Bad Girl

Author: Mario Vargas Llosa

Since I was visiting Peru during the Christmas break of 2024, I was eager to read something set in Peru. Mario Vargas Llosa is a highly decorated Peruvian author and this came up as a suggestion. While it starts out in Peru, the protagonist, Ricardo moves to Paris and seems to like it there. So most of the action is set in Europe. 

The story is a common trope the most famous being Gustave Falubert’s Madame Bovary. Guy falls head over heels in love with a girl, who doesn’t give a hoot about him. The girl disappears and re-appears multiple times in the book. They see each other for very short durations, but enjoy everyone of them so much that it makes up for the lost time. This pattern gets repetitive and you are just waiting to see how Mario is going to portray it the next time. 

The predictability notwithstanding, Mario’s description of people and their interaction with each other is simply wonderful. His reflections on the hippie movement and the rock music scene in the seventies in England is welcome additiona. The book is effortless to read and very enjoyable.

The Neighborhood

Author: Mario Vargas Llosa

This is a whodunit thriller set in 1990s Lima during the regime of Alberto Fujimori. The story revolves around two wealthy men and their wives. I don’t want to reveal any of the storyline as it will ruin your enjoyment of the book. 

Suffice it to say that the book is filled with erotic tension, murder mystery, political intrigue and social commentary. Mario Vargas skillfully interplays the opulent lives of the twoelite couples with the struggles of Peru’s poorer socio-economic masses. 

I love Mario Vargas' writing style and found myself eagerly turning the pages to discover what happens next. The book was panned for its “third-rate erotica” and critics said that the murder mystery lacks much depth and sophistication. I found it quite engaging and a good way to pass the time while I was flying into Lima Peru.

Patriot: A Memoir

Author: Alexei Navalny

A couple of years ago I watched the HBO Max documentary on Alexei Navalny. It features the details behind the poisoning of Navalny and his recovery in Berlin. I expected this to be a dark movie filled with hatred for his oppressors, but was pleasantly surprised to see what an upbeat and funny guy Navalny was. Imagine the impact he could have had on the world. I hope he didn’t give up his life in vain, and we do see the fruits of his struggle finally being realized in a democratic Russia. 

This book is divided into two distinct parts. The first is a narrative account of Navalny’s life moving between small garrison towns in the vicinity of Moscow. He identifies as being half Russian and half Ukrainian and until he was 8 years old he regularly visited with his grandmother in Ukraine. However the Chernobyl nuclear disaster in 1986 put an end to his Ukrainian visits. He describes the Soviets attempts at downplaying the severity of the nuclear fallout. 

His childhood was also marked by the economic realities of the late Soviet Era. He fondly recalls queuing up for milk and yearning for American Chewing gum. But then with the glasnost period under Gorbachev he found out that “being poor was much more bearable when everybody else was, but it was intolerable once you could see your neighbor was far richer.” 

Reading some of his early experiences, reminded me of my time in growing up in India. While it was nowhere as oppressive as the Soviet Union, we too had very few luxuries and would look forward to the trinkets that we sometimes received from western visitors. 

I didn’t quite finish the second section which is his prison memoir. The few pages that I read were quite difficult to get through. Overall, Navalny is an amazing hero!