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MARIO VARGAS LLOSA and the POLITICS of LITERATURE By MARIO VARGAS LLOSA AND THE POLITICS OF LITERATURE By David P. Wiseman Dissertation Submitted to the Faculty of the Graduate School of Vanderbilt University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY in Spanish December, 2010 Nashville, Tennessee Approved: Professor William Luis Professor Earl E. Fitz Professor Edward H. Friedman Professor Marshall C. Eakin Copyright © 2010 by David P. Wiseman All Rights Reserved ACKNOWLEDGMENTS Above all, I recognize my God, without whose many tender mercies none of this would have been possible. I acknowledge His hand throughout my life and certainly in the completion of this dissertation. My most sincere appreciation goes to my wife, Heather, an exceptionally talented helpmeet and my best friend. Her support for this project and our growing family is more significant than even she knows. I express my gratitude to Sarah, Joseph, Kathryn, and Baby David for the many wuvs that their Daddy needed to complete his ―book report.‖ All other family members have also been a constant support. I sincerely appreciate the years of encouragement, advice, prayers, and financial contributions that have made my graduate experience possible. William Luis has been a skilled mentor and a valued friend. I will always be indebted to him for his guidance with this project and so many others. Earl Fitz, Edward Friedman, and Marshall Eakin have also provided invaluable feedback as members of my dissertation committee. More importantly, however, they have been models for the type of professional and person that I hope to become. I would also like to thank Douglas Weatherford for his constant support of my development as a scholar and an individual. It was Doug, after all, who first introduced me to Mario Vargas Llosa. To the many other professors, friends, and family members not specifically mentioned here, my most sincere thanks extend to you as well. iii TABLE OF CONTENTS Page ACKNOWLEDGMENTS............................................................................................iii INTRODUCTION........................................................................................................vi Chapter I. A LITERATURE OF FIRE.......................................................... ...........................1 Qu’est-ce que la littérature?....................................................................... 2 Algerian War of Independence..................................................... .............20 La ciudad y los perros............................................................................... 29 La Casa Verde...........................................................................................41 ―La literatura es fuego‖.............................................................................. 55 II. CUBA AND THE BOOM .....................................................................................71 The ―Boom‖ Generation ............................................................................73 Conversación en La Catedral ....................................................................87 The Padilla Affair................. .................... ...............................................100 A Writer‘s Solitude..................................................................................110 Madame Bovary, c’est moi ......................................................................118 Conclusion...............................................................................................126 III. THE CANUDOS TRANSITION........................................................................129 Pantaleón y las visitadoras......................................................................131 La tía Julia y el escribidor.......................................................................135 Reading Brazil‘s Backlands.....................................................................141 La guerra del fin del mundo.....................................................................165 Historia de Mayta ....................................................................................172 ¿Quién mató a Palomino Molero?..........................................................178 El hablador..............................................................................................182 Conclusion .................................. .. .. ....... ............................ ...................... 186 IV. THE ERA OF DICTATORS ............ ................................................................... 189 El pez en el agua ......................................................................................190 Don Rigoberto..........................................................................................196 Lituma en los Andes .................................................................................200 Cartas a un joven novelista......................................................................204 iv La fiesta del Chivo ................................................................................... 209 Conclusion ............................................................................................... 230 CONCLUSION................................................................................................................232 1952–1969................................................................................................232 1970–1981................................................................................................234 1982–1992................................................................................................236 1993–2000................................................................................................238 2001–2010................................................................................................240 BIBLIOGRAPHY............................................................................................................244 v INTRODUCTION Mario Vargas Llosa‘s socio-political concerns are woven into the fabric of his creative narratives; nevertheless, the writer-politician has been clear in his assertion that the creative process must remain independent of political agendas. Throughout more than a half-century of writing, therefore, Vargas Llosa has struggled to reconcile his views on literary creation and political activism. His outspoken nature and world renown as a writer has produced an impressive corpus of criticism on both his literature and his political activities. Distinct from studies that address political themes in his writing, this investigation approaches the topic from a new perspective. In my dissertation, I evaluate Vargas Llosa‘s extensive literary oeuvre with the intent of comprehending the evolution of the writer‘s concept of literature from revolutionary agent to keeper of cultural memory. Vargas Llosa‘s literature is central to this process, but it becomes the means of my study and not the end. As I focus on the writer‘s literary theories, I argue that his earliest descriptions of literature as a rebellious instigator of revolutionary action have been replaced by more recent commentaries on literature as secondary to direct political intervention. Revisions to Vargas Llosa‘s views on the function of literature are both underrecognized and essential to the analysis of the novelist‘s past and future narratives. As scholarship has thoroughly demonstrated, Vargas Llosa based his initial concept of literature as revolution on his dedicated readings of the French philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre. I contend through my research, however, that the closer Vargas Llosa comes to politics in his personal life, the more his literature diverts from his original notion of its function in society. Stated differently, one might conclude that his explicit political vi activities, including his presidential campaign in 1990, occurred as a result of his doubts regarding the potential of literature to combat the socio-political abuses that he witnessed throughout his life. Further disappointments with the political process also caused the novelist to adopt a pessimistic view regarding the potential betterment of the human condition. I argue as my primary thesis, therefore, that these literary and political disillusionments resulted in a significant transition in Vargas Llosa‘s concept of literature from its original revolutionary character in the 1960s to a more subdued role at present as the guardian of cultural memory. My approach to Vargas Llosa‘s concept of literature is unique in that it uses the Peruvian‘s literature, essays, and life history as the mode of comprehending his definition of literature and its role in society. Using Vargas Llosa‘s own metaphor for the writing process as a reverse strip tease, I ―dress‖ the novelist‘s concept of the writer‘s vocation at various stages of his career with layers of clues that he leaves in his extensive creative oeuvre. As this is not a strictly literary study, I intentionally omit some important characteristics of his narratives that do not pertain to the character and socio-political influence of literature. Similarly, when relating the historical circumstances that are the background for Vargas Llosa‘s narratives, I am consciously selective in only choosing details that are essential to my dissertation‘s thesis. Given the similarities between Vargas Llosa‘s earliest concept of literature and the theories of Jean-Paul Sartre in the 1940s and 50s, I have further focused my
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