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Michael Finocchiaro's Reviews > The Bad Girl
The Bad Girl
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Michael Finocchiaro's review
bookshelves: nobel-lit, peruvian-20th-c, fiction, novels, peruvian-21st-c
Mar 22, 2017
bookshelves: nobel-lit, peruvian-20th-c, fiction, novels, peruvian-21st-c
Read 2 times. Last read March 21, 2017 to March 23, 2017.
Where can I even start? This book was so excellent, I nearly cried - twice! Seriously! I mean, I did my research: I reread Madame Bovary and then MVL's excellent critique in The Perpetual Orgy before his homage to Flaubert, The Bad Girl. But even this did not prepare me for the depth of emotion and sentiment expressed in this MVL masterpiece. Perhaps it is because the narrator Ricardo, like me, is a Parisian ex-pat, I was enamored with his descriptions of life here (perfectly and clinically accurate) or because I am deep down a hopeless romantic, but this book, the impossible love between the "good boy" and the "bad girl" just blew me away. Every chapter presents a separate encounter between these protagonists - substitues for Emma and Léon from Bovary - and each are so beautifully drawn with delicious detail. It is pure reading ecstasy. I think that this may be my favorite MvL book or at worst in the top 2 or 3. Gorgeous, moving, heartrending - as real literature's mission is to be, this is a masterpiece and a must read.
Even after finishing all of MVL's translated novels, this one is still one of my top 3!
Fino's Mario Vargas Llosa Reviews:
Fiction
The Cubs and Other Stories (1959) TBR
The Time of the Hero (1963)
The Green House (1966)
Conversation in the Cathedral (1969)
Captain Pantoja and the Special Services (1973)
Aunt Julia and the Scriptwriter (1977)
The War of the End of the World (1981)
The Real Life of Alejandro Mayta (1985)
Who Killed Palomino Molero? (1987)
The Storyteller (1989)
In Praise of the Stepmother (1990)
Death in the Andes (1996)
The Notebooks of Don Rigoberto (1998)
The Feast of the Goat (2001)
The Way to Paradise (2003)
The Bad Girl (2007)
The Dream of the Celt (2010)
The Discrete Hero (2015)
The Neighborhood (2018)
Harsh Times (2021) TBR
Non-Fiction
The Perpetual Orgy (1975)
A Fish Out of Water (1993)
Letters to a Young Novelist (1998)
Even after finishing all of MVL's translated novels, this one is still one of my top 3!
Fino's Mario Vargas Llosa Reviews:
Fiction
The Cubs and Other Stories (1959) TBR
The Time of the Hero (1963)
The Green House (1966)
Conversation in the Cathedral (1969)
Captain Pantoja and the Special Services (1973)
Aunt Julia and the Scriptwriter (1977)
The War of the End of the World (1981)
The Real Life of Alejandro Mayta (1985)
Who Killed Palomino Molero? (1987)
The Storyteller (1989)
In Praise of the Stepmother (1990)
Death in the Andes (1996)
The Notebooks of Don Rigoberto (1998)
The Feast of the Goat (2001)
The Way to Paradise (2003)
The Bad Girl (2007)
The Dream of the Celt (2010)
The Discrete Hero (2015)
The Neighborhood (2018)
Harsh Times (2021) TBR
Non-Fiction
The Perpetual Orgy (1975)
A Fish Out of Water (1993)
Letters to a Young Novelist (1998)
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Reading Progress
Finished Reading
March 5, 2017
– Shelved
March 5, 2017
– Shelved as:
to-read
March 20, 2017
– Shelved as:
nobel-lit
March 20, 2017
– Shelved as:
peruvian-20th-c
March 20, 2017
– Shelved as:
fiction
March 20, 2017
– Shelved as:
novels
March 20, 2017
– Shelved as:
peruvian-21st-c
March 21, 2017
–
Started Reading
March 23, 2017
–
Finished Reading
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M.J.
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Mar 21, 2017 01:02PM
Bad girls often make for good stories.
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I am glad you enjoyed this as much as me. Bad Girl and The Feast are my favourite Llosa novels.
After this mouthwatering review Fino and your comment, George, this has to go up on my reading list!
I cannot insist enough on reading Madame Bovary and The Perpetual Orgy beforehand to fully appreciate the masterpiece that The Bad Girl really is
Thank you Michael, beautiful review.
Thanks Marion - it is a fabulous book!
Such a beautifully felt and written review. It has been ages since I read any Vargas - and even longer since I read Madame Bovary. You have inspired me.
That is an incredible compliment! Thank you Renata!
I finished The Bad Girl and it‘s also one of my favorite books ever!!! What should I read next from MVL- do you have a recommendation? Thank you! :)
Sorry Roxana, I just saw your message. I would suggest Feast of the Goat, The War at the end of the world, or The Green House
May I ask you which were the passages that nearly made you cry?
I loved this story and sort of lived it vis a vis a girlfriend, before I met my wife from Peru. I will have to put Madame Bovary on the list. I get to books like The Bad Girl from taciturn ways. I chose this because I’m trying to learn more about Peru and Lima. I had Love in the Time of Cholera on my list for so long, that when I finally read it, I decided to look up with the Peruvian answer to Marquez. What a world that has opened up. I’ve always had Madame Bovary on the list in the back of my mind, so I didn’t read The Bad Girl with a knowledge in the back of my mind that the story was similar to Madame Bovary. In many of the novels I read, I am lacking references, so I have to fill them in later. I am so impressed with and envious of all the lucky people who have read a book twice. I’m just not that good of a reader. The best I did was read brothers Karamazov 1.3 times.
Thank you Michael for the beautiful review that helps to reinforce that I read and enjoyed something truly wonderful. At times I didn’t want to finish because the bad girl made me so angry. Then at other times I just had to press on because I needed to know what happened. Now I find myself missing her.
I deliberately stalled on Aunt Julia and the Scriptwriter because I love that book so much. I had some travel to do in the last couple of months so I wanted to start and finish this book. Now I can return to Tia Julia, and then perhaps The Green House and A Death in the Andes.
These books take me back to Mi Lindo Peru.
Wonderful review. To me it was a story of endless love where emotions conquer rationality on one hand and then the hunger for wealth going as far as becoming the victim of a perverse sadist on the other hand. The Stockholm syndrome at his best. This combined with the wonderful settings and atmospheres brought this book to my top 5! I read it in Dutch as "the elusive girl" which I prefer to "just" bad girl.
@michele interesting translation of the title!@edi thank you!
@arshpreet I’d have to read again to tell you!
This is one of my favorite books, I could read it again and again...-love is blind- they say...but necessary too. There is a movie similar to this book, named.. "Love can seriously damaged your health"
