Mar 23rd, by mary. In his most recent novel, Peruvian author Mario Vargas Llosa returns to a simpler narrative style and plot scheme from what he used in his previous, more complex biographical novel, The Dream of the Celt , the story of Irish revolutionary Roger Casement, set in the Congo, the Peruvian Amazon, and Ireland in At the same time, in Lima, Don Ismael Carrera, the owner of an insurance company, is meeting with Rigoberto, his assistant, who wants to retire three years ahead of schedule.
Ismael has paid off the sons and now plans to disinherit them. The person who will inherit everything will be the woman Ismael unexpectedly plans to marry, at the age of almost eighty.
The bride is thirty-eight years younger. Rigoberto will be a key to making all this possible, as Ismael needs a witness to the marriage after which he plans to take a long honeymoon to an unknown destination, and have Rigoberto manage the company and his sons β the hyenas β when they discover what their father has done.
He, too, must, of course, be discreet. Vargas Llosa, author of seventeen novels and now approaching age eighty himself, is clearly having great fun as he develops these two story lines, and at times the stories alternate happily between farce and soap opera as complications arise, and unexpected twists and turns send one or both of the plots careening. Eventually, coincidences bring the two plot lines together. The moral complexities of living in a culture in which bribery and extortion are common practice add to the difficulties of survival, and the reappearance of Sgt.
For those who understand Spanish, the discovery that the regional police chief is referred to as Colonel Rascachucha says it all. Class differences also play a strong role in this plot. Piura is in the upper NW corner.
