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Aunt Julia and the Scriptwriter A Novel Mario Vargas Llosa Books

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Aunt Julia and the Scriptwriter A Novel Mario Vargas Llosa Books

The narrator of this book has the same name as the author, so perhaps it is autobiographical. Either way, it is fantastic, comical, serious, full of surprise and angst. T

The setting is Lima, Peru, where the three main characters really stir things up. The scriptwriter is a very successful author of daytime dramas, a madman obsessed with what he considers to be perfection in his scripts. He acts in his dramas also, practically living in the studio. He is tolerated because his dramas are wildly successful, faithfully listened to by most of Peru and other countries nearby.

Aunt Julia, the narrator's aunt by marriage, is a beautiful divorcee who moves home to her family in Lima. The narrator is an 18-year-old student (Julia's 32) who works at the same radio station as the scriptwriter. He has a very closely knit family and comes in contact with Aunt Julia almost daily. He falls madly in love with her, and as he's a very attractive young man, Aunt Julia succumbs to his charms. They try to keep their relationship quiet, which is virtually impossible, so they make plans to marry.

These two story lines are augmented by seemingly random chapters of other people's bizarre circumstances which eventually intertwine in hilarious and dramatic ways with the main plot.


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Aunt Julia and the Scriptwriter A Novel Mario Vargas Llosa Books Reviews

If it weren't for wanting to know the outcome of an 18 year-old writer's pursuit of a divorcee 14 years his senior, reading Mario Vargas Llosa's Aunt Julia and the Scriptwriter A Novel would be a challenge to finish. Then again, one could skip almost every other chapter told from a third person point of view and, instead, read those chapters told in the voice of Llosa's love-struck protagonist, the author's namesake.

To do so, however, one might miss the point of Llosa's novel - that infatuation, like obsession, brings erratic thinking and behavior. If a reader should dismiss the inappropriateness or insanity of the affair between the young lover and his conquest, the third person narratives reinforce Llosa's theme like a slap given to someone making no sense.

Llosa's intention with the third person narratives is not so obvious in the first instance, a story about a concerned doctor who discovers a horrible truth about a brother and sister on a wedding day. It is also not apparent how the third person narratives relate to the main story until a few more chapters pass and, through "Mario's" voice, a reader learns their purpose; the third person narratives are actually soap operas written by an eccentric scriptwriter and aired from a radio station where "Marito," as "Aunt Julia" calls him, works.

Enjoyable to read at first, or hear from the perspective of "Mario's" relatives, the workaholic "scriptwriter's" soap operas explore characters with their own neuroses. Unfortunately, both readers and "listeners" have to suffer through bad writing that is eventually explained as the "scriptwriter's" work. Whenever I neared the completion of some of "Mario's" first person accounts, I cringed, anticipating the "soap opera" chapters, roughly 30 pages long and with sentence structures so complex and convoluted that I wanted to skip them. Because "Mario's" relatives provided commentary on the quality of the radio soap opera, I continued reading them as characters once killed off returned to life or have their backgrounds altered or confused with other characters.

But most compelling is "Mario's" journey to claim the eye of his affection. The situation prevents disinterest in the novel as "Mario" tries to keep his affair on the down low and then, once found out, contends with his Catholic family members' reactions, which provide some of the novel's humor. Whether one chooses to skip chapters or read "Aunt Julia and the Scriptwriter" from cover to cover, one thing is certain to be felt anticipation of what happens next.
It is always difficult to filter through reviews on novels when you do not know the person rating the book. Without going into the plot, here is what this book reminds me of and similar books that I've enjoyed. If you like any of these others, I'd recommend giving this one a try.

The plot, sense of humour (though toned down a bit) and writing style remind me of Tom
Robbins books- fierce invalids, even cowgirls get the blues, still life with woodpecker etc.
I'm also reminded of Confederacy of Dunces's Ignacio (in one of the main characters).

Other books I've enjoyed that I can think of are
Nabokov invitation to a beheading, all Dostoevsky and Tolstoy, all of those john Irving books,
All of those girl with dragon tattoo books
All of Tom Robbins books, count of Monte Christo, Christopher Moores books, Hemingway booken

Books I don't like are
Moby Dick, any john Updike books, Charles dickens books, any Joseph Conrad books except heart of darkness,
Set back in the day before television was introduced to Peru, we follow the life of student, Marito, as he works at Panamerica, writing up news scripts for the radio station and studies for his law exams. His life is disrupted by the arrival of his Aunt Julia with whom he embarks on a secret affair, and Pedro Camacho, a popular Bolivian radio soap opera scriptwriter.

Alternating between chapters in Marito's life are Pedro's increasingly hilarious and bizarre soap opera segments. As Marito and Aunt Julia's love affair gradually progresses into something neither had expected, so does Marito's relationship with Pedro, building from mere colleagues to confidantes. Pedro's radio soap operas hold the listeners glued to their radios at various times during the day.

It took me a little while before I realized that certain chapters I'd thought to be part of Marito's story were soap opera stories, complete with the requisite cliffhangers.
I think this is one of the author's more entertaining book.
The narrator of this book has the same name as the author, so perhaps it is autobiographical. Either way, it is fantastic, comical, serious, full of surprise and angst. T

The setting is Lima, Peru, where the three main characters really stir things up. The scriptwriter is a very successful author of daytime dramas, a madman obsessed with what he considers to be perfection in his scripts. He acts in his dramas also, practically living in the studio. He is tolerated because his dramas are wildly successful, faithfully listened to by most of Peru and other countries nearby.

Aunt Julia, the narrator's aunt by marriage, is a beautiful divorcee who moves home to her family in Lima. The narrator is an 18-year-old student (Julia's 32) who works at the same radio station as the scriptwriter. He has a very closely knit family and comes in contact with Aunt Julia almost daily. He falls madly in love with her, and as he's a very attractive young man, Aunt Julia succumbs to his charms. They try to keep their relationship quiet, which is virtually impossible, so they make plans to marry.

These two story lines are augmented by seemingly random chapters of other people's bizarre circumstances which eventually intertwine in hilarious and dramatic ways with the main plot.