ok7a's review against another edition
challenging
dark
emotional
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
2.0
edithcita's review against another edition
challenging
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
3.75
pbarrarequena's review against another edition
3.0
La novela de Mario Vargas Llosa es un característico ejercicio de lectura. Requiere una atención doblada del lector para no sucumbir y perderse en el repertorio de voces e historias. La novela es abierta, recordando a Piglia, y requiere que el lector la complete. Elementos que encontramos en ciertos puntos de la lectura sólo son desvelados y adquieren su sentido total en otros puntos inesperados. Vargas Llosa juega con lo cifrado y espera que el lector intrigado decodifique su sentido final.
wanda_rosa's review against another edition
adventurous
challenging
dark
informative
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.0
pellegrini5's review against another edition
challenging
mysterious
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.5
blueyorkie's review against another edition
2.0
For those who are accustomed to political and explicit allegories, there are none, and this may disappoint some fan more assiduous. This book of short stories, very brief in its six narratives with a simple background, had such violence that operates between the lines and where the centre of the stories is a male character.
deanjean_reads's review against another edition
3.0
My first exposure to Mario Vargos Llosa. Oh boy, if only somebody could have warned me what I was about to face...
The prose is a spectacular, tangled mess, as thick and tangled as the intertwined vines of the Amazon foliage. One is dragged into a single sentence of colour, violence, exotica and ruin, which one soon realizes is a plot of sorts after finishing a chapter, but the next chapter ends up being another subplot with three other different characters. After some chin scratching, several paths become more recognisable in the plots - that of Bonificia, the champs, the bandits and Father García. However, one has to search within the text to surmise who is who, or what is happening, or the chronology of the events.
I must confess that the whole book gave me a headache, but going along with the chaotic flow grants one a perverse happiness in a 'well, since the plot is already fucked, what the fuck is going to happen next?' manner. Likewise, the characters in the book experience life with extreme uncertainness but with a fierce j'oie de vivre, which I feel is most accurately described in the subplot of Fushía.
The prose is a spectacular, tangled mess, as thick and tangled as the intertwined vines of the Amazon foliage. One is dragged into a single sentence of colour, violence, exotica and ruin, which one soon realizes is a plot of sorts after finishing a chapter, but the next chapter ends up being another subplot with three other different characters. After some chin scratching, several paths become more recognisable in the plots - that of Bonificia, the champs, the bandits and Father García. However, one has to search within the text to surmise who is who, or what is happening, or the chronology of the events.
I must confess that the whole book gave me a headache, but going along with the chaotic flow grants one a perverse happiness in a 'well, since the plot is already fucked, what the fuck is going to happen next?' manner. Likewise, the characters in the book experience life with extreme uncertainness but with a fierce j'oie de vivre, which I feel is most accurately described in the subplot of Fushía.
alexwont's review against another edition
3.0
Parts of this book were very compelling, and I read it faster than I normally read a novel with big block pages -- but ultimately it left me wanting a lot more, and I attribute the speedreading to my interest in the settings, and my familiarity with them -- Iquitos, Piura, and the spaces in between. The sense of nostalgia he conjures of them is fantastic.