Monday, March 24, 2008

Feast of the Goat: part one

One of my first thoughts about this book upon beginning to read it was who the narrator was in relation to the protagonist. It's an innovative way to convey the narrator, as the narrator seems to be just an unkown third person, but the style of speech isn't simply she did this she did that, the narrator has its own personality and commentary, and isn't omnitient. Even on the first page this becomes clear: "Was it his idea or hers? Too late to find out, my girl; your mother was in heaven and your father condemned to a living death. You'll never know. Urania! As absurd as insulting old Santo Domingo de Guzman by calling it ciudad Trujillo. Could that have been her father's idea too?"
This quote really confused me, because of this bizarre narrator sort of commentary. It doesn't explain any sort of relation, and yet the narrator talks to her. I noticed this a little with Facundo and pretty much all of the books we have read thus far, this sort of distorted idea of the traditional narrator, the narrator having an opinion and the main voice switching and changing, especially in I the Supreme, obviously.
The difference between Mario Vargas LLosa and other Latin American authors is the extent of dramatism used in his language, in addition to the content of his stories. I've read a different book by this author, or most of the book, Aunt Julia and the Scriptwriter, which had interesting characters and premise, but his ideas weren't fully developed and he sort of meandered through their lives when the book could have been very intense and passionate. It was sort of a Latin American novel version of "The Graduate," which could have been fantastic. Hopefully with this book he explores his ideas more and doesn't let certain details go unnoticed.

2 comments:

isabel-clase said...

yea i agree that quote is confusing...i think it serves to give some insight into how those characters are viewed and how their lives are, but right now it is confusing. perhaps at the end the quote can be looked at again and understood better in the context of the whole book.

Unknown said...

You raise an interesting point about who the narrator was, it is something I hadn't thought about but will keep in mind while reading the rest of the book.