- Paperback
- Publisher: Farrar Straus & Giroux (Oct 1986)
- Language English
- ISBN-10: 0060906529
- ISBN-13: 978-0060906528
- Product Dimensions: 20.1 x 13.5 x 2.3 cm
- Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 2,148,855 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
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More About the Author
Product Description
Product Description
The Time of the Hero has been acclaimed by critics around the world as one of the outstanding Spanish novels of recent decades. In the author's native Peru, this powerful social satire so outraged the authorities that a thousand copies were publicly burned.
The novel is set in Leoncio Prado Military Academy in Lima, where a group of cadets attempt to break out of the vicious round of sadistic ragging, military discipline, confinement and boredom. But their pranks set off a cycle of betrayal, murder and revenge which jeopardizes the entire military hierarchy.
'A work of undeniable power and skill.' Sunday Telegraph
--This text refers to an alternate Paperback edition.About the Author
With novels including The War of the End of the World, Aunt Julia and the Scriptwriter, The Notebooks of Don Rigoberto and The Feast of the Goat, Mario Vargas Llosa has established an international reputation as one of the Latin America's most important authors. He was born in Peru in 1936 and educated at university in Lima, where he studied Humanities and Law. Later, a scholarship took him to Madrid and, having gained his PhD, he moved to Paris not knowing that he would live and work in Europe for the next eighteen years. He returned to Lima in 1974, although he makes regular trips to Europe. Always politically outspoken, from 1976 to 1979 Vargas Llosa served as President of PEN. His deep commitment to free expression is frequently reflected in the politically charged nature of his books, which have aroused the anger of the right and the left wing alike. A man of diverse interests, he is a playwright and his critical studies of Garcia Marquez, Flaubert, Sartre and Camus are internationally respected. He has also produced and hosted 'The Tower of Babel', the Peruvian television show that looks at every aspect of Latin American culture from Borges to boxing. A football fanatic, he covered the 1982 World Cup for Peru. In 1983 he presided over the commission which investigated the deaths of eight journalists, killed in Ayacucho during the Belaunde Government's campaign against the Maoist guerrila movement, the Sendero Luminoso. Having once declined the Prime Ministership of Peru in 1984, he was a candidate in the 1990 Presidential elections.Mario Vargas Llosa was awarded the Ritz Paris Hemingway Award in March 1985 for The War of the End of the World and the Neil Gunn International Fellowship in 1986. His most recent novel, The Bad Girl was published in 2008.
--This text refers to an alternate
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Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
41 of 41 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
I came across this book - Mario Vargas Llosa's first novel - by chance in a second-hand shop in Cheltenham. I had been disappointed by his more recent offerings - DEATH IN THE ANDES, THE NOTEBOOKS OF DON RIGOBERTO and so on - so it was with extra pleasure that I read this book and was reminded quite why Vargas Llosa is one of the best novelists alive.
This book deals with a group of cadets at Peru's premier military academy. The superficial order of their parades masks a world of corruption, bribery, sadistic bullying and yet also of togetherness. But the bullying comes to a head with a tragic "accident" which leads everyone to reveal their true colours.
In portraying the relationship between the lower ranks and the officers, and the way in which everyone is out to defend their own interests except for those who lose out the most, Vargas Llosa again hits the heart of the corruption and self-serving motives behind so many politicans - a theme which he took up again in CONVERSATION IN THE CATHEDRAL, another one of his books that is highly recommended (as are THE WAR OF THE END OF THE WORLD, THE STORYTELLER and AUNT JULIA AND THE SCRIPTWRITER). It's perhaps difficult to believe that the author of these books could go on to stand for the right in Peru's presidential elections - but, if anything, THE TIME OF THE HERO, shows that Vargas Llosa does at least understand the rottenness and misery that lies beneath the polished veneer of urban society in Latin American cities.
The tale of the cadets is interwoven with accounts of the lives of some of them before and during their time at the academy, mixing the personal (which illustrates the essence of Limenyo culture) with the universal as reflected in the stories of the cadets.
What is perhaps most impressive of all about this brilliant novel is that Vargas Llosa was only 26 when he wrote it. That shows above all what a precocious talent he was when he wrote this - for this great novel is better than anything which most writers could produce, even if at the height of their powers. Roll on THE FEAST OF THE GOAT - I can't wait.
Format:Paperback
As an aside, when deciding on the next Llosa novel to read (after reading The Feast of the Goat and Conversation in the Cathedral; very good books, by the way), I identified this as a potential on Amazon, and then proceeded to read the reviews on the book.
There was only one, which described the book in glowing terms, and gave it a five-star rating. On the strength of this, I read the book, and what immediately struck me was that for such a great book, there was only one review on Amazon.
I pondered the issue of the dearth of reviews, and concluded that it's probably not because many people haven't read and enjoyed the book. It's possibly that they read the book, (inevitably) thoroughly enjoyed it, and then neglected to complete the process by reviewing it on this forum. What a disservice to potential readers!!
With that in mind, I feel obliged to leave my comments on this forum, having just finished reading what is surely a great book, the greatness of which is enhanced by the fact that Llosa was only 26 years old when he wrote it.
The plot revolves around the activities of a group of cadets and their officers at a leading military academy in Peru. On full display are humanity's negative traits - greed, bullying, corruption, abuse of position, and flagrant disregard for authority.
As usual, Llosa writes in a style that immediately draws the reader into the novel, with the initial mildly frustrating task of figuring out the main players. Once this task is completed, the book becomes enjoyable, and the reader becomes caught in the suspense of the story, eager to find out the ultimate outcome. There are no dull or uncaptivating moments in the book, and it is without any hesitation whatsoever that I award it five stars!!!
There was only one, which described the book in glowing terms, and gave it a five-star rating. On the strength of this, I read the book, and what immediately struck me was that for such a great book, there was only one review on Amazon.
I pondered the issue of the dearth of reviews, and concluded that it's probably not because many people haven't read and enjoyed the book. It's possibly that they read the book, (inevitably) thoroughly enjoyed it, and then neglected to complete the process by reviewing it on this forum. What a disservice to potential readers!!
With that in mind, I feel obliged to leave my comments on this forum, having just finished reading what is surely a great book, the greatness of which is enhanced by the fact that Llosa was only 26 years old when he wrote it.
The plot revolves around the activities of a group of cadets and their officers at a leading military academy in Peru. On full display are humanity's negative traits - greed, bullying, corruption, abuse of position, and flagrant disregard for authority.
As usual, Llosa writes in a style that immediately draws the reader into the novel, with the initial mildly frustrating task of figuring out the main players. Once this task is completed, the book becomes enjoyable, and the reader becomes caught in the suspense of the story, eager to find out the ultimate outcome. There are no dull or uncaptivating moments in the book, and it is without any hesitation whatsoever that I award it five stars!!!
Most Helpful Customer Reviews on Amazon.com (beta)
Amazon.com:
7 reviews
11 of 11 people found the following review helpful
Fantastic - in a Vargas Llosa kind of way
7 Aug 1997
Format:Paperback
I rate this book 10, because it embodies in one text a story so powerful from a personal and political point of view. The story deals with a group of army cadets in Lima, their pasts and their presents, and what will potentially be a future shaped for them by the serious injury of one of their troop while on army manouvers.
The story that unfolds from this, interwoven with the power struggle that goes on between the forces of good and humanity and evil faceless silence of the army leaves you breathless. Not everyone will appreciate this book, but there are those out there that owe it to themselves to read this book and learn. Not just about peruvians themselves, but the deep forces of power, ruthlessness and betrayal that power the human race itself
The story that unfolds from this, interwoven with the power struggle that goes on between the forces of good and humanity and evil faceless silence of the army leaves you breathless. Not everyone will appreciate this book, but there are those out there that owe it to themselves to read this book and learn. Not just about peruvians themselves, but the deep forces of power, ruthlessness and betrayal that power the human race itself
7 of 7 people found the following review helpful
Coming of age in the military
25 Oct 2005
Format:Paperback
A novel which provides shifting perspectives and which moves back and forth in time and which moves easily from third to first person and in so doing manages to accumulate an engrossing look at adolescents and their experiences in the military. But it also manages to show the side of the officers in charge with intelligence and understanding. A major theme is the individual conscience in collision with the institution, and the individual faced with the imperatives of the group. The cadet training institution is a dumping ground for adolescents who are fed, clothed and "disciplined" and the novel examines their experiences especially ways in which they manage to create their own society within the structure much as in prisons. THe novel is especially strong in depicting the idealism of youth and their groping towards first love. Although cynical at times - rules are for subordinates not superiors one Lt is told (p382) it does end with an overall feeling of hope. A Mosaic of life in Peru in the 1950's which might be paralleled in many other cultures.
5 of 5 people found the following review helpful
Not my Favorite Novel by Vargas Llosa, but Interesting...
13 Sep 2009
Format:Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase
I've now read several of Vargas Llosa's novels and I am a HUGE fan, actually, but this particular novel didn't strike me in quite the same way. It is an earlier novel than most of the others that I have read by him--this is a schoolboy/military academy novel that Vargas Llosa wrote during the Latin American Boom in Literature. Imagine "A Separate Peace" set in a Latin American Military Academy, in fact. (Except that it is also written in the less traditional, non-chronological narrative format favored by many of the Boom writers, who were all admirers of Modernists such as Virginia Woolf, James Joyce and William Faulkner.)
There really isn't any particular reason that I can pinpoint that I enjoyed it somewhat less than the other novels that I have read by Vargas Llosa--and I would recommend it to other readers. The way that the non-chronological narrative veils certain things about the story might frustrate some readers, but others might find that very element of the novel to be an intriguing selling point. Especially if you're interested in Vargas Llosa, the Latin American Boom, or Latin American literature in general, this is a must read, despite my own personal preference for some of his other novels.
(I would highly recommend "Death in the Andes," "The Storyteller" and "The Feast of the Goat," all by Vargas Llosa, as well as "One Hundred Years of Solitude" and "Chronicle of a Death Foretold" by Gabriel Garcia Marquez.)
There really isn't any particular reason that I can pinpoint that I enjoyed it somewhat less than the other novels that I have read by Vargas Llosa--and I would recommend it to other readers. The way that the non-chronological narrative veils certain things about the story might frustrate some readers, but others might find that very element of the novel to be an intriguing selling point. Especially if you're interested in Vargas Llosa, the Latin American Boom, or Latin American literature in general, this is a must read, despite my own personal preference for some of his other novels.
(I would highly recommend "Death in the Andes," "The Storyteller" and "The Feast of the Goat," all by Vargas Llosa, as well as "One Hundred Years of Solitude" and "Chronicle of a Death Foretold" by Gabriel Garcia Marquez.)
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