Ava's Blog: RMST 495

Felipe Pinglo Alva was mentioned in the book so here is a famous song of his performed by Jesús Vasquéz. I hope you enjoy listening to it as you read my blog!

Before I share my reflections on my first reading of Conversation in the Cathedral, I thought to share the epigraph at the beginning of the book as it did an amazing job drawing me in:

Il faut avoir fouillé toute la vie sociale pour être un vrai romancier, vu que le roman est l’histoire privée des nations  -Balzac

I translated it (using google translate) to double check that I understood correctly. It says: one must have explored all of social life in order to be a true novelist, since the novel is the private history of nations. That is such a phenomenal way to describe novels and from what I have read so far, this is doing just that.

Part I, chapter 1 poses a question to the reader: “at what precise moment had Peru fucked itself up” and I believe that Mario Vargas Llosa is attempting to provide us with an answer as we go along. You can already tell from that question alone that the book is highly political. I should say that it has lived up to my expectations so far, though I find it very challenging. There are many characters, some with their own nicknames; however, this information isn’t given to the reader so I had to piece it together as I read, figuring out who is who. I must say it was a very slow, dull start. At first, I felt a bit lost and thought I was skipping pages by mistake. It wasn’t until later that I realized the story shifts back and forth through time. It took about 40-50 pages for me to fully get into the story and start understanding what was happening. One thing that I’ve enjoyed about the novel so far is how there are many names of places and streets mentioned. I found myself searching them up to see what the streets looked like and where these places were.

Ultimately, the story seems to be a conversation in the “Catedral” between Ambrosio and Santiago. The novel seems to do exactly what the epigraph describes… Vargas Llosa is telling Peru’s history through the voice of its people. What were the social realities? Their struggles, the rhetoric, the political climate, perhaps their mistakes, regrets, and realizations? The story appears to be narrated against Odría who took office through a military coup, overthrowing Bustamante in 1948. The protagonist, Santiago, seems to struggle with who he is and how just like Peru he searches for the precise moment that he fucked up. People around him especially his father are Odría supporters and he deeply detests this. As people ask him why he is so against Odría, he says “Odría came to power by force, Odría put a lot of people in jail (p. 27). Those in support of Odría’s military takeover express their satisfaction with him as he is “clearing up the streets,” wiping the streets of communists and Apristas. Santiago later on says, “Odría was the worst tyrant in the history of Peru… give him time and you will see” (p. 68). This novel makes me think… How can a nation fail to see what is happening in plain sight? How can one not point out the symptoms of a dictatorship, or be in support of its practices, repressing dissent, censorship, extrajudicial killings, and other acts of state violence? How can some characters think it’s a heroic act that Odría overthrew an elected government, and be optimistic that the conditions will get better?

There are many themes that have been discussed so far in the book, though confusing, I find it stimulating to read and very thought provoking.

Another section from the book that was interesting to me was how Santiago says that he doesn’t know much about Marxism, he would like to know more but doesn’t know where, and how. Then, one of his friends when asked whether he is a communist or not says “I’m a sympathizer… besides, in order to be a communist you’ve got to do a lot of studying” (p. 72). I’ll leave this to you to interpret as you see fit. Also, I think Vargas Llosa does an amazing job of representing the social hierarchies during the period as well as the racism present, for instance some individuals are referred to as a “half-breed” in a degrading way; even Odría is described as one by Santiago.

I look forward to reading the rest of this novel and I wonder if the story timeline extends beyond the Ochenio including the aftermath of the dictatorship.

A question I have for you is whether you think we should factor in who the writer is and what their political views are while reading such novel? Or should it be more about the experience of reading the novel? Though this book is fiction, it is deeply historical and political which is why I personally think it serves far greater than a book and as Balzac described it, it is the untold “private history of a nation,” so the biases are important and should be taken into account, perhaps.

First Impression?

I was quite frightened at first to start reading the book but soon after I read the first couple of pages, I felt relieved and a bit surprised. I was locked in as one calls it and was enjoying it more than I had anticipated. There are many thoughts that lingered in my mind as I read the first section of The Savage Detectives.

I very much enjoyed the diary-entry style. I think another reason I have enjoyed this part of the book is that I had access to García Madero’s unfiltered thoughts. His disordered and restless thoughts sounded very human and even normal to an extent. To me, they sounded like what might go through a teenage boy’s mind as he explores life. I must admit I was caught off guard at times, but it’s so real and filled with an abundance of emotions. The pages were filled with thoughts that he could not voice out, so instead he wrote them down; Matters that appealed to him as a young boy: his passion for poetry, being a visceral realist, losing his virginity, his desires, his self-confidence, and an overwhelming number of insecurities that he carries within himself, and María…

He is also called García Madero rather than simply Juan as if he is a famous poet and seems to be a respected individual given some level of importance as the story builds. The section is for the most part about him following the visceral realists, his high admiration for Lima and Belano, him writing poems, and his sex life. At times, I did wonder whether I needed to remember or keep a list of the couple thousand names mentioned or the small conversations scattered over 3-4 pages. I wasn’t sure if I needed that information or should note it for future reference. They seemed irrelevant and unnecessary.

Going back to his self-confidence and insecurities, the book starts with García Madero being a virgin and does not seem like one that has engaged with females much in his life and out of the sudden he is getting complimented left and right by women, being desired by them, and jumping from one woman to another. A virgin to a womanizer? His story with María is noteworthy, as it is when we see him distinguish “love” from mere intimacy. A note on his other sexual explorations: how is a 17-year-old boy going around giving these women the time of their lives? I wonder whether he is fabricating what actually happened as what he describes sounds like an exaggeration, perhaps a way to feed his self-confidence by lying to himself? Or maybe he is misinterpreting all these instances, hoping they were real?

Closing Note

As I was reading, every time I stumbled upon the name Arturo Belano, I realized how similar it sounds to the author’s name, Roberto Bolaño. I had that thought in the back of my mind and I was wondering whether that character was him? This became more solidified when we learn in the book that Belano is from Chile and that he came to Mexico after the Pinochet coup. I’m left wondering whether Belano is Bolaño himself. Also, at the end as they leave the city, I am curious to see what happens next. While I enjoyed the diary-entry style, I would not mind a change in the next section and a move beyond the narrow focus on García Madero to explore other characters, especially Belano… The first section of the book appears to be an introduction that provides the reader with some context. I sense that the story is just about to begin.

Hi everyone, welcome to my very first blog! My name is Ava, and I’m a 4th  year Political Science student.

Now, you might be wondering how I ended up in a Romance Studies seminar. Well…

A couple of months before I discovered this course, I realized that all I had been reading was journal articles and non-fiction books. I often hear my friends talk about the books they have been reading or recently picked up (usually fiction), and it made me think that I want to explore reading beyond what I have so far.

I have always enjoyed longer texts, and they seem more challenging to me than shorter texts, which is what drew me to this course in the first place, and I think this is the perfect opportunity to learn something new and to escape my comfort zone in a way.

You might have noticed the image on my blog. I chose this image as it connects partly to who I am. I’m originally from Iran, and with that comes my fondness for tea, pomegranate, Iranian poetry, art, and culture; hence why I thought this image captured that beautifully. This brings up another question as to why I am interested in Romance Studies in particular.

Around the same time last year, I took a course on the politics of Latin America, and since then, I have become more and more interested in the region, beyond its politics, and I thought this was a great opportunity to explore Latin America from a different lens: through forms of literature and language. I was particularly drawn to Peru, which is why I chose a book that, though it’s fiction, has history embedded within it and is quite political, and of course because the story takes place in Peru. My chosen long book is Conversation in the Cathedral by Mario Vargas Llosa. Another reason I chose this book is that I have read a shorter work by the author and wanted to read one of his longer pieces.

I hadn’t anticipated this, but I have already learned new things, even though we’ve only had one class so far. For the context of this course, I think the only way new ideas and thoughts can be shaped and I can truly allow myself to learn (and the only way I can finish these books) is to let go, pour some tea, sit down, and read, which is how I intend to read the two long books. From the first class, I can already tell we will have wonderful discussions throughout the term as we read our books and I am very much looking forward to it!