I can't make up my mind about this book. I am staring at it and trying to decide- did I like or didn't I. Let me get the things I am sure about out of the way- Llosa is a genius and I don't like erotica. But this book cannot be dismissed as just erotica. This book is many things but before we get to that-
The eponymous ( I always wanted to use that word) Rigoberto is an aesthete and an erotomaniac who spends his days as an insurance executive and the nights fantasising about his separated second wife, Lucrecia. whom he still loves passionately. Hi s son Fonchito sets about trying to unite them.Fonchito- innocent boy or a fiend. Fonchito is obsessed with the Viennese painter Egon Schiele and uses Lucrecia and her maid Justiniana.Very soon you discover that something occurred , something unforgivable between the boy and the step-mother that caused the separation It is never told to you and you are left wondering till the end.
There are enough erotic scenes described in the book except the one that you desperately want to know about. Yet all that you know is that it happened and in Lucrecia's bed. and you are not sure who was the seducer and who was seduced. Does the boy know what he is saying and doing or is unaware? You never find out.
The couple however do unite and much remains unresolved, much unspoken and others hinted at. As Rigoberto asks in the end- In spite of everything, we are a happy family , are we not and I couldn't decide whether they were or not.
And this is layered with the many letters Rigoberto writes on art, sexuality and sports. and the anonymous letters that are exchanged between the couple. These make the reading rich, funny and erudite.
Now you see why I can't make up my mind. I would love to know what other readers feel/think.
Oh and just for record- Llosa won the Nobel in 2010.
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