The Time of the Hero

Vargas Llosa’s first novel, written in 1963 when he was 27, shows his talent as a novelist. It centers on a group of young cadets in the Leoncio Prado Military Academy, which he himself attended from the age of 14 to 16, and the underworld of violence and drinking there.

The young men are

frequently cruel and engage in some pretty disgusting acts (I’m tempted to describe one of them that occurs 33 pages in, but I’ll refrain from doing so). However, I don’t think this was the reason that the book caused an immediate outrage and ceremonial book burnings in Peru when it was published; I think it’s because it showed the sordid reality of life as a cadet, and the hypocrisy and corruption in the leaders of the academy.

While there is bullying and jealousy over girls that leads to violence, there are no heroes or villains here, and that’s to Vargas Llosa’s credit. It’s very strange to me that the English title was made “The Time of the Hero” in light of this; the original is quite simply “The City and the Dogs” in Spanish. Vargas Llosa uses multiple narrators and interleaved flashbacks, occasionally dabbling in stream of consciousness writing, and shows understanding of the psychology for all of his characters. In an understated way he explains their pasts and what formed them, and he also shows the sense of honor that some of them have despite their heinous outward actions. I also liked the ‘surprise’ which he cleverly builds up over the back half of the book.

Just this quote, in the preface, from Sartre:
“We play the part of heroes because we’re cowards, the part of saints because we’re wicked: we play the killer’s role because we’re dying to murder our fellow man: we play at being because we’re liars from the moment we’re born.”

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LibraryThing member regisb

I was once told that it is good to read a book about the places you are going to visit, whether you know them or not. So I read this before going to Lima, Peru. It would be wrong to say that La ciudad y los perros gives an accurate description of the city or the country: it is too personal for

that. But the characters are so violently human you get attached to them. I found myself trying catching glimpses of them in the streets of Lima.

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LibraryThing member JavierSan

Outstanding novel from an outstanding writer. Raw and violently real.

LibraryThing member FPdC

The portuguese translation of La ciudad y los perros, the first novel of Llosa and the one that, when it was first published in 1963, turned him world famous overnight and provoked a bitter reaction by the peruvian military establishment, particularly those connected with the Leoncio Prado military

college, in Lima, where the action of the novel takes place. Llosa was himself a cadet at the college, and the book is a brilliant denounciation of the physical and mental violence, and of the hypocrisy, of the military institution.

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