Mario Vargas Llosa likes to counterpoint his darker novels with rosier themes: after the savagery of The Green House came the soufflé of Aunt Julia and the Scriptwriter with its mischievous nod to TV soaps, followed by The Feast of the Goat, a searing portrait of the Dominican Republic under Trujillo. Sixteen novels on, The Discreet Hero is Llosa-lite.
Nobel laureate, academic and politician (he ran for president in 1990), Peru’s most celebrated writer has acknowledged Flaubert as his spiritual mentor. In The Perpetual Orgy, a critical study, he put forward his theory of Flaubert’s style: the manipulation of narrative and time, obsession with pairs, humanising of objects.
All are here, in abundance, in the new book. Rarely have everyday objects been described in such loving detail, each glass of chichi or eggfruit juice name-checked; local dried-beef stew and shellfish ceviche noted; every avenida and plaza identified.
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