Aunt Julia and the Scripwriter

At its most basic level, Vargas Llosas most famous novel is a portrait of the writer as a young man. The semi-fictional, semi-autobiographical Mario is a young student and would-be writer whose careers and aspirations are disrupted when he falls in love with his aunt-in-law, much to the horror of their many friends and relatives living in Lima. Pedro Camacho, an eccentric (to say the least) Bolivian scriptwriter, has been hired at the radio station where Mario works, and the youth envies the prodigious output of Pedros intricate soap operas and hopes to learn from his new mentor the secrets of being an artist. The chapters alternate between descriptions of Marios amusing and increasingly complicated life and Pedros formulaic and decreasingly coherent scripts, as each character is gradually overwhelmed by the burdens and expectations theyve created for themselves. On a deeper level, Aunt Julia and the Scriptwriter is about artistic failure: Marios writing suffers because he is too busy living life to the fullest, while Pedros well-being deteriorates because he barely experiences life at all. While Marios life is the stuff of literature, his various attempts at short fiction are too concerned with artistic affectation: heavy symbolism and laborious overwriting doom his every effort. In contrast, the scriptwriter is so overwhelmed maintaining the pace of the scripts for ten different serials that he cant keep track of his own sense of reality, much less his fictional characters and elaborate plots. The final chapter, which some readers have found disappointing, actually completes this theme: the writer who balances a passion for life and devotion to art is the one who ultimately succeeds. I was about a third of the way through this book when I realized that Id already read it, about twenty years ago. I think the reason that this novel didnt make much of an impression on me when I younger is that, in spite of the books literary themes and the authors competent prose, the book remains true to its soap opera motif. Also, other than the three main protagonists, Marios many relatives and coworkers are as indistinguishable as the heroes and victims in Pedros soap operas. Still, given the popular and critical success of this novel, Im actually surprised it seems to be out of print, and the reader looking for a light, humorous romp through Lima will be well rewarded by hunting down a used copy of this book.