Vargas Llosa among the Postmodernists

476 Pages·1994·1.09 MB·English

by  M. Keith Booker

title: Vargas Llosa Among the Postmodernists
author: Booker, M. Keith.
publisher: University Press of Florida
isbn10 | asin: 0813012481
print isbn13: 9780813012483
ebook isbn13: 9780813019147
language: English
Vargas Llosa, Mario,--1936---Criticism and
subject
interpretation, Postmodernism (Literature)
publication date: 1994
lcc: PQ8498.32Z625 1994eb
ddc: 863
Vargas Llosa, Mario,--1936---Criticism and
subject:
interpretation, Postmodernism (Literature)
Page iii
Vargas Llosa Among the Postmodernists
M. Keith Booker
University Press of Florida
Gainesville Tallahassee Tampa
Boca Raton Pensacola Orlando Miami Jacksonville
Page iv
Copyright 1994 by the Board of Regents of the State of Florida
Printed in the United States of America on acid-free paper
All Rights Reserved
Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data
Booker, M. Keith.
Vargas Llosa among the Postmodernists / M. Keith Booker.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 0-8130-1248-1
1. Vargas Llosa, Mario, 1936-Criticism and interpretation.
2. Postmodernism (Literature)
PQ8498.32.A65Z625 1994
863dc20 93-34788
The University Press of Florida is the scholarly publishing agency for
the State University System of Florida, comprised of Florida A & M
University, Florida Atlantic University, Florida International
University, Florida State University, University of Central Florida,
University of Florida, University of North Florida, University of
South Florida, and University of West Florida.
University Press of Florida
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Gainesville, FL 32611
Page v
For Dubravka
Page vii
Contents
Acknowledgments ix
Introduction 1
Notes Toward the Postmodern:
Redefining the Modernist Novel in The Green House
One 32
Postmodernist Parody and Modernist Exemplification:
Captain Pantoja and the Special Service and The Green
House
Two 54
Literature and Commodification:
The Production and Consumption of Texts in Vargas
Llosa's Aunt Julia and the Scriptwriter and Calvino's If on
a winter's night a traveler
Three 75
Realism, Modernism, and Postmodernism:
Three Versions of Apocalypse in The War of the End of
the World
Four 99
Fiction and "Real Life":
Vargas Llosa's The Real Life of Alejandro Mayta and
Nabokov's The Real Life of Sebastian Knight
Five 121
Narrative, Metanarrative, and Utopian Fantasy in The
Storyteller
Six 139
Detective Fiction, the Fantastic, and the Role of the
Reader:
Who Killed Palomino Molero? in Postmodernist Context
Seven 162
The Reader as Voyeur:
Culture, Pornography, and Religion in In Praise of the
Stepmother
Postscript 183
Commitment and Ambivalence
Appendix 188
Modernism and Postmodernism:
Some Published Views
Notes 211
Works Cited 226
Index 237
Page ix
Acknowledgments
I would like to thank my various teachers, colleagues, and students
who contributed to the development of the ideas explored in this
volume. Special thanks (as always) are due to Dubravka Juraga for the
patience, support, advice, and inspiration she unstintingly supplied
throughout the development of this project. Finally, I would like to
thank the staff of the University Press of Florida, who did so much to
make my manuscript a book. Heather Blasdell, Deidre Bryan, Larry
Leshan, and Walda Metcalf made especially important contributions
in this regard.
Page 3
Introduction
Notes Toward the Postmodern:
Redefining the Modernist Novel in the Green House
The attempt to characterize the movements known as "modernism"
and "postmodernism" (and especially to distinguish between the two)
has become a favorite pastime of literary and cultural critics of the
past two decades or so. Even critics who bemoan the inadequacy of
these terms or the invidiousness of categorization in general typically
end up with the weary acceptance that we are stuck with both
"modernism" and "postmodernism'' as labels and that we might as
well make as much sense of the situation as we can.
I will seek in this study to make my own contribution to the various
debates over modernism and postmodernism by focusing principally
upon the latter but engaging the former as a prerequisite to any
coherent understanding of the issues involved. I will seek a fresh
perspective on postmodernism through a focus on the work of the
Peruvian novelist Mario Vargas Llosa. This emphasis on a single
writer will, I hope, simplify some of the complexities that are
involved in any attempt to characterize such broad cultural
phenomena as modernism and postmodernism. Conversely, reading
Vargas Llosa within the context of such broad issues of literary history
should illuminate certain important aspects of his work that might
otherwise not be clear. And Vargas Llosa is an ideal choice for such a
focus, both because he is an important figure and because his work
provides some special insights into the issues involved. For one thing
(laying aside for a moment the question of just what "modernist" and
"postmodernist" might mean), he begins his career in what appears to
be a modernist vein, especially in the early novels The Green House
and Conversation in the Cathedral, but then shifts into what seems to
be a postmodernist mode of writing in later texts like Captain Pantoja
and the Special Service,
Page 4
Aunt Julia and the Scriptwriter, The Real Life of Alejandro Mayta, and
The Storyteller. For another thing, Vargas Llosa's Latin American
cultural background provides a fresh perspective on modernism and
postmodernism clear of some of the dust that has been stirred by
decades of debate over Continental and Anglo-American modernism
and postmodernism.
And clarity is at a premium in this issue. Even a brief look at the
recent modernism/postmodernism debates indicates a situation that
seems almost hopelessly muddled and complex. One thing that does
seem clear is that modernism and postmodernism are broad
phenomena that involve the workings of the entire cultural fabric of
modern society, so that making a distinction between the two
obviously involves more than a mere analysis of literary texts (or
other art works). On the other hand, the close scrutiny of works of art
does seem necessary, if not sufficient, to an understanding of this
problem. But this scrutiny itself is not a simple matter, and the fact
remains that different critics can look at the same works of art and
draw radically different conclusions about the cultural implications of
those works or of specific aspects of the form and/or content of those
works.
Critics violently disagree over even the broadest and most
fundamental of questions in the modernism/postmodernism debate.
For example, some critics argue that there is actually no difference
between modernism and postmodernism at all, but that the passing of
time has merely changed the way we read. Others argue that
postmodernism is either an extension and elaboration of trends that
began with modernismor that postmodernism is merely a weak and
pitiful shadow of its powerful modernist predecessor, with all real
creative passions now spent. Still others argue that postmodernism is
an oppositional movement that is fundamentally directed against
modernism. There are also powerful disagreements over the