From the Bookshelf of Constant Reader…

Aunt Julia and the Scriptwriter

Mario Vargas Llosa

Start date: March 15, 2009

Discussion: Reading List

Discussion leader: Rosana

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Reading List

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What Members Thought

Jan 12, 2008 Yulia rated it it was ok · 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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Mar 07, 2009 Ruth rated it it was ok

My friend who used to own a bookstore says that the most difficult thing to predict is what book any individual is going to think is funny. I remember nominating The Third Policeman, which I think is one of the funniest books around, for the Constant Reader list. Nobody else thought it was funny at all. So I admit right now to being out of step.

Of course you realize that I’m going to tell you this book didn’t tickle my particular funnybone. The situation between Aunt Julia, Marito, and the famil ...more

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Mar 03, 2008 Laura rated it really liked it

Shelves: nobel-prize, latin-american-literature

Noble pasión amorosa entre la tía Julia y el aprendiz de novelista, que la sociedad limeña de los años cincuenta trata por todos los medios de impedir; junto con las narraciones truculentas del folletinista de las ondas.

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Mar 09, 2009 Barbara rated it liked it

This book grew on me. I almost gave up on it after the first 100 pages or so and then I started getting involved in the intertwining, sometimes hilarious radio scripts and I was hooked. I do think that it is fundamentally about writing. Pedro Camacho is at one end of the spectrum giving absolutely everything to his craft. Varguitas is at the other end starting and stopping stories, not really doing anything well. Then, he meets Julia and has this unbelievable ability to focus on getting married ...more

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Jan 27, 2018 Cheryl rated it did not like it · review of another edition

Look, I recognize that this book is good. I really do. But I cannot get into it. I have tried three times but cannot do it. I found a chapter that I really really liked only to go to another character's point of view. Maybe it's me. Maybe I am not in the right mind set. Maybe I have other books that I really want to read. Maybe I will come back to this book. Maybe.Maybe. Maybe. ...more

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