Both Garcia Marquez and Vargas Llosa are titans of Latin American literature (Nobel Prize winners) and good examples of why the label “literary fiction” should be abolished. The first author, affectionately known as “Gabo,” is celebrated for being the inventor of magical realism. Vargas Llosa’s more complex novels have earned him the moniker “the Latin American Balzac.” Neither writes literary fiction, but they’re master storytellers.

First, an explanation of names. Because America is such a diverse country, many readers might already know that two last names are customary in Spanish (often hyphenated, but not required or necessarily correct). Garcia and Vargas are the two authors’ fathers’ names; Marquez and Llosa are the two mothers’ names. When I lived in Colombia, all my Colombian documentation had me with both names too (as a Colombian resident, I had a citizen’s ID card—not a bad idea for the U.S.—just like everyone else). If Latin American wives follow the tradition, their names will be something like Anna Maria Lopez de Benavides, the last “de Benavides” signifying she “belongs to” Sr. Benavides, i.e. she’s his wife, and the Lopez signifying her father was a Lopez. Yeah, these societies are traditionally macho, but things are changing for the better, so stay tuned.

Both authors’ books are often characterized as “literary fiction,” that nebulous and unfortunate label that tells the reader absolutely nothing. Worse, this is often considered a genre. Genres are often nothing more than keywords anymore, of course. For some reason, critics, bookstore owners, and many readers like to pretend “literary fiction” is a genre. It’s not. No way. These words aren’t even keywords because they contain zero information about what’s in the book. They represent a catch-all category equivalent to “Miscellaneous,” which is unfair to every author whose book is so labeled, but especially unfair to these two titans of 20^th century literature.

I’ve read most of Gabo’s books and many of Vargas Llosa’s in the original Spanish (remember, the latter’s are more complex). There was an interesting article in the 2/25/2018 edition of the NY Times Magazine, “The Last Titan” by Marcela Valdes, about Vargas Llosa. I believe her when she states that Gabo benefitted from having better translators, but I’m not competent enough to look at English translations (I never have) and make a determination, so I can only timidly second Ms. Valdes’s opinion. If you want labels, though, maybe reading these books in Spanish explains why I call most of Gabo’s oeuvre “historical fantasy” (he writes about historical events like La Violencia in Colombia using magical realism) and Vargas Llosa’s “political fiction” (stories with real political events as their settings). That’s an oversimplification in Vargas Llosa’s case, and Gabo’s Otoño del Patriarca could be classified as political fiction too, but categories always oversimplify.

I never bought into Gabo’s politics. He swallowed the debunked ideology of Communism that has proven not to be a solution for the world’s downtrodden, especially not in Latin America locked into its large wealth gaps between rich and poor, tierratenientes akin to feudal lords with campesinos as serfs, and governments of graft and corruption. Caudillos come to power—Gabo admired Fidel—and make their false promises, but they always become corrupted and turn out to be just more despots who don’t improve things and often make them worse.  Leaders of populist movements from the left or right are inept and often just thugs.  (Sounds a bit like someone we now have in our White House.) Ironically, Otoño describes the path such flawed men invariably follow, so Gabo might understand some of this.

Yet Vargas Llosa was considered worse by Latin American and world politics and paid for that unfair reputation—those liberal Swedes didn’t give him the Nobel until 2010, long after Gabo received it. Also ironically, he has fought autocratic governments in Latin America his whole lifetime and even ran for president against the populist Fujimori in Peru, who was a real stinker. Vargas Llosa rejected Castro when he saw that the Cuban caudillo was just another two-bit Latin American despot, something Gabo never did—some people will stick to a debunked ideology, come hell or high water.

I’ll confess I’m more partial to Gabo’s writing than Vargas Llosa’s in spite of the former’s political proclivities. I’m more familiar with Gabo’s settings and the historical background of his novels, for one thing—I identify with them, having lived in Colombia for so long. Magical realism has also influenced some of my own stories, especially the second part of Survivors of the Chaos (now the first novel in The Chaos Chronicles Trilogy Collection, a bundle of all three novels). That first dystopian sci-fi novel in the collection isn’t historical fantasy, but the second part of it might be called future-history fantasy.

What books written by these authors are my favorites? I might surprise you. For Gabo, I like El Amor en los Tiempos del Cholera best; for Vargas Llosa it’s Pantaleon y Las Visitadoras. Gabo doesn’t have that many novels compared to Vargas Llosa, but all these authors’ novels are interesting and entertaining reads.

Gabo’s writing exhibits elegant simplicity; Vargas Llosa’s profound complexity. Gabo’s is bounded; Vargas Llosa’s is free-ranging. Which author is better? They’re both titans of Latin American literature. They both remind us that authors’ political views are of little consequence relative to their storytelling abilities. And they both show why that miscellaneous category “literary fiction” is a completely worthless label.

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In libris libertas….

 

 

This entry was posted on Tuesday, March 6th, 2018 at 3:30 am and is filed under Writing. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.