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Vargas Llosa's previous novels were all very serious, realistic with much brutality, and deliberately difficult to understand, with shifting viewpoints and confused chronology. This book, on the contrary, is written as a fairly straightforward narrative and in a humorous, satirical vein, somewhat reminiscent of Catch 22 in its sense of military absurdity. It is based on an actual plan of the Peruvian army to secretly provide prostitutes to remote bases (the US armed forces did something similar a few years later in Vietnam -- Khe Sanh?). I'm not sure how closely the novel follows the real events.

In the novel at least, the army chooses the most unlikely person to set this up -- a straight-laced captain named Pantale�_n Pantoja who was notable in that he didn't smoke, drink, or look at other women besides his wife, and had no bad marks of any sort in his record; we learn that he is someone who in high school avoided parties to spend more time with his love of math homework; and who is obsessed with order and discipline.

Much of the story is told in the form of documents, whose bureaucratic, military style is completely incongruous with their content. There is also a subplot about a bizarre religious cult; I'm not sure if this is also based on fact or not.

Although the subject matter may offend some readers, this is probably, while not Vargas Llosa's best novel, at least his most accessible, and despite the humor it makes some serious points.