POLITICAL allegory has long been the mainstay of Latin American fiction, along with a propensity for literary exuberance which often has the reader sympathising with the translators entrusted with the responsibility of rendering such lavish prose into another language. Peruvian writer Mario Vargas Llosa, whose better novels include The Time of the Hero (1967), Aunt Julia and the Scriptwriter (1977), The War of the End of the World (1985) and The Real Life of Alejandro Mayta (1986) has always been politically involved, and this involvement has often infiltrated his fiction.
Of the several major and overrated South American writers who became famous in the aftermath of Gabriel Garcia Marques's One Hundred Years of Solitude (1967 English translation 1971), Llosa has been noticeably more restrained in his use of both language and literary gimmickry. Magic realist excess is far less common in his work than in that of his peers. (Incidentally, if there has been a truly great Latin American novelist thus far, it must be the pioneering Cuban, Alejo Carpentier, 1904-1980, superior even to Borges.)
As Vargas Llosa's career has progressed he has made a marked move towards a more European sophistication in his criticism and restraint in his fiction. His most recent novel, In Praise of the Stepmother(1991), shared much of the arch sexual playfulness and clever pseudo French veneer gradually acquired by the self exiled former Czech writer, Milan Kundera, who has lately taken to writing in French.
It is true that Vargas Llosa failed candidate for the presidency of Peru, has increasingly given the impression that he views his literary career as a useful way of promoting his political ambitions. However, his new book, Death in the Andes (translated by Edith Grossman, £15.99 in UK), marks a surprisingly crude foray in to the thriller genre. Considering Carpentier's limpid and graceful excursions in the same arena, this book is all the more irritating. Crudely written and devised, at no time does it convince, nor does the author appear to be believe in this sprawling yarn which depends so dangerously on the utterly improbable reminiscences of one love crazed Civil Guard, who bores his superior (as well as the reader) with late night instalments of his affair with a prostitute whose client his boss he shot dead.
Set in a Peru of political violence, wild sexual behaviour, active superstition and the general opinion of women as whores, the novel collapses through its apparent intention of mixing allegory with crude humour. Seldom, if ever, has the strained combination of attempted profundity and earthiness been so poorly balanced. It is also strange that so much attention is paid to the sudden disappearance of three men in a narrative in which the stoning to death of two young French tourists is merely incidental to the action.
The reader is left wondering if the author spent even five minutes plotting this juvenile novel. It is so carelessly written that one feels it was hastily thrown together and certainly betrays no sign of either authorial self criticism or of an editor's direction.
As a macho double act, Corporal Lituma and Civil Guard Tomas Carreno possess about as much charm as a broken toaster. Their relationship appears to be sustained solely by Carreno's repetitive laments about the girl who got away. I didn't care about the dollars, they were hers, but her leaving, the thought that I'd never see Mercedes again, that she'd be with another man, or other men, and never mine again that was a terrible blow. It tore me apart, Corporal, I even thought about killing myself, I swear. But I didn't even have the heart to do that."
Lituma at least considers the romance in the context of his loved one having absconded with her suitor's life savings. His advice is as predictably crude as is Llosa's approach to the entire novel. But what I have a hard time figuring out is how after a dirty trick like that, after Mercedes took off in spite of everything you did for her, you still love her. You ought to hate her." Tomas's response is more of the same . . . I went, I took a hooker to the little hotel across from the Domino to see if that would make me start to forget her. And it was even worse.
Having humbled their way halfheartedly through an interrogation, Lituma asks Do you believe Dona Adriana is an accomplice of the terrucos (the terrorists)?" Tomas replies I can believe anything, Corporal. Life has made me the most believing man in the world." One of the many weaknesses of an utterly unforgettable tale is the fact that Llosa seems not interested enough to even attempt to play the entire novel as a comedy. Frequently vulgar and sexually explicit, it never becomes even unintentionally funny unless of course one counts the ridiculous return of the reluctant beloved.
The cast of ill assorted stereo types none of whom engages our sympathy also includes a spunky elderly lady writer as well as the malevolent Dona Adriana, who runs a sordid inn with her depraved husband. Of course, she was once a wild beauty. In an earlier life as a young virgin she assisted in the killing of a local giant. Yes, that's right a giant. She later abandoned the slayer of the giant for her unsavoury spouse, a former dancer of sorts, who probably knows about the freelance prostitution she is suspected of carrying on.
With much of the uncouth dialogue sounding as if it was stolen from the script of an obscure and confused spaghetti western, this is a weak, disorganised book. At times the author appears to toy with the idea of injecting a more supernatural dimension, only to lose interest. Vargas Llosa has a major international literary reputation more as a perceptive critic than as a novelist. There is good reason to suspect that his autobiographically based fiction is superior to his more imaginatively conceived stories. If all the vulgarity, confusion, random plotting, coarseness and references to terrorists is intended to offer an allegorical representation of a dangerously corrupt Peruvian society, it might be useful if Vargas Llosa reflected on the fact that whatever about his politically allegorical intentions, art should be his foremost consideration. And there is neither art nor craft at work here.
All this novel adds to a seriously inflated reputation is the charge that he has become dangerously artistically lazy as well as complacent. Death in the Andes does little service to Vargas Llosa and his publisher, and certainly disappoints even the cautious reader merely expecting a professional if characteristically uninspired performance.
