Aunt Julia and the Scriptwriter: A Novel by Mario Vargas Llosa

Mar 01, 2008 Yulia rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: read-to-me-by-frank

I consider my experience with this book a love affair gone horribly wrong. Once again I'm harshly reminded of the dangers of praising a book before I've finished it. What began as an amazing wonder promising to be a masterpiece, hitting a still patch towards the half-way mark and quickening its pace towards the end, died an awful death in Chapter 20, a hateful, misogynistic, self-absorbed, malicious end that made me regret all the time I'd spent with Llosa, all the times I'd raved about him, all...more

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Feb 11, 2009 Whitaker rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: contemporary-fiction, peru, 2009-read

It’s easy to write a review of a good novel. It’s also easy to write a review of bad one. But this… It has hutzpah, it has ambition, it almost gets there but not quite.

This is novel of two lives, both at critical junctures, told in two vastly different formats. The first, semi-autobiographical, is the story of an aspiring young writer, Marito, and his courtship of his aunt by marriage. The second is the story of Pedro Camacho, an acclaimed radio scriptwriter, as he falls apart under the stress...more

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Mar 03, 2009 Khaya rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition Recommends it for: Latin American lit fans

Shelves: bookclub, latinamerica, historicalfiction, humorous-or-trying-to-be, should-ve-been-shorter

Although I eventually got impatient with the pace, there were many things I liked about this book. Our hero, Mario, a lustful 18-year-old, is smitten with Julia, his uncle’s divorced 32-year-old sister-in-law (consistently referred to as “Aunt Julia,” reminding us of their age difference and relationship and cleverly highlighting the absurdity of the situation). The two of them embark on an impossible romance. Meanwhile, Mario is also developing an intellectual fascination with Pedro Camacho, th...more Although I eventually got impatient with the pace, there were many things I liked about this book. Our hero, Mario, a lustful 18-year-old, is smitten with Julia, his uncle’s divorced 32-year-old sister-in-law (consistently referred to as “Aunt Julia,” reminding us of their age difference and relationship and cleverly highlighting the absurdity of the situation). The two of them embark on an impossible romance. Meanwhile, Mario is also developing an intellectual fascination with Pedro Camacho, the new scriptwriter at his radio station, an eccentric and manic writer taking Lima by storm with his captivating radio serials and slowly descending into madness in the process.

Camacho’s various cliffhanger serials are described in chapters which alternate with the chapters of Mario’s unfolding story. The romance with Julia and waning sanity of the scriptwriter grabbed me the way I imagined these increasingly bizarre serials grabbing the Lima radio audience. Would Mario and Julia’s infatuation last? Will the family find out? Will they get married? Will they break up? Will Camacho’s insanity finally destroy his stories and his career? The constant interruptions of Mario and Julia’s story effectively contributed to the escalating tension, making you feel as if you, too, were following a dramatic radio serial. I found this device very clever.

The tongue-in-cheek humor also got me immediately. Quotes like, “I had a job with a pompous-sounding title, a modest salary, duties as a plagiarist, and flexible working hours: News Director of Radio Panamerica” kept me chuckling inwardly as I read. This type of dry wit characterized a lot of the writing. I also got a kick out of Camacho’s quirks as reflected in his serials – his aquiline-nosed heroes, consistently described as “in his fifties, the prime of his life” (as Mario observes, Camacho is a bit defensive about his own quintogenarian age), and his constant gratuitous amusing slams at Argentinians (“…[the police report:] thus inadvertently attributed to the Huanca Salaverrias the habit, so common among inhabitants of Buenos Aires, of attending to their calls of nature in a bucket located in the same room in which they eat and sleep”), evoking blissfully ignored admonitions from Camacho’s superiors to make his heroes younger and to cut the Argentinian-bashing.

Other quotes touched me in other ways. At one point, Mario asks himself: “Were all those politicians, attorneys, professors who went by the name of poets, novelists, dramatists really writers, simply because, during brief parentheses in lives in which four fifths of their time was spent at activities having nothing to do with literature, they had produced one slim volume of verses or one niggardly collection of stories? Why should those persons who have used literature as an ornament or a pretext have any more right to be considered real writers than Pedro Camacho, who lived only to write? Because they had read (or at least knew that they should have read) Proust, Faulkner, Joyce, while Pedro Camacho was nearly illiterate?”

I actually ask myself this type of question a lot. When is writing an art, and when is it a craft? Does being a truly gifted writer (or any kind of creative artist) mean you are completely consumed and engulfed by the desire to write? Does it have to mean that? Can you write well if you are uneducated? Can writing effectively for the masses, as opposed to the elite, be a worthy art as well?

We also see Mario continually failing as he tries to compose his short stories, while Camacho’s serials enthrall the citizens of Lima. Why? What’s the difference? Why do Camacho’s succeed, and Mario’s fail? Is it talent? Marketability? Passion for, even obsession with, writing as opposed to dabbling? Admittedly, exploring the art of writing wasn’t an obvious focus of the novel; yet these questions stimulated me as I read.

As you can see, I enjoyed the book a lot. Initially, I alternated between feeling captivated by Mario and Julia’s romance and being equally drawn into the accounts of the tawdry, tabloid-esque radio serials despite myself. Every time I started a new chapter with its new focus, I actually wished the old one weren’t ending. This is a pretty impressive feat.

Despite this, I think the book should have been significantly shorter. Eventually, I started to get tired of being pulled into yet another serial and wished the story of Mario and Julia would just come to a head already. At that point, I still had 100-odd pages left ‘till the end. Interestingly enough, I felt this way (although proportionately more so) when I read One Hundred Years of Solitude, another South American novel. I found One Hundred Years of Solitude funny and engaging at first, and then at about the halfway point it suddenly got old. Aunt Julia, at least, kept me going about 2/3 of the way before I started skimming just to see what would happen, which I guess is an improvement. But 5 stars is not an option for a book that I found myself tiring of 2/3 of the way through.

As I wrote the above, about 50 pages from the end, I wavered between 3 and 4 stars and decided it would depend on the ending. Hence the 3 stars -- I found the ending rushed after a slow unfolding and extremely anticlimactic. I wish I could give it 3.5, though, because this book had some great moments and would have deserved at least 4 stars had Vargas-Llosa simply known when to stop.

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Feb 23, 2009 Lena rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: fiction

There are many stories woven within this colorful comic novel. First, there is the main tale of 18-year old Mario, an aspiring writer who embarks on a secret affair with his divorced, 32-year old aunt. Mario's narrative also outlines events in the life of Pedro Camacho, a Bolivian scriptwriter employed to produce soap-opera serials at the radio station where Mario works. Interwoven between chapters written from Mario's perspective are chapters from the intriguing serials themselves.

It's been a w...more

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Oct 11, 2012 Lisa (Harmonybites) rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Recommended to Lisa (Harmonybites) by: Kandice

Shelves: 2012-around-the-world, contemporary, fiction, humor-and-comedy, literary-fiction, novels

I found myself underwhelmed by Borges and Marquez; their brand of "magical realism" turned out not to be my cuppa. I found myself much, much happier with Mario Vargas Llosa's Aunt Julia and the Scriptwriter. The book's chapters alternate between young "Marito's" first person account of his love affair with his much older in-law Aunt Julia, and the third-person tales of "the scriptwriter" of a popular radio soap opera. I found both parts equally engaging. Given that "Marito" is a diminutive for M...more

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Jul 14, 2012 Aloha rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: z-llosa-mario-vargas, genre-literature, a-jurgen-brain-explosions, a-ebooks, a-own

That is what Contrafactus is all about. In everyday thought, we are constantly manufacturing mental variants on situations we face, ideas we have, or events that happen, and we let some features stay exactly the same while others "slip". What features do we let slip? What ones do we not even consider letting slip? What events are perceived on some deep intuitive level as being close relatives of ones which really happened? What do we think "almost" happened or "could have" happened, even though

...more

That is what Contrafactus is all about. In everyday thought, we are constantly manufacturing mental variants on situations we face, ideas we have, or events that happen, and we let some features stay exactly the same while others "slip". What features do we let slip? What ones do we not even consider letting slip? What events are perceived on some deep intuitive level as being close relatives of ones which really happened? What do we think "almost" happened or "could have" happened, even though it unambiguously did not? What alternative versions of events pop without any conscious thought into our minds when we hear a story? Why do some counterfactuals strike us as "less counterfactual" than other counterfactuals? After all, it is obvious that anything that didn't happen didn't happen. There aren't degrees of "didn't-happen-ness". And the same goes for "almost" situations. There are times when one plaintively says, "It almost happened", and other times when one says the same thing, full of relief. But the "almost" lies in the mind, not in the external facts.

-DOUGLAS R. HOFSTADTER/Gödel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid

I write. I write that I am writing. Mentally I see myself writing that I am writing and I can also see myself seeing that I am writing. I remember writing and also seeing myself writing. And I see myself remembering that I see myself writing and I remember seeing myself remembering that I was writing and I write seeing myself write that I remember having seen myself write that I saw myself writing that I was writing and that I was writing that I was writing that I was writing. I can also imagine myself writing that I had already written that I would imagine myself writing that I had written that I was imagining myself writing that I see myself writing that I am writing.

-SALVADOR ELIZONDO / The Graphographer
(Quoted in Aunt Julia and the Scriptwriter)

Aunt Julia and the Scriptwriter is a humorous surreal novel by Mario Vargos Llosa, the Peruvian writer who is the recipient of the 2010 Nobel Prize in Literature. The story’s structure is like a Russian nesting doll and its variants. It contains two main plot lines. The first is the realistic anchor of the 18 year old Varguitas (diminutive for Vargos) falling for his 32 year old divorced aunt by marriage, Julia. The story anchor is based on the author’s memory of his youth passionately pursuing his decade older aunt, Julia Urquidi Illanes. The second follows an obsessive Bolivian scriptwriter, Pedro Camacho, hired by the station Varguitas works for, to churn out numerous soap serials daily. In his interview, Vargas Llosa said that although Pedro Camacho is not a real person, he was based on a man Llosa knew who wrote radio serials for Radio Central in Lima. The man would churn out countless scripts with ease, barely taking time to review them. The man was the first professional writer Llosa has known. Llosa was fascinated with the unlimited world the man was able to create. One day, the man’s stories started to overlap, with the plots and characters getting mixed up. This inspired Vargas Llosa’s main theme.

Camacho’s plot line includes the short stories from the serials created by him. The stories are full of uproariously funny details with a cliffhanger as to how the situation would turn out. The increasingly surreal stories abruptly weaves in and out of the Varguitas plot line as he passionately pursues his aunt and observes Camacho’s mental decline from overwork. This goes in tandem with Varguitas’ and Julia’s increasingly risking family scandal and disapproval.

This semi-autobiography is more about his development as a writer than about his affair with his aunt Julia. Varguitas had dreams of being a serious writer of literature, living a bohemian life in a Paris garret. The young writer believed that serious writing should be a descriptive painting of real life. He tried to recreate the humor from situations, such as the hilarity of an actor playing Christ on the cross falling from prop malfunction. Unfortunately, he was unable to recapture the humor of the situation he witnessed. Meanwhile, Camacho was spitting out stories after stories right out of his head, with legions of radio listeners glued to the box. The story ended with the young writer learning a lesson about the need for balance between unlimited creative freedom with the grounding of real life structures.

The interesting Russian nesting doll structure effectively paints the internal and self-reflective autobiographical nature of Vargos Llosa’s story, and his relationship with writing. At the outermost, we are reading about his life and his relationship to writing. Vargos Llosa is observing, recalling, and writing about his past with his aunt Julia and his memory of the scriptwriter on which the character of Camacho is based. Pedro Camacho never existed, but Vargos Llosa was inspired by a scriptwriter who wrote for Radio Central in Lima. Vargas Llosa recalled his memory of this scriptwriter, piecing his own observation about himself as a developing young writer, and creating another man, Pedro Camacho, to help tell his semi-autobiography. The character Pedro Camacho, in turn, creates his own characters, which came to life for Camacho and his audience. They became so lifelike that Camacho sweared that they were the one that went out of control on their own, and he had to do damage control.

Questions were raised as to what is successful literature. Is literature influential if it inspired ardent followers? Or is literature considered effective if it has high intellectual and artistic significance? The young Varguitas made an informal survey of friends and relatives as to why they like radio serials so much. The answers ranges were “they were entertaining, sad, or dramatic”, and were able to take them out of the drudgery of daily life. Although the people remained glued to the radio for the serials instead of cracking open a book of literature, they demurred that literature is culture while radio serials were only trivial entertainment.

“Could have” elements are woven throughout the story. All of Camacho’s stories end with the dramatic questions asking the listeners to wonder how the situation will turn out. Camacho’s short stories are full of hilarious turns, sometimes bordering on the bizarre, with some containing taboo topics. There are situations of sibling incest, the encounter with an African slave that was stowed away on a ship and abandoned in the area, the trial in the rape of a young teen girl, the nervous breakdown of a man who accidentally caused the death of a girl, and a compulsive rat killer. The overworked Camacho eventually mixed up the characters and plots in his serials. He declared that the characters have a life of their own and he was only trying to fix their misbehaviors. His fixing resulted in a hilarious resolution.

As a mature writer, Vargas Llosa’s stories contain a balance of real and surreal. They make no moral judgment, but merely depict his observations of real life, mixed in with his creative manipulation of the characters and situations. Although the characters sometimes have immoral qualities and are demoralized, they never are less than human, trying to survive through life’s tragedies and incomprehension, making their sometimes warped interpretations of it. In the end, when Varguitas came to the conclusion that soaps are just as important as high literature, he and Vargas Llosa were able to find the sublime within the plebeian.
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Aug 15, 2011 Nadine rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: read-in-2011, group-reads, highlights

Das Leben des 18-jährigen Mario, Jura-Student und Nachrichten-Redakteur in einem kleinen Radiosender, wird durcheinander gewirbelt, als 2 Personen unabhängig voneinander in sein Leben treten. Zum einen seine (angeheiratete) Tante Julia, in die er sich verliebt, eine frisch geschiedene Bolivianerin, die nach Lima kommt, um sich einen neuen Ehemann zu suchen. Zum anderen wird ein neuer Autor, Pedro Camacho, eingestellt, der Radio-Fortsetzungs-Romane schreiben soll.

Erzählerische Kapitel rund um Ma...more Das Leben des 18-jährigen Mario, Jura-Student und Nachrichten-Redakteur in einem kleinen Radiosender, wird durcheinander gewirbelt, als 2 Personen unabhängig voneinander in sein Leben treten. Zum einen seine (angeheiratete) Tante Julia, in die er sich verliebt, eine frisch geschiedene Bolivianerin, die nach Lima kommt, um sich einen neuen Ehemann zu suchen. Zum anderen wird ein neuer Autor, Pedro Camacho, eingestellt, der Radio-Fortsetzungs-Romane schreiben soll.

Erzählerische Kapitel rund um Mario, seine Arbeit im Radiosender und seine sich entwickelnde Beziehung zu Julia wechseln sich mit Kurzgeschichten ab, die die Radioerzählungen aus der Feder von Camacho darstellen. Der wie besessen schreibende Autor wird zunehmend verrückter und es schleichen sich zunächst kleine Fehler in seine Geschichten ein, schließlich transportiert er die Helden aus bestimmten Geschichten in völlig andere Hörspiele was die Zuhörer mehr und mehr verwirrt.

Vargas Llosa schreibt locker und humorvoll, aber auf durchgehend hohem Niveau. Die Hörspiel-Kapitel enden mit recht reißerischen Fragen, um das weitere Schicksal der Helden, die den Leser des Romans zunächst recht unbefriedigt zurück lassen. Oft tauchen sie aber später noch einmal auf, zur Überraschung des Lesers, und wohl ebenso zur Verwirrung der Zuhörer allerdings mit leicht veränderten Berufen, zum Schluß hin lässt Vargas Llosa Camacho seine Figuren völlig durcheinander geraten, die teilweise dramatischen Schlußmomente der Hörspiele werden immer intensiver und apokalytischer, je näher Camacho dem Wahnsinn kommt.

Literatur-Nobelpreisträger Mario Vargas Llosa beschreibt in diesem semi-biografischen Roman eine Phase aus seiner Jugend, die sich wohl so ähnlich zugetragen haben muss. Er hat tatsächlich mit 19 seine Tante Julia geheiratet. Er schafft es wunderbar, die Hörspiel-Kapitel mit den erzählerischen Kapiteln aus seinem Leben zu verbinden, sich immer wieder auf dei Hörspiele bezieht, bzw. Ansichten, die Camacho äußert, in kleine Seitenhiebe ( zum Beispiel gegen die von ihm verabscheuten Argentinier) umzuwandeln, die er in seine Hörspiele einbaut.

Vargas Llosa hat mich mit diesem Roman aus dem Jahr 1977 sehr gut unterhalten. Ein wirklich lesenswertes Buch, das mit leichter Feder das Leben in Lima und eine sich entwickelnde Liebesbeziehung, gegen den Widerstand der Familie zeichnet. Die eingestreuten Kurzgeschichten waren ebenfalls immer unterhaltsam, vor allem, wenn sie durcheinander geraten und man den Autor hinter den Figuren langsam in den Wahnsinn abdriften sieht.(less)

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Aug 06, 2011 Rodrigo rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

¡Wow! ¿Qué puedo decir? Cada vez que leo algo de Vargas Llosa me pregunto qué falta para que lo declaren uno de los mejores de todos los tiempos. Es increíble cómo este señor produce maravillas con el lenguaje, pero dando la impresión de que es tan fácil escribir: llano, simple, sin rebuscamientos en la forma, pero impresionante, maravilloso, intenso y profundo en el fondo. Este libro nos da mil historias dentro de una sola. Ya la historia de amor de la tía Julia bastaba para mantenerme pegado a...more

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Jun 07, 2011 Cee rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

I remember a time when at certain hours of the day the activities in a household would come to a standstill. Everyone would then gather around the radio to listen to the day's serial drama.

I think this was the era, the atmosphere, that Llosa wanted to capture in his book. By alternating chapters about Marito/Varguitas' own story and radio serials penned by Pedro Camacho, there is that stop-listen-go ambiance, not unlike pausing in the family room to listen to what's on the radio.

The serials are...more

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Mar 07, 2011 David rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

My first novel read by Vargas Llosa and loved it. He recently won the Nobel Prize in Literature and whom I heard interviewed by Elenor Wachtel (CBC Podcast) and just by this book alone I can see why he won.

This is one of his earlier works and his writing style is lucid, visual and an ease to read (in translation). The story follows an 18-year old writer named Varaguitas working for a Peruvian radio programme editing the news in the late 1950s. Whike studying law and to make some extra cash, the...more

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Nov 02, 2010 Madhuri rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: nobel, latin-american, autobiographical, peru, coming-of-age

Aunt Julia and the scriptwriter is as autobiographical as it gets. Llosa has not even made an attempt to camouflage the characters under a different name. The narrator appears as Varguitas, and Julia is Julia, the aunt Llosa married in his early life. He has of course played with the ages a little bit, making himself younger and her older in the caricature. (In reality, he was 19, and she was 29 when they married). Keeping company with Julia is an eccentric, Bolivian script-writer, who writes sc...more Aunt Julia and the scriptwriter is as autobiographical as it gets. Llosa has not even made an attempt to camouflage the characters under a different name. The narrator appears as Varguitas, and Julia is Julia, the aunt Llosa married in his early life. He has of course played with the ages a little bit, making himself younger and her older in the caricature. (In reality, he was 19, and she was 29 when they married). Keeping company with Julia is an eccentric, Bolivian script-writer, who writes scripts for radio plays. Though a remarkable contrast is shown between the scriptwriter (at age 50, a dedicated writer who could fill pages worth a whole afternoon of radio in half sittings) and young Varguitas (who, at 18, struggles with numerous iterations of a short story), it seems that the script-writer could be yet another depiction of Llosa, who was also writing scripts at the time he met Julia.
Chapters in the book alternate between real-life and the scriptwriter's plays. Undoubtedly, the plays are much more interesting than the real life - where a dry romance is blossoming (for no compelling reason apparently), between Varguitas and his aunt. The plays themselves, are sleazy, and often comical in an ironical fashion. These are stories where the protagonist is usually a 50 year old male, is detached from the world around him, and great at his work. (In other words, a man crafted after Pedro Camacho - the scriptwriter). These stories are written for effect, no doubt, and highlight many sensational sins of modern lives - incest, parricide, lunacy, self-castration, various forms of cold and hot murders, etc. Despite their sleaziness, (or perhaps because of it) there is something engaging about these stories. They always end in a 'What will happen next...', and though they don't generate the kind of curiosity where you sit for pages wondering what happened to the last story, you are a bit unhappy when the story ends.
Towards the end, getting exhausted of his game, the scriptwriter begins to muddle up stories and characters, interchanging them, and in a bid to set things straight, blowing up the threads completely.
After all the fantastic build up of experimental narration and sinister stories, the end is surprisingly dull - there is no particular fun to the mangled stories of the senile script-writer, and the romance never takes off, ending in an equally dull and un-comical wedding. Perhaps Llosa, like many a writers got bored after400 pages. Or perhaps, like most writers, he could not find the perfect ending for such a build-up.
Since I will continue to believe that young Llosa and the old script-writer are one person, the author has brought out the dichotomy of popular writing and stylistic writing very well in this book. While young Llosa struggles to write a few pages of stylistic verse, the scriptwriter churns out popular text endlessly, giving Llosa a complex. Perhaps at one stage Llosa struggled with the choice between popular writing and painfully formed 'literature'. In the end it seems he leans towards the stylistic, thoughtful literature,hinted by the status he accords each character.(less)

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Feb 10, 2009 Shane rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

This novel is actually two stories that come together in the end - a somewhat tepid, sometimes funny, and aloof love story called "Aunt Julia" - the 18-year old narrator falling in love and marrying his 32 year old divorced aunt - and the "Scriptwriter" - a technicoloured collection of short stories with little or no dialogue that weave into a jumbled whole towards the end, mirroring the addled mind of the radio scriptwriter who is subsequently committed to a lunatic asylum.
There is another more...more

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Mar 01, 2008 Frank rated it 1 of 5 stars · review of another edition Recommends it for: Masochists

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here. The singly most promising and disappointing book I've ever read. Fraught with genius and absolute failure. The episodic serial scripts which comprise every other chapter are astounding in their creativity and execution. When Mr. Llosa tries to render a real(and semi-autobiographical) relationship with his Aunt Julia his skills crumble into sophomoric platitudes that reveal his inability to actually love a woman romantically (whether it be in his own life or as a writer.)

There are so many laugh-o...more The singly most promising and disappointing book I've ever read. Fraught with genius and absolute failure. The episodic serial scripts which comprise every other chapter are astounding in their creativity and execution. When Mr. Llosa tries to render a real(and semi-autobiographical) relationship with his Aunt Julia his skills crumble into sophomoric platitudes that reveal his inability to actually love a woman romantically (whether it be in his own life or as a writer.)

There are so many laugh-out-loud moments peppered throughout his radio scripts but the intervening chapters with aunt Julia lack any depth of character - not only his but his friends, family and particularly any women.

I suppose I should have seen it coming (Spoiler Warning) when he tosses the character of Aunt Julia away like so much garbage in his final chapter, instead concentrating on his heroic writing pursuits... what a bunch of boring, self-serving bullshit that flies in the face of his overall tapestry - bringing some kind of deus ex machina memoir from hell onto the page in defense of what... his life, his art?

It's astonishing an editor didn't slap the man for this onanist salute to himself (the final chapter). If I could reach through the pages, I would have done so myself as not only does he reveal his narcissism that had robbed the chapters supposedly dealing with "real people" in his life of pith or vitality, but he shows his misogynistic bent through several "where the hell did that come from" lines... again all in the final, anti-climactic chapter.

The man does not like women and has no place writing about them. However the book is also one of the most creative and ingeniously plotted books you're likely to read (until the final chapter - which I recommend ripping from the binding and recycling like a responsible Earth citizen.

Were this book an unfinished work... one chapter short, it would have gone down as one of the classics... instead his final volley only served to reveal the failings of the artist and the man.

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Sep 28, 2008 Lavinia rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: 2008, fiction

I declare myself satisfied after this first encounter with Llosa. The novel is funny and autobiographical in part, which makes it even more interesting. Some of the episodes written by the scriptwriter are funny, some less funny, but all written masterfully.

***
pentru o prima intilnire cu llosa, ma declar satisfacuta. regasesc un pattern sud-american, ceea ce e de bine :)
romanul e amuzant, partial biografic, ceea ce-l face si mai interesant. episoadele condeierului sint, unele mai nostime, altele...more

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Sep 28, 2012 Olga Kark rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: cultural, latin-america, translation

Феерическая книга, абсолютно сюрреалистическая. Главный герой - молодой человек 18-ти лет, работает в информационном отделе одной из радиостанций в Перу. При этом влюблен в свою неродную тетушку и мечтает стать писателем. На той же радиостанции работает выписанный из Боливии Педро Камачо, который без сна и отдыха строчит одну радио постановку за другой и тут же их ставит. Радио постановки пользуются бешеной популярностью у местных жителей. Основной сюжет книги постоянно прерывается описанием выд...more Феерическая книга, абсолютно сюрреалистическая. Главный герой - молодой человек 18-ти лет, работает в информационном отделе одной из радиостанций в Перу. При этом влюблен в свою неродную тетушку и мечтает стать писателем. На той же радиостанции работает выписанный из Боливии Педро Камачо, который без сна и отдыха строчит одну радио постановку за другой и тут же их ставит. Радио постановки пользуются бешеной популярностью у местных жителей. Основной сюжет книги постоянно прерывается описанием выдуманными великим Камачо историями. Поначалу они все довольно логичны и понятны, но постепенно сюжеты начинают перепутываться, герои перескакивают из одной истории в другую, меняют имена и профессии, умирают и снова возрождаются уже в совсем другом обличье. Ощущение, что подсматриваешь в окно какой-то сумасшедшей коммуналки, каждый житель которой - герой душераздирающей трагикомедии, и одновременно возникают сразу два абсолютно противоположных желания - отбежать подальше от этого окна и таки досмотреть спектакль до конца.
Долго думала, дать книге три звездочки или четыре, остановилась на трех, хотя на самом деле я бы поставила три с половиной.(less)

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Sep 27, 2012 Wingerr rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Hubiera agradecido que se contara sólo la historia del romance de Vargas Llosa con la Tía Julia, y que dentro de esta historia Pedro Camacho fuera un personaje secundario, como lo fue efectivamente. A lo que voy es que aborrecía leer los capítulos intermedios que se supone Pedro Camacho escribía, sin embargo reconozco que eran necesarios para darle mayor vida y carácter al personaje de Pedro Camacho.

El final es muy triste, no porque pasara algo trágico, sino por que simplemente termina la histor...more

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Sep 17, 2012 Piperitapitta rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: premio-nobel, romanzo-autobiografico, sudamerica, autori-peruviani, letteratura-peruviana, gruppi-di-lettura

Come un funambolo della parola.

La zia Julia e lo scribacchino è un romanzo in equilibrio sopra la follia che ammalia, irretisce, indigna, infastidisce e diverte, in un turbinio che sembra infinito di storie che si intrecciano, si toccano e si palpano in una continua altalena in cui l'autore dà prova del proprio virtuosismo.
Ad uno stile vivace e scoppiettante, quello dei "capitoli dispari" è più pacato ma in crescendo man mano che si va avanti con la lettura, si contrappone una realtà sociale, qu...more Come un funambolo della parola.

La zia Julia e lo scribacchino è un romanzo in equilibrio sopra la follia che ammalia, irretisce, indigna, infastidisce e diverte, in un turbinio che sembra infinito di storie che si intrecciano, si toccano e si palpano in una continua altalena in cui l'autore dà prova del proprio virtuosismo.
Ad uno stile vivace e scoppiettante, quello dei "capitoli dispari" è più pacato ma in crescendo man mano che si va avanti con la lettura, si contrappone una realtà sociale, quella del Perù degli anni Cinquanta, moralista e bigotta cui corrisponde una certa rigidità di costumi e maniere che Vargas Llosa si diverte a provocare e a scardinare con il proprio linguaggio dissacratorio e irriverente; i "capitoli pari" sono invece tutta un'altra storia; anzi, per meglio dire sono proprio "altre storie", storie in cui affiora tutto il realismo magico di cui solo il Sud America è intriso fino alle radici e che non mancheranno di sorprendere e disorientare il lettore.
Se da una parte sarà possibile immergersi nella calda e umida città di Lima, passeggiare per le sue lunghe avenida e per i vicoli polverosi, riuscire a malapena a vedere il cielo sempre oscurato da una cappa appiccicosa di nuvole basse e a seguire con palpitazione le vicende amorose del giovane aspirante scrittore Mari(t)o e della zia Julia, della radio Panamericana e dello scribacchino - autore di romanzi radiofonici - Pedro Camacho, dall'altra basterà allungare lo sguardo per ampliare il proprio l'orizzonte ed entrare in villaggi sul mare dove il cielo è così azzurro da abbagliare la vista, dove le foreste sono intricate e popolate da spiriti sconosciuti e le case, le pensioni, le ville, i tribunali e gli uffici del comune sembrano accogliere fra le proprie mura tutta l'eredità di una tradizione che parte dagli Inca e arriva fino ai giorni nostri, in una incredibile miscellanea di colori, suoni, parole e odori e personaggi che rende incredibile e impossibile il fatto che possa trattarsi di luoghi magici e reali allo stesso tempo.
Ma sia che a scrivere si tratti di Marito Varguitas (!) piuttosto che di Pedro Camacho, scommettiamo che Vargas Llosa - fronte spaziosa, naso aquilino, sguardo penetrante, rettitudine e bontà di spirito - vi farà perdere la testa e catturerà la vostra attenzione fino all'ultima parola?
Scommettiamo che inizierete a ripercorrere avanti e indietro le pagine già lette? E che anche alla fine non sarete del tutto convinti e tornerete indietro ancora una volta a rileggere almeno un paio di righe?
Vogliamo scommettere?

Riprendo dall'articolo che accompagnò l'uscita di "La zia Julia e lo scribacchino" per la Biblioteca di Repubblica: L'ascesa del giovane scrittore è una sorte di autobiografia di Vargas Llosa? Zia Julia Urquidi Illanes, nella realtà prima moglie dello scrittore, la lesse così, mandando alle stampe un contro-volume con la sua verità. Vargas Llosa ha invece sempre rivendicato il dovere della menzogna dello scrittore, ribelle anche a Dio come costruttore della realtà. «Non si scrivono romanzi per raccontare la verità, ma per trasformarla». Benvenuti nel mondo parallelo di Vargas Llosa.

Certo è che, vista anche la dedica dell'autore posta all'inizio del romanzo - «A Julia Urquidi Illanes, cui tanto dobbiamo io e questo romanzo» - leggere il contro-volume della ex-moglie sarebbe stato molto interessante: peccato che non se ne trovi traccia.(less)

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Sep 15, 2012 Mortalform rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: book-club-possibles, transgressive-love

But the arrival of television in Peru was still a long way off, and for the moment the modest survival of the fauna of the world of soap operas seemed assured. 5

“The worst thing about being a divorcée isn’t that all men think they’re obliged to proposition you,” Aunt Julia informed me. “Rather, it’s the fact that because you’re a divorcée they think there’s no need to be romantic.” 12

I explained to her that love didn’t exist, that it was the invention of an Italian named Petrarch and the Provenç...more

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Jul 16, 2012 Regina Andreassen rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Aunt Julia and The Scriptwriter is a semi-autobiographical novel which I read in both Spanish and English. It is not Vargas Llosa greatest achievement but it is good enough to deserve a positive review.

There are two well defined stories here. The first one is Mario's affair with his aunt and the second one is Pedro Camacho's story and his radio soap-operas. The latter one touch me deeply.

A merit of this book is Mario's ability to portray Lima's society and middle-class Limeans interactions effi...more

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Jul 07, 2012 Cameling rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Set back in the day before television was introduced to Peru, we follow the life of student, Marito, as he works at Panamerica, writing up news scripts for the radio station and studies for his law exams. His life is disrupted by the arrival of his Aunt Julia with whom he embarks on a secret affair, and Pedro Camacho, a popular Bolivian radio soap opera scriptwriter.

Alternating between chapters in Marito's life are Pedro's increasingly hilarious and bizarre soap opera segments. As Marito and Au...more

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Jan 19, 2012 Vinod Peris rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

As soon as I read a few pages of this book, I was blown away by the imagination of this author and began to appreciate why he won the Nobel Prize in 2010. Almost every chapter launches into a whole another story that is wildly inventive in itself. The author also made an attempt at intersecting all of these with some common characters and I probably lost a few of these threads as I progressed through the book.

The book is set in Lima, Peru and describes the life of a young struggling student call...more

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Jan 02, 2012 Jorge rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Hacía tiempo que no leía una novela que me fascinara tanto... La tía Julia y el escribidor es una de esas novelas que despiertan las ganas de escibir, tanto por su protagonista, un jovencito que desea ser escritor (alter ego del mismo Vargas Llosa) y se enamora de una tía política aún joven (treinta y pocos), como por el escribidor, Pedro Camacho, un guionista de radioteatros con una creatividad increíble para los melodramas truculentos.

Creo que perdí un poco de objetividad, ya que la novela la...more Hacía tiempo que no leía una novela que me fascinara tanto... La tía Julia y el escribidor es una de esas novelas que despiertan las ganas de escibir, tanto por su protagonista, un jovencito que desea ser escritor (alter ego del mismo Vargas Llosa) y se enamora de una tía política aún joven (treinta y pocos), como por el escribidor, Pedro Camacho, un guionista de radioteatros con una creatividad increíble para los melodramas truculentos.

Creo que perdí un poco de objetividad, ya que la novela la terminé hace un tiempo y no escribí mis impresiones inmediatamente, pero lo que sí destaco de la historia es su ritmo: la historia principal, la historia de Mario, el joven protoescritor, narrada en primera persona, ocupa los capítulos impares, mientras los capítulos pares son ocupados por los relatos de radioteatro de Pedro Camacho. Esto le da gran agilidad e interés a la lectura, ya que los dos hilos son igual de envolventes, con la diferencia que los radioteatros de Camacho nunca concluyen, sino que cierran con un enganche para el "capítulo siguiente", lo que genera una frustrante y a la vez deliciosa sensación de "coitus interruptus".

Es una historia de juventud y vejez, de cómo se enfrentan la juventud con la madurez y la decadencia, y de cómo la enfrentan algunos: mientras la tía Julia, una divorciada joven sin hijos, se enfrenta a la vejez inminente con dignidad, conciencia de la muerte y alegría (ella desea seguir disfrutando de la vida, aunque la sociedad conservadora la mire como una loca), Pedro Camacho intenta ignorar la decadencia, insistiendo en que la cincuentena es "la flor de la vida", y tratando de desviar la mirada cada vez que la decadencia le recuerda su mortalidad.

[SPOILER]El crecimiento y juventud también se vive a través de nuestro protagonista, que se inicia en los primeros pasos de la escritura, y Camacho, quien vive un decaimiento progresivo en su habilidad para escribir. Esto llevará a Camacho a a mezclar historias y situaciones hasta el punto que sus radioteatros, antes los más escuchados e influyentes de todo Perú, se conviertan en objeto de burla. Así, mientras Mario vive su primer amor y triunfa tanto contra las presiones familiares y los prejuicios de la clase media de los años 1950 como contra el frustrante proceso de decepciones que es la escritura, Camacho acaba en un sanatorio mental primero y luego como estafeta en una revista de mala muerte, con todo su antiguo orgullo pisoteado por el patetismo de la decadencia.[/SPOILER]

Camacho es una parodia de sus propias palabras: los protagonistas de sus radioteatros son todos "hombres que habían llegado a la flor de la edad, la cincuentena: frente ancha, nariz aguileña, mirada penetrante, rectitud y bondad en el espíritu". Camacho es, por el contrario, un hombre bajo, desconectado del mundo, con grandes dificultades para adaptarse a los cambios, incluso a los de su propio cuerpo y mente. Aún así, Camacho debe ser uno de los personajes más fascinantes de la literatura latinoamericana: con sus prejuicios (los argentinos siempre aparecen como personas sucias, brutas, incivilizadas y crueles), su tozudez (sólo había una forma de escribir), su clasismo intelectualoide (los actores eran incapaces de contribuir al proceso creativo porque no eran artistas como él), su rigidez militar (tenía totalmente disciplinados a todos los trabajadores y actores del radioteatro), Camacho es al mismo tiempo una parodia y un retrato muy digno de un pequeño dictador del arte, un director de orquesta obsesivo y autista, que tiene un don que él mismo no comprende y que sería incapaz de recuperar si es que llegara a perder.

El idilio amoroso de Mario y la tía Julia es igual de entretenido, pero lo cierto es que la épica del amor se queda pequeña ante la épica de la decadencia. Pero, pese a que Camacho se devora la historia, el romance de Mario y la tía Julia sale dignamente parado, principalmente porque sus protagonistas viven un equilibrio entre astucia y locura, entre valentía y conciencia de la muerte, y la figura del padre de Mario -un ser gris que sólo aparece hacia el final de la historia, pero que impone su peso a lo largo de todo el relato- genera una empatía especial con el narrador-protagonista.

Para cerrar, se trata de un imprescindible de la literatura latinoamericana, que me gustaría releer en algunos años más, cuando tenga más tiempo y haya olvidado un poco la historia.(less)

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Dec 24, 2011 Vlad rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Ostensibly, this book follows two concurrent plots. One being the romance between Mario and his Aunt Julia, and the other being the crazy tales that Pedro Camacho writes for a Peruvian radio station. Chapters alternate back and forth between the two.

The first problem is that these two plot lines have almost no connection with one another. Yes, Mario works at the radio station and has several conversations with Pedro. However, he is merely a passive observer, with zero influence upon Pedro's stor...more Ostensibly, this book follows two concurrent plots. One being the romance between Mario and his Aunt Julia, and the other being the crazy tales that Pedro Camacho writes for a Peruvian radio station. Chapters alternate back and forth between the two.

The first problem is that these two plot lines have almost no connection with one another. Yes, Mario works at the radio station and has several conversations with Pedro. However, he is merely a passive observer, with zero influence upon Pedro's story.

I thought a stronger link would be established between the two narratives as the book went along. Alas, it never was, and what we get are two different novels crammed between the same covers.

Speaking of which, the courtship between Mario and Julia is among the laziest and most boring romances I have ever read. Vargas Llosa offers us nothing beyond a barren description of events. Julia gets divorced, is really sexy, Mario notices, makes advances towards her, they elope, and then decide to marry. That's essentially it. No deep conversations, no conflicting feelings, no conflict, period.

It has all the wit, charm, and depth of hearing a hung-over college kid describe how he picked up a floozy at the sorority last night.

However, the other "book", Pedro Camacho's stories, do possess a certain charm. They're wonderfully sordid trash, rife with murder, sex, pregnancy, and incest. They're everything one can expect from modern-day Hispanic "telenovelas" (their version of soap operas).

However, as Pedro buckles under the strain of working 16+ hour days, his stories become increasingly deranged, to hilarious results.

While this was easily the best part of the book, it ended up going on for too long, stretching a good joke past the point where it was funny. Then again, even beating a dead horse was preferable to hearing more stale details of Mario and Julia's relationship.

As noted before, there is little attempt to connect these two storylines, and the result is a predictably weak whimper of an ending.

Ultimately, I can't recommend people to read "Aunt Julia and the Scriptwriter". Rather than being a cohesive novel, it's two unconnected stories, one completely terrible, and the other containing a funny, clever idea which nevertheless becomes stale well before it ends. (less)

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Oct 03, 2011 Ajay R rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

'Aunt Julia And The Script Writer' is one of the most hilarious and crazy novels I have read. What makes this novel even more special, is that it is written by Mario Vargas Losa, who once again shows his ability to straddle various genres in writing and hardly missing a beat. The man has written hard hitting political works (The Feast Of the Goat), experimental works with the form of the novel (The Green House), erotic works where imagination is more erotic than the real (The notebooks of Don Ri...more 'Aunt Julia And The Script Writer' is one of the most hilarious and crazy novels I have read. What makes this novel even more special, is that it is written by Mario Vargas Losa, who once again shows his ability to straddle various genres in writing and hardly missing a beat. The man has written hard hitting political works (The Feast Of the Goat), experimental works with the form of the novel (The Green House), erotic works where imagination is more erotic than the real (The notebooks of Don Rigoberto), about myths (The Story Teller) and even a coming of age tale (The time of the Hero). With this novel, he proves to be a master in of the satire/spoof in an extremely funny way. We would rarely get a writer, whose output is so diverse.
Party autobiographical, (Losa married his aunt which ended in a divorce later), the novel concerns the narrator (losa aged 18 at that time) and his aunt Julia, whom he meets and falls in love with. More than his studies, losa is interested in writing and works part time at a radio station. The radio station has it's own share of odd ball characters like the person who prepares the news in losa's absence and for whom no news is complete without having any disaster in it. (If there is no such news for the day, he inserts his own disasters with his unique brand of morbid humor) The radio station gets a new Bolivian writer (Pedro Camacho) to write soap operas for it. As Mario meets his aunt and falls in love with her, Pedro Camacho's operas become a huge hit. The actual incidents in Losa's life are alternated with episodes from the various soaps that are written by Pedro.
The episodes from the various soaps are extremely funny and true to form with respect to soaps. Each one of the episodes end with a question being asked to the reader/listener. What is going to happen now/Will Mr.YYY come to know the truth/How will this end etc. We are clearly in soap opera territory here. I don't know how close these episodes are to the reality of Peruvian soap operas, but they sure seem to be a hell a lot more funny than the crap that is being dished out in India. Losa does not miss anything and captures the nuances (!) of the soap operas exactly. Most of the stories are seriously funny, like the one where patricide is committed, the one about the lodge owner.
As Losa's romance with his Aunt progress, Pedro's personal life gets hit by unknown forces (this is never told clearly as to why, though there are some hints thrown in). As Losa's family come to know about their romance and try to end it, at the other end Pedro's mind implodes, resulting in even crazier episodes of soaps where characters who were dead come alive, characters in one serial somehow cross over to the other. Even though this is insanely funny, one has to feel for Pedro losing his mind. As for Losa, he plans to marry his Aunt against his family's wishes. The part where they run of to get married and face much problems (no priest etc) is another absolute riot of humor.
The epilogue has Losa returning back after having divorced his aunt and marrying one of his cousins. He meets Pedro, now a lowly worker and his wife (and we get an idea of pedro's troubles). The story ends on a bitter sweet note at Pedro's current condition.
For me personally, this novel and 'The Feast Of The Goat' are the best of Losa's works. Just try reading these two one after the other (like I did, coincidentally) and you will surely wonder at the greatness of this man who can write 2 such novels which are at the two ends of a spectrum. Word for word, sentence for sentence, Losa creates such a tapestry of visual images that are so exotic, sensuous, life like and funny at the same time, that you cannot but be fully sucked into it. More than anything else, Losa proves that great writing can be entertaining also.

Note: Losa's aunt whom he married in real life has written a memoir of her with her version of the actual events(less)

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Sep 19, 2011 Fabíola Maciel rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: nobel

LETRAS ILETRADAS:
http://letrasiletradas.blogspot.com/2...

AUNT JULIA AND THE SCRIPTWRITER:
Many critics sustain that to win a Nobel is necessary a bit of eccentricity, alienation and even madness. This is a case of madness without extravagance.

Varguitas is a young man who, inevitably, falls in love with his aunt Julia. Firstly, the passion happens away from the eyes of the family, but slowly they notice the visits to the cinema. Ingenuity and maturity are confused in the actions of the lovers.

Th...more

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Sep 15, 2011 Roberta rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: 2010

Devo dire la verità, speravo che questo romanzo fosse un po’ più appassionante, invece è solamente piacevole.
Mario è uno studente di legge (anche se aborre l’attività legale e aspira a divenire scrittore, nel frattempo non disdegna dare un po’ di soddisfazione anche alla famiglia) che vive a Lima, in Perù, dove lavora per una radio per la quale cura i bollettini orari delle notizie.
Nella vita spensierata e senza scossoni di Mario entrano a un certo punto zia Julia e lo scribacchino (titolo doc...more

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Sep 07, 2011 Susan Segal rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Aunt Julia and the Scriptwriter essentially asks the question: how do reality and fiction intersect. Vargas Llosa does this by writing his story in alternating chapters. The odd chapters tell the autobiographical story of Vargas Llosa's own courtship and marriage to his Aunt Julia, a relative by marriage, who is an older woman, which scandalized his family. The even chapters are the stories of radio soap opera plots written by a scriptwriter at a radio station where Vargas Llosa worked while he...more

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Sep 03, 2011 Eliza rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: novel, non-fiction, fomp-book-club

9/2/11: MV Llosa is a great, Nobel Prize-winning writer. But I wouldn't choose this semi-autobiographical novel as the best example of his work. It is a relaxed, gently hilarious story of a young man who falls in love with his aunt (by marriage), and wanders the streets of Lima with seemingly little to do but drink coffee, observe people, and ponder his own works in progress (short stories), which are invariably terrible. (Ostensibly he is in law school and holding down a job at Radio Panamerica...more

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Aug 28, 2011 Cary Barney rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition

I've been on a Vargas Llosa kick this year, reading "The War at the End of the World" (which blew me away) in Spanish, so I was really looking forward to this one. It's much lighter, more comical, though you get swept up in the seemingly doomed romance between the author/protagonist and his older aunt. Alternating chapters parody the radio melodramas popular in Lima in the 1950s, and these are both gripping and hilarious. You wait in expectation that Vargas Llosa will bring the two halves of the...more

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Nov 04, 2011 adri patamoma rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

spoiler mais adiante -- cuidado!

aiaiai -- este livro poderia ter ganhado todas as 5 estrelinhas, sabe? mas o final dele é tão apático que não consegui dar mais que 3. o livro começa muito bem, alternando a história da vida de um casal (marito e tia julia) e as muitas histórias de radionovelas escritas por um boliviano que trabalha no mesmo grupo radiofônico que o protagonista do casal (marito). as histórias são ótimas, e adorei a forma como elas se desenvolvem. perto do final, achei que o livro...more

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