The Cubs and other stories by Mario Vargas Llolsa

Title: The Cubs and other Stories

Author: Mario Vargas Llosa

First Published: 1965-1967 (English translation, 1979)

No. of Pages: 139

Synopsis (from B&N): "The author's only collection of short fiction. Representative of his early writing, the stories taken together are themselves a testament to youth."

Fiction or Nonfiction: Fiction

Comments and Critique: This book consists of one novella (The Cubs) and six short stories. The writing style in the novella is unlike anything I’ve come across before. The sentences go on and on, and dialogue is not distinguished by normal punctuation but is included within the sentences. The narrator jumps back and forth, sometimes within the same sentence, between “we” and “they” but the context indicates that both refer to the same people, including the narrator. An example:

They were still wearing short pants that year, we weren't smoking yet, they preferred soccer to all the other sports and we were learning to surf, to dive from the high board at the Terraces Club, and they were devilish, smooth-cheeked, curious, very agile, voracious.

And a couple of paragraphs later:

He appeared one morning at inspection time, holding his father's hand and Brother Leoncio put him at the head of the line because he was even shorter than Rojas, and in class Brother Leoncio sat him in the back with us, at that vacant desk, young man. What's your name? Cuellar, and yours? Choto, and yours? Chingolo, and yours? Manny, and yours? Lalo. From Miraflores? Yes, since last month, before that I was living on San Antonio and now on Mariscal Castilla, near the Colina movie theater.

It's an intriguing style that requires the reader to pay much closer attention than normal. The collection includes a foreword by the author that sheds much light on all the stories and especially adds to the reader's understanding of the novella. As with many books, I recommend the reader wait and read the foreword last, as it contains meaningful information that will give away crucial elements of the stories.

The writing style of other stories is much more conventional. This is less surprising given that the author wrote these six stories almost a decade prior to the novella. Despite the time difference in composition and differences of style, these particular works are well-suited as a collection. With the exception of The Grandfather, each of the stories addresses a young man's relationship with friends or brothers (and even the friends are often referred to as "brother," indicating the importance of the relationships), and the impact of these relationships on the man's life. They also provide an amazing amount of description and information, given their brevity.

Challenges: 999 ("1001 Books"); Fill in the Gaps 100 Books Project; Orbis Terrarum 2 (Peru)