Aunt Julia and the Scriptwriter
Aunt Julia and the Scriptwriter
Mario Vargas Llosa
374 pages
First sentence: In those long-ago days, I was very young and lived with my grandparents in a villa with white walls in the Calle Ocharan, in Miraflores.
Reflections: This novel by the Peruvian author Mario Vargas Llosa describes the romantic relationship between a young 18-year-old man named Mario and his Aunt Julia, 15 years his senior. It is a roman à clef (or roman à clé, French for "novel with a key"). A roman à clef describes real-life behind a façade of fiction. The "key," in this case, is the author himself, since Llosa also had an intimate relationship with his Aunt Julia. This approach is often used to write about controversial topics, and can provide an opportunity to tell the story as the author would have liked it to be.
This novel is also the story of Pedro Camacho, who writes for radio serials presented by the radio station where Mario is also employed. Pedro is "a miniscule figure, on the very borderline between a man extremely short in stature and a dwarf, with a huge nose and unusually bright eyes with a disturbing, downright abnormal gleam in them." (p.14) Pedro takes his craft very seriously indeed, working 20 hours a day writing scripts and producing on-air performances. Mario reflects on Pedro:
"How could he be, at one and the same time, a parody of the writer and the only person in Peru who, by virtue of the time he devoted to his craft and the works he produced, was worthy of that name? ... Why should those persons who used literature as an ornament or a pretext have any more right to be considered real writers than Pedro Camacho, who lived only to write?" (p. 195)
The novel's chapters alternate between Mario & Julia's intensifying romance, and short stories of compelling characters in Peru's towns and villages. After a few chapters it becomes clear that these short stories are actually Pedro's radio serials. The serials become hugely popular, to the benefit of the radio station, until Pedro begins to mix up characters and events. As he sees his own capabilities weaken, he is forced to take dramatic action ... just as Mario and Julia are taking bold steps in the name of love.
This was an enjoyable book and insight into a well-known, but new-to-me, author. (
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