Książka bardzo znanego i cenionego w świecie Mario Vargas Llosa. Nienajnowsza już, ale dopiero teraz odkryłam. Ciekawa, dowcipna, oryginalna. Dobrze napisana. Jak to zwykle u tego autora zresztą .Historia naprawdę intrygująca, dziejąca się w latach pięćdziesiątych, pełna scen poświeconych obsesji seksualnej. Przeczytałam w zasadzie jednym tchem.

                                         Książka nie tylko mnie spodobała się i myślę, że może to być znakomity wprost prezent pod choinkę!

„Mario Vargas Llosa’s perversely charming new novel isn’t among his major books — it lacks the depth ofConversation in the Cathedral, Aunt Julia and the Scriptwriter or even the more recent and less successful The Feast of the Goat— but it is irresistibly entertaining and, like all of its author’s work, formidably smart. Its story of romantic and sexual obsession is characteristic of Vargas Llosa, as are its two principal characters: the narrator, Ricardo „Slim” Somocurcio, an amiable man whose ambitions extend no further than „a nice steady job that would let me spend, in the most ordinary way, the rest of my days in Paris,” and the woman — we don’t know her real name until a few pages from the end — whose „indomitable and unpredictable . . . personality” wholly captivates him.

It is commonly assumed that Vargas Llosa’s male protagonists are autobiographical, as often is obviously the case, but resemblances between him and Ricardo Somocurcio pretty much end with their mutual admiration of women and vexation over Peruvian culture. Ricardo’s lack of drive, on the other hand, scarcely mirrors his creator’s powerful ambition. American readers may not fully appreciate what a force Vargas Llosa is in his native Peru, where he spends about a quarter of each year. He enjoys a prominence — literary, social, cultural, political — that no American writer could dream of achieving. Not only is he by far Peru’s best known writer, of fiction and nonfiction, he also writes a regular, highly influential column for El Comercio, the country’s premier newspaper, he was a serious candidate for the presidency in 1990 (he was defeated by the now disgraced Alberto Fujimori), and he is a familiar, adored figure to millions of Peruvians”.

Jonathan Yardley’s e-mail address is yardleyj@washpost.com.