Mario Vargas Llosa has died

Posted by funkaster 5 days ago

Mario Vargas Llosa has died(www.nytimes.com)

211 points | 80 commentspage 2

dhosek 5 days ago|

I realized last night that I’ve never read anything by him in translation (there was one book in English—A Writer’s Reality—which was in English, but that book was based on lectures given in English and there is no Spanish original. As my ex-wife often says, “No good reason to read the translation if you can read the original.” La Fiesta de la Chivo influenced the form of the novel I’m currently querying (which, despite having had three excerpts published as short stories, appears destined to be yet another trunked work). The biggest challenge I found reading Vargas Llosa is that section and chapter breaks tend to be infrequent giving fewer opportunities to pause while reading.

JadeNB 5 days ago|

> The biggest challenge I found reading Vargas Llosa is that section and chapter breaks tend to be infrequent giving fewer opportunities to pause while reading.

I don't mean to be snarky, but, seriously, can't you just pause whenever you want? I understand that the lack of breaks mean that the book doesn't define natural points to pause, but it still seems that one can impose such breaks oneself.

solarexplorer 5 days ago|||

Yes, in theory you can pause at any point, but in practice it is not that easy to stop. I remember not hearing the boarding call and losing a flight while reading La fiesta del chivo…

froidpink 5 days ago||

that good eh

dhosek 4 days ago|||

I prefer to pause reading at chapter breaks or, if necessary section breaks. Of course, with some authors you may be looking for paragraph breaks (and in the case of Proust, even those might be dozens of pages apart). Natural breaks in the narrative just make the most sense for stopping off and resuming a read.

bbqfog 5 days ago||

The War of The End of The World is one of the best books I’ve ever read:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_War_of_the_End_of_the_Wo...

culebron21 5 days ago||

Read him while learning Spanish. Conversación en la Catedral is very saddening, but left long lasting impressions and made me a hint to read on history of South America.

toomuchtodo 5 days ago||

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mario_Vargas_Llosa

codingbot3000 5 days ago||

muy triste :(

jpfdez 4 days ago||

“Four, said the Jaguar”

snvzz 4 days ago|

La ciudad y los perros sure is a great, if messed up, book.

icar 5 days ago|

[flagged]

diego_sandoval 4 days ago||

He was never an outright fascist. The closest that he was to it was when he was young and supported the Cuban Revolution, which he later regretted.

After that, he was a classic liberal through the last 50 years of his life.

m0llusk 5 days ago||

But first a Communist revolutionary. Interesting and also kind of unfortunate that those who seek fundamental change in political formulations seem frequently to thrash about like this. Moderate incrementalism doesn't get as much attention or press but seems a highly competitive alternative.