Vargas Llosa’s The Civilization of Spectacle

I’m reading Vargas Llosa’s The Civilization of Spectacle and feeling very confused. The central idea of the text is that high culture has been banished to the margins and now only interests a tiny minority of the world’s population.

This is undoubtedly true. The problem I have with the text is that this has been true for as long as high culture existed. Vargas Llosa, however, insists that this is a new development. I don’t know what makes Llosa believe that a greater percentage of the population was interested in reading Ortega y Gasset a hundred years ago than will read Llosa’s essay today. And Ortega y Gasset bemoaned the same advent of the masses incapable of appreciating high culture.

I try to banish the thought that Llosa has passed the threshold to old age and has become a grumpy old man who believes that everything about the past was better than the present for the simple reason that the past coincided with his youth.

P.S. By the way, has anybody here read Vargas Llosa’s most recent novel El héroe discreto and can tell me if it’s worthwhile? It’s set in Peru, which is a great relief after Llosa’s tiresome attempts to write about Ireland, France, and God knows what else.