A review by megea
The War of the End of the World by Mario Vargas Llosa

3.0

I had a hard time focusing on this novel. Maybe it was timing. I started reading it while I was in the last throes of my Ph.D. Or maybe it's just a difficult book. It seemed like there was a new character introduced about every five pages, most of whom were named either João or Antônio. Consequently, because the same action was described as it affected several different characters, the narration was not so much linear as hopscotchy. All of which made it hard to keep exactly what was going on straight. About a quarter of the way in I turned in my dissertation, Vargas Llosa more or less settled on a final cast of characters (though a few more were picked up along the way, just not at such a rapid rate as before), and the novel gained momentum. But still, I'm not sure if it was all worth it...