Tag: Vargas Llosa

Vargas Llosa’s The Civilization of Spectacle

~ Clarissa ~ 6 Comments

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.

How To Choose an Interviewer?

~ Clarissa ~ 6 Comments

One thing that made a really negative impression on me during last night’s event with Mario Vargas Llosa was the low quality of questions the interviewer asked the writer. The entire event was structured as an interview that a professor of Hispanic Literature conducted with the Peruvian writer. Mind you, the event took place at a university, and quite a prestigious one, too.

“So how did you feel when you got the Nobel Prize?” the interviewer asked Vargas Llosa.

The writer shared a funny, detailed story in response.

“So how did you feel when you got the Seix Barral Prize?” the interviewer asked after Vargas Llosa finished the story.

The writer provided a shorter and less interesting response.

“So how did you feel when you got the Romulo Gallegos Prize?” the interviewer asked immediately after that.

At that point, I started to fear that the poor writer would be asked the same question about every single one of the numerous prizes and awards he had won in his long and productive literary career. It’s possible that Vargas Llosa feared the same thing because his answer was a lot less inspired this time.

Eventually, it began to feel like the interviewer was about to ask the writer what his favorite color was.

Vargas Llosa is an easy person to interview because he is a great story-teller and a skilled public speaker. In response to every question, he launches into a fascinating, detailed discussion that the audience follows with bated breath. All that was needed for this event to work out much better than it did was an interviewer who’d taken the trouble to prepare question that were less in keeping with the Cosmo style of interviewing celebrities.

Vargas Llosa to Speak at St. Louis University!

~ Clarissa ~ 5 Comments

You probably think we have all just fallen off our pumpkin carts here, in St. Louis Metro area, right? Well, think again. Our cultural life is rich and vigorous. Next Monday, for example, Mario Vargas Llosa, the recipient of the 2010 Nobel Prize for Literature, the greatest Peruvian writer and my favorite living Latin American writer (and he’s just one person, too), will be speaking at St. Louis University:

Noted author Mario Vargas Llosa will receive the 2011 Saint Louis Literary Award from the Saint Louis University Library Associates at a special event from 5:30-6:45 p.m. Monday, Nov. 14, in the Anheuser-Busch Auditorium at SLU’s John Cook School of Business, 3674 Lindell Blvd. A book signing with the author begins at 4:30 p.m., followed by the presentation of the award and a conversation with Vargas Llosa led by Olga Arbeláez, Ph.D., professor of Spanish in the University’s department of modern and classical languages.

To say that I’m excited is an understatement of the month.

If you haven’t read anything by Vargas Llosa, please, please do. He is really amazing. Garcia Marquez doesn’t deserve to bring him his slippers (in my highly subjective opinion). The writer’s books are all translated into English.

You can start with his early work Cubs. It’s short and much easier to read than the writer’s longer novels. And, of course, Vargas Llosa’s great novel The War of the End of the World is highly recommended. People often disagree but I think this novel is his masterpiece. For the romantically minded, Vargas Llosa’s attempt at a non misogynist Latin American novel about love, The Bad Girl, might be of interest.

If you follow the links I provided, you will see that Vargas Llosa’s books can be acquired very cheaply.

My sincere gratitude goes to Nancy P, a long-time reader of this blog who informed me of this important event.