A review by jfl
Conversation in the Cathedral by Mario Vargas Llosa
5.0
I first heard about Conversacion en la catedral in 1969 when it was published by Sex Barril. I was living in Spain at the time and it was one of the books most talked about at the annual Spanish book fair. By 1969 Franco’s dictatorship was in its final stages (Franco died in 1975) and, although restricted freedoms and censorship still overlaid the country, there were signs of greater openness to a more progressive democracy. One sign of that openness was a wave of books whose themes gnawed away at the roots of the Falangist State.
Vargas’ novel emerged the reader in the so-called Ocenio---the 11 years in Peru of the dictatorship of Manual Odria, from 1950 to 1960. Vargas exposed the pernicious impact of that dictatorship on socio-political life in Peru. But the Spanish public—particularly the youth in the academic community—devoured the novel as a commentary on Spain, as a commentary on the perniciousness of Franco’s brand of oppression.
In spite of the buzz around the book during the Feria, I only picked up the flyer that the publisher was distributing. I was working on another project and, while I was planning to travel to Peru the following year, reading Vargas’ novel was low priority. It remained unread by me for 30 years, although it was one of the Latin American novels that haunted me whenever I ran across Vargas’ name. When I finally did read it—40 years after Franco’s death and well into Spain’s democratic years—I was as impressed as much with its structural creativity as with its condemnation of political authoritarianism.
The novel unfolds as a long session of remembrances between two men in a Lima dive bar named La Catedral: Santiago Zavala (30 years old) and Ambrosio Pardo (well-past 40). It is a chronological and geographical intertwining or, as one critic wrote, “braiding” of stories recounted by the two men of their lives and relationships during that 11-year period, revealing in the telling the corruption and tensions between and among the country’s varied social and political classes. The structure contributes significantly to the tension and immediacy which Vargas fosters in the work.
Vargas’ novel emerged the reader in the so-called Ocenio---the 11 years in Peru of the dictatorship of Manual Odria, from 1950 to 1960. Vargas exposed the pernicious impact of that dictatorship on socio-political life in Peru. But the Spanish public—particularly the youth in the academic community—devoured the novel as a commentary on Spain, as a commentary on the perniciousness of Franco’s brand of oppression.
In spite of the buzz around the book during the Feria, I only picked up the flyer that the publisher was distributing. I was working on another project and, while I was planning to travel to Peru the following year, reading Vargas’ novel was low priority. It remained unread by me for 30 years, although it was one of the Latin American novels that haunted me whenever I ran across Vargas’ name. When I finally did read it—40 years after Franco’s death and well into Spain’s democratic years—I was as impressed as much with its structural creativity as with its condemnation of political authoritarianism.
The novel unfolds as a long session of remembrances between two men in a Lima dive bar named La Catedral: Santiago Zavala (30 years old) and Ambrosio Pardo (well-past 40). It is a chronological and geographical intertwining or, as one critic wrote, “braiding” of stories recounted by the two men of their lives and relationships during that 11-year period, revealing in the telling the corruption and tensions between and among the country’s varied social and political classes. The structure contributes significantly to the tension and immediacy which Vargas fosters in the work.