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Near the beginning of The Notebooks of Don Rigoberto, the title character writes these words to the architect designing his new home, thus setting the theme for this slightly fantastical, wholly erotic novel that celebrates the ascendancy of imagination over real life. Readers familiar with Vargas Llosa's work will recognize Don Rigoberto from the earlier In Praise of the Stepmother, in which the author first introduced the middle-aged insurance executive, his beautiful second wife, Lucrecia, and his preternaturally sensual son, Alfonsito. In that book, the pubescent "Fonsito" manages to seduce his stepmother and then writes an essay about the experience that he lets his father read. The novel ends with Lucrecia's expulsion from the household and the revelation that Fonsito had orchestrated the whole thing from the beginning for reasons of his own. Now, in The Notebooks of Don Rigoberto Vargas Llosa picks up where he left off, with Alfonsito's reappearance on the doorstep of Lucrecia's new home. Once again, this "Beelzebub, a viper with the face of an angel" has a hidden agenda--this time, apparently, to reunite his father and stepmother.
As in its predecessor, The Notebooks of Don Rigoberto filters erotic passions and desires through art and artifice; Alfonsito uses the life and work of painter Egon Schiele to seduce his stepmother's imagination if not her body; Don Rigoberto and Lucrecia fan the flames of sexual passion through elaborate fantasies that they present as reality. It is almost as if no act, thought, or feeling can be real unless it has first existed in the imagination; even as Rigoberto and Lucrecia make love on their first night back together he informs her that, in his notebooks, she "'has gone to bed with many people all year.' 'I want details,' Dona Lucrecia gasp[s], speaking with difficulty. 'All of them, even the tiniest. What I did, what I ate, what was done to me.'"
The novel is the literary equivalent of matryoshki, those nests of dolls within dolls that Russian toymakers made to enthrall young children. Egon Schiele's life story, Lucrecia's erotic encounters, Rigoberto's notebooks, the 20 anonymous letters that reunite Rigoberto and his wife--all unfold, stories within stories and fantasies within fiction, until Vargas Llosa arrives, at last, at his happy ending, with a twist. The Notebooks of Don Rigoberto is erotic without being graphic, so fantastical that even the seduction of a 40-year-old matron by a pubescent boy reads more like myth (think Cupid and Psyche) than today's headlines. Vargas Llosa's cool, wry prose helps to elevate the hijinks above the merely prurient, making this fable of love, art, and manipulation a pleasure without guilt. --Alix Wilber
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Book Description Paperback. Condition: Good. The book has been read but remains in clean condition. All pages are intact and the cover is intact. Some minor wear to the spine. Seller Inventory # GOR005303194
Book Description Paperback. Condition: Very Good. The book has been read, but is in excellent condition. Pages are intact and not marred by notes or highlighting. The spine remains undamaged. Seller Inventory # GOR003551147
Book Description Paperback. Condition: Very Good. The Notebooks of Don Rigoberto This book is in very good condition and will be shipped within 24 hours of ordering. The cover may have some limited signs of wear but the pages are clean, intact and the spine remains undamaged. This book has clearly been well maintained and looked after thus far. Money back guarantee if you are not satisfied. See all our books here, order more than 1 book and get discounted shipping. Seller Inventory # 7719-9780571197590
Book Description Paperback. Condition: Very Good. This book is in very good condition and will be shipped within 24 hours of ordering. The cover may have some limited signs of wear but the pages are clean, intact and the spine remains undamaged. This book has clearly been well maintained and looked after thus far. Money back guarantee if you are not satisfied. See all our books here, order more than 1 book and get discounted shipping. Seller Inventory # 6545-9780571197590
Book Description Soft cover. Condition: Very Good. 18 x 11 cms. .304 translation into English of one of leading Latin American novelists of late 20th Century. Charmimg b/w vignettes at end of each section demonstrating the the asking price is a bargain IMO. Seller Inventory # ABE-1502145179002