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Jun 10, 2011

Mag rated it:

The old mingles with the new in Garcia Llorca’s Peru. Human sacrifices and spirits of the mountains, road building, terrucos – uncompromising, ruthless and cruel freedom fighters coming out of nowhere and conducting their cruel people trials, and superstitious mountain people (serruchos) are the backdrop for the plot and its main characters. Captain Lituma and his adjutant Tomasito, people from the new, more modern world, are posted in a remote mountain village to guard the road building again More...

2 comments like (3 people liked it)

Nov 24, 2011

Andrea rated it:

I have enjoyed everything I have read by Vargas Llosa, so I am biased. This was a great read, I didn't want to put it down. I was quite surprised that it had a (relatively) happy ending, considering the whole novel is about the death and destruction brought on by terrorism and corrupt government.

****
I first read this novel in Spanish in June 2008. Three years later, I am reading it in English, planning to teach it in a freshman seminar, and trying to read it through the eyes of More...

0 comments like (2 people liked it)

Feb 27, 2009

miaaa rated it:

Every time I heard and think of South American, the people, the skin colour, the prehistoric civilisation, and even the sound of southern American I relate those to one word. Exotic. Exotica.

Is that all?
Apparently NO.

I generalised South American as one, I forgot just like Indonesia with thousand of ethnics and languages spread-out through the archipelago, South American people are varied as well.

Did I say exotic word before? I was fooled. I did not kno More...

3 comments like (2 people liked it)

Sep 16, 2011

Patrizia rated it:

Se vi piacciono i libri che sino alla fine non svelano i loro misteri, evitate questo: complice una quarta di copertina un po’ troppo esplicita, la soluzione risulta evidente già dal primo capitolo. E il “colpo di scena” , la “sconvolgente verità” (sempre dalla quarta di copertina) dell’ultimo capitolo, secondo me, non impressiona proprio nessuno. Probabilmente, ho pensato io, non era questo l’intento dell’autore: non voleva scrivere un poliziesco, non intendeva dare alla luce il “commissari More...

0 comments like (5 people liked it)

Aug 26, 2008

Steve rated it:

This was an odd duck. At first I wondered about the translation, but Grossman is an old hand, so I'm not laying the reading experience at her feet. I'm a big fan of Llosa's War of the End of the World, which is pretty much an epic. With this one, it seems he wanted shrink his focus -- but still have it be a big novel that says things. Whatever. The numerous flashbacks got on my nerves (in English they seemed clumsily handled), and at times even manipulative, thus draining important scenes of the More...

0 comments like (3 people liked it)

May 09, 2011

Henrike rated it:

Very good read. Strong captivating story that takes you deep into the Andes. I got hooked by the discription of the Peruvian people entangeled in this part-detective story, part-political allegory. Vargas Llosa not only discribes the political violence and social upheaval, but also the country's past, and its connection to Indian culture, especially the pre-Hispanic mysticism. Read it for the second time and still love it!

0 comments like (2 people liked it)

Jan 25, 2012

David rated it:

Awesome book. Mario Vargas Llosa blends folk tales with a love story behind the political screen of Shining Path terrorism. How did he do it?

The love story (and its a great love story) emerges from the young guard Tomas who tells Corporal Lituma as he has investigates three mysterious disappearances of local people including the mute young man he befriended. Constantly threatening them is the terror of the Shining Path guerrillas who threaten to kill everything and everyone in their p More...

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Jan 08, 2012

Isabel rated it:

Lituma, now a corporal, is working at a remote Civil Guard post attached to a road-building camp in the Andes. There is more tension in his new post, as Lituma has to get to grips with the superstitions of the mountain people as well as the dark shadow cast by the Shining Path guerrillas who are known to be in the area and could attack the camp at any time. When three men disappear over a period of a few weeks, the Civil Guards wonder if they could have been killed by guerrillas or have gone to More...

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Jan 07, 2012

Nathaniel rated it:

This was my introduction to Mario Vargas Llosa, chosen because it was the only book at an airport kiosk that bore a Nobel prize sticker where other titles were boasting of their sales accomplishments. I suspect that this was not the best introduction to Llosa, as it would now take a specific recommendation (or under-preparedness conniving with another understocked airport bookstore) to drive me back into his oeuvre.

“Death in the Andes” conjured an oppressive, dreadful and forlorn atmo More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Jun 10, 2011

Ben rated it:

wow, totally masterful book. never read any llosa before. it's a love story, a mystery, an historical investigation... a full statement on the human condition! god damn. all pretty focused, 275 pages... lots of great characters, great writing, tons of different points of view... and it all comes together beautifully at the end. i can see why this guy won a nobel prize! IMPRESSED

[pisco=brandy; pishtaco=mythical(?) cannibal boogeyman; terrucos=terrorist/rebels]

Like pisco, m More...

4 comments like (2 people liked it)

Jun 09, 2011

Jeruen rated it:

Next up on my reading list is this novel, entitled Death in the Andes (Spanish title: Lituma en los Andes), by Peruvian author Mario Vargas Llosa.

Why did I pick this up? Well, I was browsing the books in the famous Strand Bookstore in New York City last month, and I saw The War of the End of the World (Spanish title: La guerra del fin del mundo) by the same author. I was quite captivated by the description of it, but felt guilty of buying two books at the same time (this was the time I More...

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Oct 26, 2010

AdultFiction rated it:

Teton Co Library Call No: F Vargas Llosa
Marisa's rating: 4 stars

From what I have read about Mario Vargas Llosa, the subject emerging on his pages time and again, whatever the disguise, is the ancient cultural collision that spawned this turbulent hemisphere and the myriad ways its shock waves still define us. Death In The Andes is no exception - it is exceptional. This book examines the disappearances of three villages in a remote Andean town, through the eyes of the detectives More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Aug 02, 2010

Bernadette rated it:

Ostensibly this book is about the disappearances of three men in the mountains of Peru which two Civil Guards are sent to investigate. However this is not much more than a plot device for the author to explore broader themes such as poverty, violence and hopelessness. And he throws in a dash of romance (of the cruder variety) for levity.

If I’d read anything about this book before picking it up from my local library I wouldn’t have brought it home with me because it is exactly the kind More...

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Jan 18, 2010

Brendan rated it:

We read this book for my mystery reading group, but it's hardly a mystery, traditional or no. Death in the Andes tells the story of two downtrodden Civil Guards who find themselves stuck at a remote outpost where they may be overrun by Communist rebels (of the "Shining Path") at any moment. To add insult to injury, several locals have been disappeared and the policemen can't help but wonder where they've gone.

Llosa writes in a stream-of-consciousness style, mixing voices an More...

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Jan 15, 2011

Joyce rated it:

Corporal Lituma and Guard Tomás Carreño have been stuck in a post high in the Andes in the village of Naccos, where a road is being built. Three men from the camp has disappeared, including a mute Tomás brought with him when he reported to the post. At first Lituma fears the terruchos, a terrorist guerrillas of the Sendero Luminosa (Shining Path), a Marxist style rebel group that has been operating in the area, brutally killing “enemies of the people”. But no one in the camp wants to talk a More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Dec 27, 2010

Don rated it:

In this 1993 novel, Vargas Llosa does for the Andes what Tolstoy did for the Caucasus 130 years earlier in The Cossacks. That is, he drops the oil of an outsider in the water of a mysterious mountain culture torn by violence. Nominally a detective fiction, this, like Tolstoy's classic, is really more of a vividly painted sociology intertwined with a love story and an unfulfilled existential quest, and lots of drinking. The detective work involves two civil guardsmen sent to a remote mountain v More...

0 comments like (2 people liked it)

Oct 15, 2010

Marieke rated it:

I'm not sure I totally understand this book.

It had kind of a weird technique in which the author told two stories at once---like the past and the present occupying the same space on the page. It could be confusing and sometimes I had to reread passages (this isn't necessarily a bad thing). I'm not totally sold on that technique, but maybe it works better in Spanish. I'm not sure if my Spanish is up to the task of doing a comparative exercise but it might be fun to try. I knew before I More...

1 comment like (1 person liked it)

May 29, 2010

Frank rated it:

To be honest, it was probably more of a 3.5 in my mind. The New York Times reviewer Smartt Bell sort of nailed my impression when he wrote, "'Death in the Andes' is fascinating without being fully satisfactory." The insider's perspective on the various faces of contemporary Peru were fascinating. The details on ancient Peruvian mysticism were fascinating (especially the whole pishtaco mythology...I'm glad I am aware of that legendry now). The overall structure with the present and More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Jul 06, 2011

Marvin rated it:

Death in the Andes is ostensibly a mystery. Three men are missing in an impoverished Andean mining town. This is originally blamed on the Senderistas, a vicious Communist guerrilla group that terrorized Peru in the 80s. However, when Civil Guards Lituma and Carreno investigate, they suggest there may be older and more disturbing forces at work. But Llosa is not so interested in the mystery as much as to chronicle the history of violence in modern Peru as well as its ancient sources. There is no More...

0 comments like (3 people liked it)

Aug 05, 2011

Colin N. rated it:

In "Death in the Andes" two civil guards, Lituma and Tomas, are posted to a remote village in Peru to protect the people from Shining Path guerrillas who are rumored to be in the region. Three men have gone missing and the men attempt to investigate their disappearances without much help from the natives. Have they been killed by the guerillas? By the natives? By the pishtacos and other spirits that may haunt these isolated lands?

The story unfolds in a typical Llosa structure wit More...

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Nov 28, 2011

Keith rated it:

My fourth novel by Vargas Llosa this year and while not up to the high bar of "Aunt Julia" or "The Feast of The Goat", this novel again demonstrates why the man won the Nobel Prize.

Like his other novels, "Death in the Andes" is a set of multi-layered tales that spins together a modern political commentary on the terucos of The Shining Path, a baudy yet touching love story, and Incan mysticism. While it lacks a little cohesion, Vargas Llosa's ability to w More...

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Jul 02, 2009

Gordon rated it:

I read this novel while traveling in Peru, which certainly added to its impact for me. Death in the Andes is about the era of the Sendero Luminoso terror campaign which was at its height in the 1980's and early 1990's, and killed tens of thousands while uprooting hundreds of thousands more who migrated from the highlands to the big cities, especially Lima. At the time, I understood very little of what the Sendero Luminoso was about, and the US press couldn't seem to make any sense of the organ More...

1 comment like (1 person liked it)

May 06, 2011

JoTownhead rated it:

Corporal Lituma and his adjutant Civil Guard Tomas Carreno have 3 disappearances to investigate - and only in the final few pages do we learn what happened to the three. Llosa gives a rich insight into an isolated outpost high in the Andes (a highway construction site) peopled by construction workers and a sinister couple running the local bar. He gives us plenty of atmospheric side-stories and tales which capture the locals' beliefs and mythology. Running throughout the book is Tomas' love affa More...

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May 27, 2010

Mashael rated it:

مجموعة قصص في رواية واحدة عن ضحايا جرائم قتل تحدث في الوقت ذاته , هناك عدد كبير من المتهمين , هناك جماعة الدرب المنير الإرهابية ومحاكماتهم التي تتم بالهواء الطلق هناك الساحرة وزوجها الخمّار و شرطي في الحرس الأهلي و الكثير من الأساطير الـمحرضة على تقديم القرابين البشرية لآلهة الجبال هناك في الإنديز , يحاول كشف لغزها المحقق ليتوما الذي يشعر بأن الموت يتربص به وأن القاتل قريب منه لا محالة , عين على المتهمين وعين أخرى على مصيره الذي هو ” على كف عفريت ” رؤية لوضع المجتمع البيروفي الذي وجد نفسه في فوض More...

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Jul 17, 2011

Austin rated it:

On the whole this book is a very good. The tone is quite reminiscent of other South American literature I've read in recent years. The word choice is disarmingly simple and direct like in the works of Gabriel Garcia Marquez, and some of stories told by the characters smack of magical realism. It has some of the darkness of Roberto Bolaño's 2666, and as with 2666 certain passages of Death in the Andes employ highly stylized prose. I appreciate the ambition, though it works in some places better t More...

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Dec 30, 2010

Corey rated it:

My first Vargas Llosa experience... judging by the other reviews on goodreads, this book is not representative of the majority of his work, so I will have to read some others before forming an opinion on Vargas Llosa in general. Regardless, I loved this non-conservative take on the detective novel/ghost story in which the underlying mystery was not the point of the book at all but just the thread used to tie together a wild cast of characters, and to set the spooky mood against which to highlig More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Jan 23, 2009

Lynn rated it:

I am really getting into Vargas Llosa. I probably got into this book more than other people because I spent a month in Peru last year. He really captures Peru beautifully - the combination of modern rural slum, Andean landscape, violence, and precolonial mysticism. Plus the macho themes and characters are a good contrast to the mostly feminine material I read. And his books are short!

He also has this really skillful way of intertwining the past and the present into the same descriptio More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Jun 10, 2011

brian rated it:

nearly done and it is just amazing. vargos llosa is god. seriously. what he packs into a short novella is astonishing. he's climbing the ranks of my favorite living writers. might have to read his entire body of work.

6 comments like (2 people liked it)

Apr 21, 2011

Karson rated it:

This was a decent book. The subject matter was naturally very interesting to me; three guys go mysteriously missing in The Andes in Peru, and two men are sent to track them down. There are backwoods mountain people of Peru, roving militias, undertones of sorcery and the local primitive religions, and people falling deeply in love with prostitutes. My expectations were high. Unfortunately I got a little lost in the middle of the book. I didn't really connect with any of the characters until More...

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Feb 04, 2012

Isabel rated it:

Lituma, now a corporal, is working at a remote Civil Guard post attached to a road-building camp in the Andes. There is more tension in his new post, as Lituma has to get to grips with the superstitions of the mountain people as well as the dark shadow cast by the Shining Path guerrillas who are known to be in the area and could attack the camp at any time. When three men disappear over a period of a few weeks, the Civil Guards wonder if they could have been killed by guerrillas or have gone to More...

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