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caterinaanna 's review for:
The Real Life of Alejandro Mayta
by Mario Vargas Llosa, Alfred J. Mac Adam
Several members of the library reading group found [b:The Falls|37781|Things Fall Apart|Chinua Achebe|http://d.gr-assets.com/books/1352082529s/37781.jpg|825843] confusing because of the time shifts: goodness knows what they would have made of this one which moves voice, place and time within a single paragraph - sometimes, I suspect, within a single sentence!
Mayta is a failed revolutionary who we, and the sometime narrator, get to know through interviews with people who knew him. Of course all of these people have seen a different side of Alejandro, all have a particular perspective on the events of the past, and all have their own agenda in talking to the author. While the author reflects on this, he presents his view of events as a narrative interwoven with the interviews. Trusting this is one way to read the novel; assuming it is merely a single, and possibly unreliable, synthesis is another. Some people have said there is a twist at the end, in the final interview with Mayta himself, however I thought the revelations of this section were consistent with the man I'd pieced together - someone whose willinggness to trust others, even while doubting them, led to his downfall.
Mayta is a failed revolutionary who we, and the sometime narrator, get to know through interviews with people who knew him. Of course all of these people have seen a different side of Alejandro, all have a particular perspective on the events of the past, and all have their own agenda in talking to the author. While the author reflects on this, he presents his view of events as a narrative interwoven with the interviews. Trusting this is one way to read the novel; assuming it is merely a single, and possibly unreliable, synthesis is another. Some people have said there is a twist at the end, in the final interview with Mayta himself, however I thought the revelations of this section were consistent with the man I'd pieced together - someone whose willinggness to trust others, even while doubting them, led to his downfall.