The Bad Girl (Mario Vargas Llosa)

I read this for the book club I participate in. The idea had been that we expand our horizons and read something from a foreign author. Mario Vargas Llosa made a great choice, since he has just won the Nobel Prize in Literature.

A friend of mine had told me she wasn't a fan of Vargas Llosa, so I hadn't felt the need to rush to read any of his things. I must say that most of my impressions about Vargas Llosa came from her.

So when this book totally surprised me. Of course, Vargas Llosa is a good writer. My friend didn't say otherwise. But I knew he was fairly conservative and my friend had confirmed this.

This book may have a political message, but if it did I missed it. It's about Ricardo, a rather unambitious though intelligent man whose main goal in life is to live in Paris. When he is a teenager, two sisters that say they hail from Chile move into his barrio in Lima. One of them steals his heart forever.

Like Ricardo, we only know her consistently throughout the book as "the bad girl". She calls him "the good boy". Both labels fit quite perfectly. Ricardo is good guy that loves this woman despite everything she does to him. And she pulls quite a lot of crap on him. She constantly comes into his life and leaves him, moving all over the world. He does move to Paris fairly early in the book, realizing his one goal early in his life. This isn't enough for her. The bad girl needs to constantly move, constantly connive, constantly deceive. She wants a level of security that is unattainable and that eludes her because of her own need to continuously look for something better than what she has at that moment. I found it really hard to have any kind of sympathy for her.

Ricardo knows he shouldn't continue his relationship with this woman. Yet he can't help himself. No matter what she does, he can't stop loving her. I have yet to meet a man like this, but I'm sure there are a few out there like this. I identified with him a lot, probably more than I would like. He doesn't want to conquer the world, he just wants to live quietly in Paris with the woman he loves. That sounds pretty good to me.

One important thing: I read the Spanish version of this book. So my opinion of the writing doesn't take into account the translation. Vargas Llosa doesn't need me to say he is a good writer. He has a million and a half prizes. I can only say that I enjoyed it and didn't find it stuffy or too high end for me to understand. I'm glad I read it.

Next up: Fly Away Home, by Jennifer Weiner.