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A review by scarletohhara
Aunt Julia and the Scriptwriter by Mario Vargas Llosa
3.0
I dilli-dallied between giving this book 3.5 or 4 stars, and am sticking to my 3 stars. Don't get me wrong, Llosa is a brilliant writer and an author whose books I am going to continue reading, it was this book that ticked me off slightly.
This book is about the author's romance with his Aunt Julia and nuggets about his friendship with a maniacal scriptwriter, Pedro Camocha and other friends. The romance with Julia and his relationship with his friends are dealt in alternate chapters, and the stories Pedro , the scriptwriter writes form the other half of the book.
It is this part that I have a problem with. They are interesting , no doubt, but are highly irrelevant. I was waiting for some connection between these stories and the author's story, but it didn't appear, and then finally resorted to skipping these entire chapters in order to not lose my interest for the book.
Plotwise, this is a simple love story interspersed with some soap opera stories, with a simple ending.
But what I loved the most is the style of story telling.
Llosa is a master at that, and I am fan for life!
If I had to rate only the author's style, I'd give it a 4.5/5 anyday!
If you have to read this book, go ahead and read the alternate chapters, the ones which talk about Llosa's romance, which also is kinda semi-autobiographical.
This book is about the author's romance with his Aunt Julia and nuggets about his friendship with a maniacal scriptwriter, Pedro Camocha and other friends. The romance with Julia and his relationship with his friends are dealt in alternate chapters, and the stories Pedro , the scriptwriter writes form the other half of the book.
It is this part that I have a problem with. They are interesting , no doubt, but are highly irrelevant. I was waiting for some connection between these stories and the author's story, but it didn't appear, and then finally resorted to skipping these entire chapters in order to not lose my interest for the book.
Plotwise, this is a simple love story interspersed with some soap opera stories, with a simple ending.
But what I loved the most is the style of story telling.
Llosa is a master at that, and I am fan for life!
If I had to rate only the author's style, I'd give it a 4.5/5 anyday!
If you have to read this book, go ahead and read the alternate chapters, the ones which talk about Llosa's romance, which also is kinda semi-autobiographical.