Cannonball Read 17

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

Only Room for One Goat at the Top

The Feast of the Goat / La fiesta del Chivo by Mario Vargas Llosa

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This is my first go-around with Mario Vargas Llosa, and this book was the month’s choice for a world literature bookclub that was held back in May.  I had known for weeks that this was the chosen book, so I thought I had plenty of time to track down a copy to read. However, when I checked the local e-libraries, none of them had any of Vargas Llosa’s books available—in English. Interestingly, Harris County’s online library seems to have almost his entire back catalog in […]

Temptation and Seduction

In Praise of the Stepmother by Mario Vargas Llosa

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Don Rigoberto’s and his second wife Lucrecia’s relationship is built on physicality and sexuality. When the prepubescent Alfonsito begins to insistently pursue his stepmother, she strongly resists. One day, however, she gives in. An entry into the erotic novel genre, Mario Vargas Llosa, obviously not satisfied with adhering to any conventions, immediately puts his own spin on what should be possible in such a tale. For instance, much of the eroticism is overdone in a way that borders on the grotesque which to me made […]

It’s a terrible life.

The Green House by Mario Vargas Llosa

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Set during the first half of the 20th century both in a town near the desert and in different places all over the jungle of Northern Peru, Vargas Llosa interweaves the lives of a native woman, who was raised in a convent, a musician, who builds the brothel called the Green House, a heartless and brutal criminal, who cares only about himself, and four friends, who are always up to no good. First of all, reading this book is hard work. You have to give […]



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