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Title: The Notebooks of Don Rigoberto by Mario Vargas Llosa, Mario Vargas Llosa, Edith Grossman ISBN: 0-14-028359-5 Publisher: Penguin USA (Paper) Pub. Date: July, 1999 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $14.00 |
Average Customer Rating: 3.77 (13 reviews)
Rating: 2
Summary: Notebooks are too weak of a literary device
Comment: "The Notebooks of Don Rigoberto" is a demonstrative example of Mario Vargas Llosa's vast imagination. In this book, Vargas Llosa uses the medium of notebooks -- diaries of fantasy, in essence -- to convey a series of sexual and erotic tales, written by his character, Don Rigoberto. Some of the stories are quite compelling and draw in the reader with terrific success. But, as the narrative unfolds, it becomes apparent that the tales in Don Rigoberto's notebooks do not sufficiently intertwine. In fact, they are fantasies, often completely unrelated to the previous, except in their erotic content. As a result, the narrative is not constructed chapter-by-chapter; rather it consists of a hodge-podge collection of freewritings, scribbled in a notebook, and scattered around an ongoing tale (which begins each chapter) of the exotic relationship between his wife and son. Despite the complex fantasies of the notebooks, it becomes apparent that disjointed stories in scrawled notepads, while interesting, are not a sufficiently successful narrative device. The reader is left wanting to see the various parts come together. But most do not.
Rating: 3
Summary: Erotic dreams
Comment: This is a sequel to "In Praise of the Stepmother," of the love triangle between Don Rigoberto, Lucretia, and Alfonso (Fonchito), returning to the theme of love attraction between a boy and an older female relative. It must be said that this theme has an autobiographical connotation, since Mario Vargas Llosa fell in love and married his much older aunt.
Don Rigoberto belongs to the bourgeois society, a successful businessman who at night pursues his hedonistic, eccenric passions. Separated from his second wife Lucretia, he indulges in fantasies to make up for his longing. Lucretia the devoted wife, whose passions and fantasies rivals those of her husband, has been accused of seducing his angelic and at the same time "luciferian" son Fonchito, a precocious little boy who shows an obsessive interest in Egon Schiele's paintings.
After reading some of Don Rigoerto letters, it becomes obvious to the reader that he is not recounting real experiences but using fantasy to fulfill his loneliness. His narration sometimes becomes tedious and repetitive; fortunately, his fantasy is sometimes broken by some discourses in which he attacks modern society from a variety of angles: patriotism, philosophy, militant feminists, sport enthusiasts, history, etc. Meanwhile, Fonchito applies his knowledge of life and work of painter Egon Schiele to seduce his stepmother's imagination whilst the reader is left to decide whether this young boy is a truly innocent and naive, or a pathological character. The extensive analysis of Schiele's work , details of famaous paintings, and other bits of general culture will add some interest to the narrative, and will compensate for Fonchito's irritating call "stepmamá, stepmamá..."
If it was Mario Vargas Llosa intention to transplant the aesthetic beauty of a classical work of art into literary fiction, the end result falls short of its objective. A work of art will leave the viewer with an open door to fulfill his imagination, whilst "The Notebooks of Don Rigoberto" is utterly saturated with less than artistic fantasy.
Rating: 4
Summary: stories within stories...
Comment: ...fantasy within fiction, eroticism within contempt for societal `norms'....
this compelling book is an erotic lace-work of the extremely hedonistic yet solitary don rigoberto's mind of absurd surreal life as insurance drone to his idealistic romance with his wife lucretia. interrupted by devil-child.
the themes within themes of this book are highly complex, including an intriguing introduction to egon schieles' artistry. the surprises are endless, as are his essays from life-as-defined-by leisure to the erotic affects of urination.
it is hard to summarise this novel. it covers so many issues that it is a wonder it is only contained within 259 pages. i was craving so much more at the end. mario vargas llosa is a genius once again.
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Title: In Praise of the Stepmother: A Novel by Mario Vargas Llosa, Helen Lane ISBN: 0312421303 Publisher: Picador USA Pub. Date: 01 November, 2002 List Price(USD): $13.00 |
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Title: Who Killed Palomino Molero? by Mario Vargas Llosa, Alfred Mac Adam ISBN: 0374525560 Publisher: Noonday Press Pub. Date: 24 June, 1998 List Price(USD): $11.00 |
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Title: Aunt Julia and the Scriptwriter by Mario Vargas Llosa, Mario Vargas Llosa ISBN: 0140248927 Publisher: Penguin USA (Paper) Pub. Date: October, 1995 List Price(USD): $15.00 |
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