The Time of the Hero - Mario Vargas Llosa

 

Another book that I got from Olio. Oh, how nice it would have been to get more than my "allocated" 10 books from that guy...

The Time of the Hero started off poorly for me. Very poorly. Life in army barracks and "boys will be boys" acts of violence and bullying are really not my idea of an interesting (let alone a pleasant) read. 

Still, after a few chapters, and when the drama truly unfolds (despite the fact that the book's cover already announced from the start what the drama would be...) the characters actually become well-rounded and one and I started to become invested in their lives. While not fully expecting complete justice, I would have still liked at least something more than "the army will take care of itself". 

Still, it remains a book about something that I find at best uninteresting, and at worst borderline repulsive. 

Aunt Julia and the Scriptwriter – Mario Vargas Llosa

Another book that I’ve read this Christmas in Bolivia (my first snowless, sleeveless Christmas) assuming that it would have been about Peru but later discovering that it had countless mentions of the country where I was staying (and also of the beauty of the women from Santa Cruz, where half of my wife’s family is from).

Like so many of the Latin American novels that I’ve read lately, I find this one to be plenty of potential that is often not fulfilled (although this is probably reflective of a change in my reading habits, since I thought that all the Latin American books that I read as a teenager were fulfilling their potential). Yes, the story is sweet, and the throwback to an era in which people’s life-rhythms were dictated by radio is chic and class.

The problem for me was that, while the main story was interesting and fairly captivating, the progressively disjointed chapters on the radio programs (which make up exactly half of the novel – every other chapter) became progressively more boring.