Political Analysis Where I Least Expected It -- The Language of Passion

Still skirting around the novels of Mario Vargas Llosa, I found another one of his books of nonfiction; this one a collection of op ed pieces published in a Spanish newspaper in the 1990's -- The Language of Passion. (I love the Latin romance of this man who gives most of his books titillating titles this one, The Perpetual Orgy, The Bad Girl, The Way to Paradise, and then composes something completely unexpected and non-erotic.)

There are 46 essays in the book, covering a wide swath of then-contemporary issues. Many are Llosa's paeans to various artists, from Frida Kahlo to Bob Marley to Monet. His opinions on artists and other public figures that he holds in lesser regard are never scathing attacks, but well-thought critiques (except maybe in the case of George Soros, who in my opinion, deserves all this and more.) But there were three themes that appealed to me most: his continuing appreciation for literary criticism, his acknowledgment of the place of unwavering absolutism of all religions, and, unexpectedly, political analysis much more on point than what I encountered in P. J. O'Rourke's book.

First the criticism. In an article called Postmodernism and Frivolity, Llosa acknowledges the importance of Lionel Trilling. He concludes: "This generation regarded literature as a perfect testament to the ideas, myths, beliefs, and dreams that make society work, and glimpsed in literature the secret frustrations and impulses that explain individual conduct." And again to quote a sentence that sums up my drive to read on end: "... grew out of deep and sometimes heartrending experiences and real human sacrifices, and their true valuation must be decided not from the lectern but from the private and concentrated intimacy of reading, and must be measured by the effects and repercussions of reading on the private life of the reader."

In another essay, The Death of the Great Writer, I found another argument for my frustration with my book club's selections: " the book, stripped of its status as religious or mythical object, becomes a mere good at the mercy of the frenetic ups and downs ... of supply and demand ... the effect ... is the banalization of literature, since it counts now only as a product of immediate consumption, an ephemeral entertainment, or a source of information that expires as soon as it appears." And continuing, referring to the man who predicted all this would happen: "... we have reached level of grim degradation best anticipated by Tocqueville: the era of writers who 'prefer success to glory.'"

Llosa finds deconstructionism an anathema. He extols literature as the mental food of a small slice of society to: "... return to its former rigor, good prose, inventiveness, ideas, persuasive illusions, freedom and audacities that are notable for their absence in the great majority of books that now usurp the title of literature."

On to politics and government. In the piece called The Hour of the Charlatans, Llosa deals with the virtual reality created for the public by the mass media. "Real world events can no longer be objective. Their truth and ontological consistency are undermined from the start by the corrosive process of their projection as the manipulated and falsified images of virtual reality; these are the only images admissible and comprehensible to a humanity tamed by the media fantasy ... Besides abolishing history, television 'news' also vanquishes time, since it eliminates all critical perspective on what is happening: the broadcasts occur at the same time as the events ... and these events last no longer than the fleeting instant in which they are enunciated, then disappear, swept away by others which in turn are annihilated ... This vertiginous denaturalization of the actual world has resulted, purely and simply, in its evaporation and in its replacement by the truth of media-created fiction."

Llosa not only expands one's knowledge of South American regimes, but writes cogently on the impact of immigration in all countries, on his changing expectations of Israeli peace, and on the continuing sexual revolution, particularly when the advance of women runs smack-dab against "cultural" practices and religious dogma.

Llosa might have won the Nobel prize for literature, but his breadth of talents cannot be misconstrued to think that it is merely in fiction that he excels. I am almost done with Aunt Julia, but I'd rather think with Mario than laugh with him.