnaldo Bloch, a columnist for Rio's largest newspaper, O Globo, wrote that showing the unvarnished point of view of a member of the military police special favela units was the equivalent of apologizing for their actions. He labeled the movie "fascist."

The record turnout at theaters -- even though many viewers had already seen the movie at home on DVD -- indicates that a lot of people disagree. Enterprising street dealers have tried to latch on to the movie's success by throwing together footage of police operations and selling DVDs they claim to be sequels.

"I think it's a great movie, and it just shows things that really happen," said Cesar de Assis, 35, a resident of a favela called Chapeu Mangueira. "I've seen the police come into the community, and it happens exactly the way the movie shows."

Miguel Colker, 20, is a student at the Catholic University of Rio, the setting for a couple of scenes in the film. He viewed a pirated copy of "Elite Squad," and its effect on him, he said, has been sobering, literally.

"I haven't smoked pot since I saw the movie," said Colker, who described himself as an occasional user of drugs. "I always knew that of course the drugs here are controlled by the gangs, but seeing it in the movie shocked me a little."

Padilha is a Rio native whose previous film, a documentary called "Bus 174," told the life story of a man who hijacked a city bus, then was killed by the military police. "Elite Squad" was conceived as a companion piece to that film, showing the "other side of the same coin," Padilha said.

He started by trying to tell the story in documentary form. But he quickly realized that police officers wouldn't talk openly about their experiences, he said, so he interviewed about 20 officers and turned their off-the-record stories into fiction. Earlier this month, police officials ordered him to identify the officers who had helped him. Padilha did not appear for questioning after Rio's governor took his side, telling him not to be afraid to defy the police.

The film is fast-paced and hard around the edges, depicting violence unblinkingly. The aesthetic is intended to overwhelm the viewer, Padilha said, not allowing time to make analytical judgments until the film is over. He compares it to downloading a computer program that threatens to crash the system.

"It's creating a chaos of confusion, and that chaos is very interesting from my point of view," Padilha said. "I'm not involved in it now. I'm just sitting back and watching."

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Brazilian Cinema

The Bad Girl - Mario Vargas Llosa

Chloë Schama reviews Mario Vargas Llosa's "The Bad Girl".

Mario Vargas Llosa's latest novel, "The Bad Girl" (Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 276 pages, $25) is a joyful romp through a torturous relationship. The novel traces the obsession of its narrator, Ricardo Somocurcio, from the inception of the affair in Peru to its last spasm in Spain, alighting in a Paris roiling with student ferment, a London filled with peace-loving hippies, and a sterile Tokyo flashing with neon.

Various incarnations of the bad girl of the title surface in all these places. She first appears as Lily, a 14-year-old girl who sinks her talons into the youthful narrator's heart while they roam the streets and cafes of Miraflores in Peru, and her grip lasts the entirety of her life. "Lily" reappears 10 years after their first meeting as "Comrade Arlette," the recipient of a scholarship to train for Castro's forces. Her ambition, however, is anything but revolutionary, and the scholarship is merely a means to escape the poverty of her upbringing. Just before she is scheduled to depart the training ground of Paris for Cuba she offers Ricardo an alternative: If he can get her out of her obligations, she will stay with him in Paris. Ricardo punts, unwilling to endanger his friend (a more active revolutionary) who has arranged the scholarship, and assures her that he will wait in Paris while she fulfills the conditions of her contract. The bad girl slips away and begins the elusive life that will bring her in and out of contact with the narrator for the rest of the novel.

She returns to Paris as "Madame Arnoux," the wife of a high-ranking Unesco official, absconds with Monsieur Arnoux's paltry fortune, and finally resurfaces in the country town of Newmarket outside London; now she is "Mrs. Richardson," the wife of a stuffy horse breeder. In a later life, she becomes "Kuriko," the mistress and employee of a shady Japanese businessman or gangster. Time after time, the narrator runs to the bad girl's side when she needs his attention and assistance, ready with declarations of his love, to which she responds with snide deprecations. His sentimental education is brutal and the lesson should be obvious, and yet he's incapable of changing his adulatory, punch-drunk response to her whims and fancies. How could he? The thing that pains him the most also brings him the greatest pleasure.

Allusions to Flaubert's "Sentimental Education" run throughout Mr. Vargas Llosa's novel. Madame Arnoux, of course, is the object of Frédéric Moreau's devotion and the narrator reads Flaubert's novels from time to time. But "The Bad Girl" is influenced by Flaubert beyond its offhand references. In an encomium to Flaubert, "Flaubert, our Contemporary," Mr. Vargas Llosa commends Flaubert for making his narrators "ghostly figures" — beings who "enjoy no special privileges of omniscience or ubiquity." Ricardo Somocurcio is a dramatic extension of this quality which, Mr. Vargas Llosa believes, has been one of the defining elements of modern literature. Ricardo makes his living as a translator and interpreter — "the professions of phantoms," as his colleague phrases it — voicing other people's opinions and thoughts before his own. His sole aspiration is to "die of old age in Paris" and, as he spends more and more time away from Peru, he gradually loses any sense of a national identity. No longer a true citizen of Peru, he is aware that he will also "never be integrated into the country where we had chosen to live."

In Flaubert's novels, Mr. Vargas Llosa writes, the spectral narrator allowed Flaubert to create a fictional reality that was undisturbed by an omniscient, judgmental, and external observer. It didn't have to be an entirely believable reality, just cohesive. Flaubert's great gift to modern novelists, according to Mr. Vargas Llosa, was to inform them that "between real reality and fictional reality there is no possible identification, but rather an unbridgeable distance." The fictional world of "The Bad Girl" is a world distant from the wars and poverty of "real" reality. Mr. Vargas Llosa doesn't ignore these things, but they take place on the periphery. What remains at the center, and what unifies the novel, is melodrama.

His characters — from Fukuda, the evil Japanese gangster, to Mrs. Stubard, the English guardian angel — are almost Dickensian in their dimensions, unabashed stereotypes of their native lands. The love affair is painful, perverse, and perpetual, relying entirely on unlikely coincidences. The sun always sets at the right moment; the waves always break dramatically. Small apartments in back alleys are horrifically squalid; large apartments on grand boulevards are lavishly sumptuous. These a aesthetic elements are not out of place; they fit within Mr. Vargas Llosa's world where polar emotions — extreme pain and extreme pleasure — are inextricably entwined. In a certain reality, this entangled dynamic would lead to sorrow, but in this novel the excess is entertaining. "The Bad Girl" is not without its quiet, more subdued moments but, for the most part, raucous sadomasochism has never been so much fun.

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Peruvian Literature

Love in the Time of Cholera - Trailer

New Line Cinema is bringing Nobel Prize winner Gabriel Garcia Marquez' best-selling novel "Love in the Time of Cholera" to the big screen with Ronald Harwood ("The Pianist") writing the screenplay, and Mike Newell ("Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire", "Four Weddings and a Funeral") directing. The cast includes Javier Bardem, Catalina Sandino Moreno, Benjamin Bratt, John Leguizamo, Giovanna Mezzogiorno, Hector Elizondo and Liev Schreiber.






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Latin American Literature

Enrique Vila-Matas - Interview

La escritura siempre parte de algo que falta. Y a veces lo que falta es el libro mismo.

An interview with Spanish writer Enrique Vila-Matas.





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Spanish Literature

Havana Noir

Carlos Rodríguez Martorell reviews "Havana Noir".

Novelist Achy Obejas has turned her native Havana into a crime scene — without shedding a drop of blood.

In "Havana Noir" (Akashic Books, $15.95), the author of "Days of Awe" has gathered 17 Cuban authors to write short crime stories set in the Caribbean island's capital.

The just-released compilation is part of Akashic's series of noir genre books — called in Spanish género negro — set in different cities and neighborhoods (the Bronx, Los Angeles, Miami), and Havana seemed like a natural fit.

"Noir has been always popular in Cuba," Obejas said on the phone from Chicago, where she lives. "Cuban TV pirates a lot of American TV. And probably the most popular show on the air right now I think is ‘Law & Order.' They are addicted to that stuff."

Among the contributing authors are Leonardo Padura Fuentes, internationally known for his Detective Mario Conde novels, and Arnaldo Correa, "one of the founders of Cuban noir," said Obejas.

Another highlight is young sensation Ena Lucía Portela, who has won literary prizes in Spain and France, but has barely been translated into English.

Her disturbing story "The Last Passenger" revolves around a woman infatuated with a serial killer, and portrays a class-divided Cuba where the nomenklatura enjoys vacations in the Bahamas and wears gold Rolexes.

"Cuba's upper class is invisible for most people," Portela, 34, said via e-mail from Havana. "Official propaganda insists that in communist countries all citizens live under the same economic conditions, which is a huge lie."

Portela's brash, raw style landed her on the Bogota 39 — the Colombian International Book Fair's list of the 39 most important writers in Latin America under the age of 39 — but the prestige doesn't extend to her own country.

"For now, this tale in particular will only have readers outside Cuba," she said. "Here, it's unpublishable because of political censorship."

Obejas edited and translated into English most of the stories and wrote "Zenzizenzic," in which she sheds light on the tiny Cuban community in Hawaii.

Cuban noir is a distinctive genre in itself, she says. "It tends not to have a detective. It's never the lone guy out there, but the collective working for the better good. It's almost an antithesis of what we know noir to be."

Although she won't name them, she says many "very well-known Cuban authors" wrote stories for the book, but they were discarded because the genre "completely defied them."

Others just adapted to it. "[Noir] was something I never set myself to do in a conscious manner," said author Mabel Cuesta, "but which may be underlying in some of my previous stories."

Cuesta, who lives in North Bergen, N.J., writes in "Virgins of Regla" about a brutal rape in a Havana neighborhood infused with Afro-Cuban culture.

"I would live intermittently in a predominantly black neighborhood," she said. "I would be la blanquita (the whitey), but that didn't prevent me from going to listen to their drums and see women and men bursting into screams because the saints were 'passing through' them."

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Cuban Literature

Malta con Huevo directed by Cristóbal Valderrama

Rob Bartlett reviews Cristóbal Valderrama's Malta con Huevo.

Imagine a hot Santiago day. The smog is cloying, stifling. Lethargy washes over you with every warm breath of wind. Your throat is parched. You need refreshment, an energy boost, a pick-me-up. You need Malta con Huevo.
This is how you get it: take 1 liter of cold Malta beer, 1 or 2 eggs and sugar to taste. Blend. Drink.

It is October in the city. The Papi Ricky soap opera has finished, you are bored and you don’t know what to do. You can’t face Transantiago, and anyway, your Metro Bip! card is out of funds. Yet an idle curiosity is beating back the anesthetizing effects of the office. You want stimulation, contentment, entertainment. You need Malta con Huevo - the movie.

Malta con Huevo is the first feature film from Chilean director Cristóbal Valderrama and looks set to be a big hit. It tells the story of Vladimir and Jorge, two former schoolmates who are diametrically opposed in almost every way, except in an affinity for the eponymous drink.

Vladimir is a waster, a scrounger, an artist. He lives for the moment and for women.
Jorge is a controlled, independent scientist. He plans for the future and for himself.
Following one chance meeting, the pair agrees to move in together, along with Jorge’s capricious, materialistic and sexually adventurous lover Rocío. The arrangement seems perfect for Jorge. The house satisfies the consumerist desires of his girlfriend, as well as helping him towards one of his own longed-for objectives.

The arrangement also seems perfect for Vladimir. He has just been kicked out of his flat for not paying his rent and his attempt to move back into the bed of a former girlfriend is thwarted by the current boyfriend. His bright yellow Citroën car, loaded with all his worldly possessions, does not make for an ideal home. And even better, during a house-warming party, some of Rocío’s sexual adventurousness starts to be directed his way.
Director Valderrama handles their shared story in a simple but highly effective and amusing way. He successfully blurs genre boundaries, not by merger, rather by juxtaposition.

Initially we see events from Vladimir’s point of view, sharing his prejudices and perspectives on the house party, on Jorge and Rocío, and on football results. As viewers we are therefore as confused as he is when things appear to come in the wrong order. We are seemingly traveling through time, entering the worlds of fantasy and science fiction. What is happening? We don’t know, he doesn’t know.

Vladimir wants to find out though, so he goes to meet the loner Fedora, an aspiring witch. Although she has never met him, he had previously found her threatening when they met for the second time at a liquor store they both frequent. When he accidentally kills her black cat, her enmity is assured. As ever, a Malta con Huevo helps to calm him down. Doesn’t it?

Then we see the same events from Jorge’s angle, with the disparity giving rise to plenty of amusement as well as ensuring the audience has a clear understanding of events. Still, Jorge’s mentality is not quite as rational as he would like to believe. His deluded opinion of himself as a dominant, forceful personality suffers from the constant subversive influence of his broken arm, sustained at the hands of Rocío and her emasculating, sadomasochistic sexuality. From his standpoint, events that were fantastical from Vladimir’s perspective morph into black comedy. And the suspense starts to build like any good thriller.

These are two people clearly on a collision course. The owner of the liquor store wants one of them dead and why is there so much cabling on the floor in the shared house? There is only one love interest, right? What about the shallow grave in Fedora’s back garden? And why do the eggs for the Malta con Huevo have holes in them?

The film has received a very positive critical response in Chile, winning an award at the Northern Chile International Film Festival and expected to gain further attention at the ongoing Valdivia festival. Even the normally reserved daily La Tercera told readers that the film “will make you laugh out loud.”

Indeed, laughter seems to have been a driving force in the production process. Director Valderrama, when questioned by El Mercurio as to any didactic message, rubbished the idea, saying “We are not trying to make a speech, change the world or establish a new morality. We were just having a bit of a laugh.”

But that does not mean the film should be seen as lightweight in an artistic sense. There is a very well thought out aesthetic to both the plot and the mise-en-scène, with Spanish director Pedro Almodóvar, particularly his 1986 work “Matador”, seemingly an important reference point.

On the other hand it would be wrong to overstate foreign influences, as Malta con Huevo has a very strong Chilean identity. The film is not only written and directed by a Chilean, funded by Chilean institutions, and produced by the Chilean company Cinepata, it was shot on the streets of Santiago, uses young Chilean actors and technicians and is peppered with “Chilenismos” (Chilean slang).

In common with much of Latin American Cinema, Chilean features are currently proving very popular. Films such as “La Casa de la Remolienda” have done well at the box-office and new releases, such as “Radio Corazón”, being well received.

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Chilean Cinema

Planeta Prize - 2007

Spanish Juan Jose Millas was awarded the 56th edition of the Planeta Prize for best Spanish-language novel for his work "El mundo" (The World).

The prize panel was made up of Alberto Blecua, Alfredo Bryce Echenique, Pere Gimferrer, Carmen Posadas, Soledad Puertolas, Rosa Regas and Carlos Pujol.

The 56th edition of the Planeta Prize was presented at the Convention Palace of Catalonia, with numerous personalities from political, social and cultural life in attendance.

A highly honored writer since he won the Sesamo Prize, in 1974, for best short novel with "Cerbero son las sombras," 61-year-old Millas is currently one of the icons of literary journalism thanks to his columns and his reporting for the Madrid daily El Pais.





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Spanish Literature

Purity of Blood by Arturo Perez-Reverte

Peggy Barnett reviews Arturo Perez-Reverte's Purity of Blood

Arturo Perez-Reverte writes historical novels set in his homeland of Spain. This one, Purity of Blood, is the second in a series he is writing about characters in the early 17th century. (The Mary Willis Library also has the first book in the series, Captain Alatriste, if readers prefer to begin at the beginning.)

The narrator is Inigo Balboa, a 13-year-old whose father was killed in battle, fighting for the king. His mother has sent him into the care of his father's friend and fellow soldier, Captain Alatriste. Inigo admires and tries to imitate the courageous, skilled, and honorable captain. Unfortunately, in this corrupt and evil-haunted land, the captain is not paid for his wartime service, and must offer his sword for hire.

The purity of blood of the title refers to the historical fact that any taint of Jewish heritage may lead to the dreaded attention of the Inquisition. The daughter of a prosperous merchant is being held prisoner in a defiledconvent, and the villains of the story threaten to reveal his family history if he appeals to the king. He goes, instead, to a friend of Captain Alatriste, who agrees to help in a rescue attempt.

The "purity of blood" is also a metaphor for the honor of the captain and his friends in contrast to the dishonor and evil of their enemies, who are of influence in the Church and government. This struggle is the background for a tale of derring-do and breathtaking action. Because of treachery, the rescue attempt goes awry in a big way, and young Inigo becomes a prisoner.

"I had heard enough about the practices of the Inquisition -- that sinister shadow that had loomed over our lives for years and years and years -- to know my destination: the dreaded secret dungeons of the Holy Office,in Toledo." Though beaten and abused, Inigo's stubborn courage enables him not to give the captain away. He does not hope for rescue: "The fact is that later, life -- the passing years, adventures, loves, and the wars of our lord and king -- caused me to lose faith in many things. But I had already, young as I was at the time, ceased to believe in miracles."

Faith is a theme of the novel. The Church had become notoriously corrupt, but Perez-Reverte and his characters have faith in integrity and love, and we cheer them on through their turbulent adventures. The author is skillful. Foreshadowing is well-handles: "What I did not know -- God save me! -- was how I would come within a hair of losing my own [life.]" The outcome is not predictable, and though some will die in terrible ways, exactly who will survive is not clear until the end.

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Spanish Literature

Interview with Junot Diaz

Carlos Rodríguez Martorell interviews Dominican author Junot Díaz.

Junot Díaz is savoring the raving success of his debut novel — briefly.

"The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao" has made it to the New York Times Best Sellers list (a first for a Dominican author), Miramax Films bought the screen rights and a translation into Spanish is already in the works.

"This is just a temporary change after 11 years in silence and solitude," Díaz deadpans, referring to the time it took for the book to see the light after his acclaimed "Drown."

"All this stuff is really nice but nothing is gonna make me happy until I can figure out a way to write more easily than I write now."

Díaz is not very hopeful about the movie. "Hollywood is Hollywood," he says. "It would be wonderful if it was brilliant, and it would be wonderful if it was made. But that's not usually what happens."

The novel revolves about Oscar, an obese comics fan growing up in Paterson, N.J., and his dysfunctional Dominican family, going back to the Rafael Trujillo dictatorship.

The book is being translated by Cuban author Achy Obejas.

In the novel, Díaz takes on so many genres that it makes it almost impossible to imagine what the movie would look like. Comedy? Epic? Sci-fi?

"Structurally, the perfect director would be the director who made ‘Babel' and ‘Amores Perros' [Alejandro González Iñárritu], because he knows how to juggle different story lines," he said. "I also really love that director who did ‘Secuestro Express' [Jonathan Jakubowicz]."

As for the cast, he can't think of any actor to play Oscar, but ventures two options for his fierce "ghetto-punk" sister, Lola.

"Minimum, we have two Dominican actresses who are tall and beautiful and [a bit] morenita, and that's Dania Ramírez and, of course, Zoë Saldaña."

He has another sure pick: "A friend of mine wrote that the best Trujillo would be Oscar de la Renta, and I think she's right. I think it would be genius."

Díaz says he's working on a novel about a woman raised an orphan who goes back to her native city, which has been destroyed in a terrorist attack.

"Oscar didn't sound funny either when I first described him," he said. "My problem as a writer is that I always take the strangest route to my destination."

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Dominican Literature