Collection of Articles by Vargas Llosa that allegedly discussed their favorite novels of the twentieth century, but which in reality is these works through the filter of his own views on literature and shipped at home against all who do not share ideas, which are many and varied.
There are several articles in this book quite biased content. The one dedicated to The Golden Notebook by Doris Lessing, for example, which shows how little he likes women writers and reluctantly having to acknowledge the many merits of both formal and content of this novel. Or the article on The End of the Affair by Graham Greene which concludes:
When you sit down to write [Graham Greene] lost that impetus, that vocation at risk who took a teenager to play Russian roulette, and became an efficient Scriptwriter, shy and functional, which rightly felt satisfied telling a story that did spend a happy and distracted while all classes of readers. Since then he got what he proposed as a writer, but what was proposed was always low and below his talent.
This final paragraph is based solely on their own personal prejudices Vargas Llosa, in his image too exclusive and exclusionary than it has to be the "good" literature. In The End of the Affair, Graham Greene wrote a great story, charming and memorable about the daily lives of poor people in ordinary situations and even a little silly, using concepts as unattractive as religious beliefs, miracles and faith. Say about a book so lacking in ambition is a sign of blindness or a stunning monumental bad faith.
But where Mr. Mario gives the master stroke in this volume is in his article on The Kingdom of This World by Alejo Carpentier, not coincidentally the only novel written in English that says. The absence of One Hundred Years of Solitude in this selection and is unforgivable, but apparently it was also necessary to a frontal attack on magical realism as a hallmark of Latin American narrative of the second half of the twentieth century. And it does so cryptic, writing a long article in praise of the narrative technique of Carpentier in The Kingdom of this world, work that shows the culture clash that occurred with the intent of the French colonists introduced the ideas of the Enlightenment the magical and superstitious Haitians. And after filling pages with examples of good creative way the author, in the last paragraph Vargas Llosa gives the stab of betrayal and without notice, throwing down a few lines all literary theory on which it based its work Alejo Carpentier:
In the prologue he wrote for this novel, Carpentier hoisted the banner of "magical realism" as an objective feature of American life, and mocked the European Surrealists, for whom, he said, the "wonderful" "never was but a literary trick. " The theory is nice, but false, as evidenced by his wonderful novel, where the world so seductive, magical, or mythical, or wonderful, is not an objective description of Haitian history, but the consummate wisdom of the literary tricks Cuban novelist used when writing novels.
In any case, if we abstract from the (dis) qualifications Vargas Llosa gives the works read, we find an overview of twentieth century fiction that the author presents from a deep and genuine love for literature and with an enthusiasm that is truly contagious. In short, a good book of literary criticism of a bad writer exceptional.
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