Aunt Julia and the Scriptwriter is a Huge Disappointment.

After being seriously impressed by Mario Vargas Llosa's The Bad Girl, I was more than intrigued to read more from the Noble prize winner. Quite a long time passed, during which I was filling in my gaps in classic literature but upon entering a bookstore and wondering between Llosa and a Bulgarian author, I decided to go for his most famous novel, Aunt Julia and the Scriptwriter. This novel will not be soon forgotten for the mere reason that it is the novel I read for the longest time from War and Peace until now. Not because I didn't have time but simply because this is definitely NOT my thing. Once more, I have proven to be quite a diverse reader, who can hate one piece of literature and simply love another one by the same author. Gabriel Garcia Marquez was the first example. I simply couldn't stand his magical realism in 100 Years of Solitude and I chose to abandon it. But then, Love in the Times of Cholera is one of the greatest love stories. Mario Vargas Llosa (another South American author) joins the honorable list of authors, whom I both adore and hate.

I praised The Bad Girl a lot. The story of an obsessed man in love and a promiscuous woman, who ruins his life was brilliantly written and deeply psychological. Combined with the typical atmosphere of Peru, which now as I see it is present in both his novels, this piece of literature stands amongst my most favorite this year. You can imagine my surprise when I was totally repelled by Aunt Julia and the Scriptwriter.

The latter is largely biographical. The main character, Marito, wants to be a writer and works in a radio in Lima, similarly to Llosa. He falls in love with his aunt Julia (not really related to him, relax!) and despite his family's opposition, marries her. Llosa also married his aunt. So far quite a trivial story, which doesn't get any better as you keep reading. We understand Marito loves the aunt but we don't see why or how. I simply didn't feel the passion, the connection, the intense pain that you cannot live without another human being. The love story was banal and boring so I was quite tempted to skip parts of it.

What is original about the novel, though, is that it is split between Marito's narrative about his unfortunate love affair, and Pedro Kamacho's stories. Kamacho is a brilliant Bolivian series writer, whose radio series exalt thousands of people. His relationship to Marito is explored quite superficial but we manage to grasp that Marito admires the writer. In Kamacho's story line, Llosa explores the drama of the artist and the genius, who slowly loses his mind. At the beginning the Bolivian produces quite popular and admirable series, but the tension and the fatigue play their role. He starts mixing people, places, characters, and story lines. His destiny of a great artist and a great talent is unfortunately to be admired when capable and to be abandoned when crazy.

Without the Kamacho story line the novel would have been a complete disaster. Indeed, the place of the artist is ingeniously explored but as for the aunt Julia story, I would say it is a complete failure. Trivial, shallow, and superficial, Marito and his aunt's love affair does nothing to provoke any feeling or impression in me. In conclusion, I am glad I finally finished this novel and I would need a lot of time before I turn again to Llosa. I have quite a bad taste in my mouth right now.

The Bad Girl and the Good Boy

The bad girl has many names. She is Lily, comrade Arlette, Mme Robert Arnoux, Mrs Richardson, Kuriko, and Otilia. The bad girl has many nationalities. She is Chilean, Peruvian, French, English, and Japanese. The bad girl lives in different places. You can find her in Peru, in France, in Cuba, in England, and in Japan. The bad girl is a gold-digging femme fatale, who was risen in poverty. She promised herself never to be poor and never to starve again. The bad girl became a ruthless insensitive woman, who used people and then abandoned them. Including the good boy.

The good boy has only one name. He is Ricardo. The good boy has one nationality. He is Peruvian, whose long life dream to live in Paris has lead him to lead a boring but stable life as a translator in the capital of love. He meets the bad girl as a teenager in Peru, where Lily pretends to be Chilean. His infatuation and obsession with the bad girl begins then and there and lasts more than 50 years. Ricardo meets her again years after that in Paris, as the comrade Arlette, a mock agitator for the socialist reforms in South America. His devotion is awaken once again. Ricardo takes care of the bad girl, loves her more than life, and is ready to do anything to provide her with everything she needs. The bad girl answers him with cruelty. She abuses him, mocks him for his lack of ambition, uses him as a love toy, and then abandons him for a richer and more prosperous man. Thus, she becomes the wife of a French diplomat and an English aristocrat and then the lover of a Japanese mafioso. Ricardo and the bad girl intertwine their destinies all around the world, London, Paris, Tokyo, Madrid, Ricardo chasing her, the bad girl hurting him.

This is the story of a different love story. If we can really call it a love story. This is The Bad Girl by Noble Prize winner Mario Vargas Llosa. The bad girl is an impossible combination of pragmatism, adventurism, and rebelliousness. Her difficult life has taught her that money and power are essential for happiness. Thus, she looks for wealthy men to provide her with everything she has been missing. Ricardo is romantic and sensitive. He never forgets his first teenage love. No matter how many times the bad girl exploited him, hurt him, or betrayed him, the good boy took her back every time. For nearly 50 years all over the world, his love and her egocentrism and egoism meet and part.

Is this a love story? I say yes. Ricardo loves the bad girl, that's for sure. He admires her ambition, her volatility, her beauty, even her harshness and insensitiveness. The bad girl also loves Ricardo to some extent. Yet, it takes her a whole life time to discover that not money but affection and respect bring happiness. She is abandoned by husband after husband looking for the stability money give and ignoring the simple but real life that Ricardo offers her. The Bad Girl by Llosa is the touching story of two souls, who are so different but so much made for each other. He needs her craziness and she needs his calmness. He needs someone to take care of and she needs someone to show her the right way. Destiny is cruel but also just for Ricardo and the bad girl.

The novel largely reminds us of Flaubert's Madame Bovary. The similarity is not accidental. Llosa admired Flaubert's talent and his depiction of the ruthless and egoistic woman and her loyal admirer. However, this time the student has surpassed the teacher. Flaubert is the master of realism mainly because he uses reality and transforms it into another, alternative existence, where passion overwhelms, immortal and undiminished by time. Llosa deservingly receives a Noble prize for his mastery of postmodernism. The Peruvian author takes a revolutionary story and turns it into a contemporary love story spanning through decades and continents.

The Latin American boom of incredible authors is a fact. Marquez, Cortazar, Fuentes, and Llosa experiment with the traditional literature, challenge the established conventions, and discuss the effect of the political turbulences in the Southern continent. Deservingly, two of them are already Noble prize winners, with Llosa being most probably the most influential and powerful of them