la casa verde

Vargas Llosa's political views are so obnoxious that I've been putting off reading him for decades out of contempt. But one of my teachers insisted I should forget about politics and read this one, or La fiesta del chivo, and I finally took the plunge. And I must say I am happy I did: the way Vargas Llosa plays with language in La casa verde is astounding, and he's able to do things I would have thought impossible. Reminded me of that scene in the movie Amadeus where Mozart explains to the king how three or four people talking at once is just noise, but four voices singing at once is harmony and beauty. Well, Vargas Llosa does the same in writing. He's also able to play with time, interlocking two or three temporal lines in a single narrative and even making the whole thing at times loop into itself. The man knew how to write (I read his latest works are not as good as they used to be) and was creating something I've not seen any other writer do. I read afterwards La fiesta del chivo, which is good but not as good. All that in Spanish: I am not sure all those fireworks can be translated, but one would surely need a talented translator for them!