The Bad Girl [Paperback]

I keep changing my mind about this book - I can't decide if it is a good book that narrowly misses being very good, or an average book that narrowly misses being quite bad.

I've been reading Vargas Llosa for over twenty five years - this is the eleventh of his books that I've read. In terms of style this is the most conventional of those eleven - had it not had his name on the front I wouldn't have recognized it as his - gone are the multiple narratives and dazzling, non-sequential time shifts. I miss them. They made novels like The Green House and The Storyteller hard but rewarding reads. This book was hard work at times as well but not for the same reasons. Deliberately "bad" writing is a dangerous device and Vargas Llosa overuses it here. At least I'm assuming that it is deliberately bad, because some of it is so facile that a writer of Vargas Llosa's quality and a translator of Edith Grossman's experience couldn't have created some of the dross that is served up here without deliberation (particularly in the early parts of the book, to link the periods when the "bad girl" appears). The description of "swinging London" is so bad that it sounds like it was written by a fourteen year-old - although even the squarest 14 year-old is unlikely to have come up with a list of London "trend setters" that includes Cliff Richard. This is presumably done for effect, to bring the novel to life when the Bad Girl appears but is also asks the reader to put up with a lot that they wouldn't tolerate from an unknown author.

Some people have said that they find the character of the Bad Girl either unbelievable or so unappealing that it is hard to persevere with the novel - or to understand what the narrator sees in her. I disagree - I've known a few women like the Bad Girl and can quite understand the narrator's obsession. However, your reaction may depend upon what you feel an author's representation of an individual suggests about their opinion of a group. It would be possible to write a feminist interpretation of this novel suggesting that the author's depiction of a strong, sexually independent woman being physically and mentally destroyed as a result of this independence is simple male wish fulfilment - the desire to destroy something which is both desirable and terrifying (add the fact that they first time the couple make love he is "too big" for her and that in his sixties he has a relationship with a much younger woman and the case for this being a novel of male wish-fulfilment looks increasingly strong!). Couple this with the fact that the only gay character dies of AIDS and you could make a convincing case that his was a very conservative and reactionary novel. I don't think it is, but one could make a case that way.

Is it all bad? No. I found the Bad Girl an fascinating character and the relationship believable. Also, as an expat myself, I found Vargas Llosa's description of the narrator's dislocation from both his homeland and his adopted home very real. It is possible to read the novel as an allegory of a writer's career, as Keris Nine says, although it is interesting that I've never seen Varags Llosa say this in any interviews about the book. If so, it is a bit heavy handed - I prefer to read it as a love story and a fable about the dangers of always wanting something more, something unatainable, something better than we have.

In short - I really wanted to love this book, as I have most of Vargas Llosa's work. I didn't - I enjoyed it, but doubt that I will read it again. I almost gave it four stars out of loyalty and affection for the author's previous work - but to be honest, if this had been the first of his novels that I'd read I probably wouldn't have bothered to pick up his earlier work.

PS 2 Nov 2010

Now that the author has won the Nobel there might be a few people looking for his work who've not read him yet. For what it is worth, my favourites are The Green House (hard work but worth it), Aunt Julia and the Scriptwriter and The Storyteller. I also remember finding Captain Pantoja and the Special Service very funny when I read it aged 19 - not sure if it would seem quite so funny 25 years on but it might do. I haven't read War of the End of the World or Conversation in the Cathedral - they are both on my reading list for the next few months though and several people I respect rave about them. I read that Vargas Llosa regards Conversation in the Cathedral as his favourite. Of the recent work, both The Feast of the Goat and The Way to Paradise are worth reading - and, in my opinion, better that The Bad Girl.

For me, this is definitely Vargas Llosa's weakest offering yet. Although entertaining enough, and written with his undeniable skill and style, this latest novel is well short of Vargas Llosa's normal high standards.
Essentially this novel is a story following the inextricably linked lives of the 2 main characters, across various continents and decades. Disappointingly, however, the underlying theme of the novel seems to be the author's desire to demonstrate his knowledge of all the countries in which he himself has lived over the various decades, rather than having any great story to tell. The story itself is threadbare, a poor man's Love in the Time of Cholera, and is essentially a ridiculous sequence of coincidental meetings between the writer and the nina mala. The novel crescendos to a farcical level, when the protagonist has a chance meeting with the nina's father in Peru.
Normally so insightful and probing, Vargas Llosa spends little time or care in examining or describing characters outside of the central plot.
Once I have overcome my disappointment, I will re-read some of his other works, so as not to leave a bitter taste in my mouth.

I greatly enjoyed this book, as I did 'Aunt Julia and the Scriptwriter' by the same writer, but whose other books I didn't get on with so well. I loved the wide sweep of 'The Bad Girl', covering a whole life and the cultural and political changes within that life. The main characters provoked very strong emotions for me. I felt affectionate and sympathetic towards Ricardo, the linguist, the way he threw himself into his work, his love of Paris (which I share), his strong aesthetic sensibility, his cultured interests and his kindness to others. I felt real hatred for 'The Bad Girl' whose behaviour was entirely selfish and whose addiction to danger bored me. I think the most interesting thing about the book was that a person like Ricardo could be so enslaved and so 'in love' with such a person, all his life. It was inexplicable and I like a good mystery and humans are full of mystery and paradox, I find. The blurb described Ricardo's state as 'sexual obsession' but his attachment to Lily clearly went well beyond that. The tension was very well maintained throughout and I really cared what would happen to Ricardo. My edition was translated from the Spanish by Edith Grossman and she must have done a very good job to create an excellent read. That said, I found some expressions eg 'cheap, sentimental things' and 'pissant' irritating because they did not convey anything at all to me which I am sure is due to poor translation. Perhaps Lily was talking about 'cliches' or 'sweet nothings' when she mocked his outpourings of love for her. I learned a lot about Peru too from this book. I believe Vargas Llosa stood for presidency of Peru some years ago (don't think he won), so he should know something about it. The lesser characters were also intriguing- the elective mute child, the strange genius-translater, the breakwater finder. Finally, I would remark that the book often made me laugh - there was a light touch in the language, and I have to admit sometimes that came from the lips of Lily.