Mario Vargas Llosa-La Casa verde
The story is broken into five parts, each of which begins with an
impressionistic narrative without paragraph breaks.
Each part is then broken into chapters
(Parts One and Three have four chapters each; Parts Two and Four, three).
Each chapter is further divided into five separate narratives:
1) Bonifacia in the jungle region,
2) Fushia and Aquilino on the Marañón,
3) Anselmo in Piura,
4) various characters involved in power struggles in the jungle, and
5) Lituma and Bonifacia in Piura.
The novel concludes with a five-chapter epilogue.
UNO
EXPERIMENTAL-
I
Pupils go missing at the convent, Bonifacia reveals they didn’t steal her keys, but that
she deliberately set them free.
o This act of releasing them will serve a similar narrative purpose to the theft of
the chemistry exam in La Ciudad y los Perros, and the dognapping in
Conversacion en la cathedral.
o Bonifacia, Madre Angelica, La Superiora, Don Fabio
Aquilino, Fushia, Chango, Iricuo-asking how Fushia escaped from somewhere one in
the past-a ‘carro turco’ is referenced.
Description of Piura, a coastal town seemingly in the middle of nowhere and isolated
from the rest of the country-this is where the eponymous Casa Verde was built to
quench the resident’s hunger for women.
o Flamante medico-Pedro Zevallos
o Padre Garcia
Corporal Roberto Delgado asks his Captain (Quiroga?) for permission to go home, to
Bagua-he is given three weeks. The flies don’t bite Delgado and Captain jokes it is
because he has bad blood.
Lituma has returned to Piura, says he wants to retire and die there-he and his
cousins, el Mono and Josesfino Rojas go to the Casa Verde to celebrate their reunion
o Angelica, the well-known cook
o **Los León, playing with a match- foreshadowing again-yet foreshadowing
something which has already happened chronologically, but not yet in the
novel.
II
The pupils are back and Bonifacia is being scolded by La Superiora and Madre
Angélica
o 46-quote-nature vs nurture
, o Bonifacia defends her actions saying that she say in their eyes that they
wanted to escape, and says that she has acquired the ability to speak pagan.
o A good part of this section is world building and describing what goes on at
the Mission.
Aquilino and Fushia continue talking, only this time the conversation is interwoven
with another between Fushia, Don Fabio and Don Julio Reategui-Fabio is mistrusting
of Fushia, who believes he can improve Julio’s business.
o 53-we learn of a very dark episode in Fushia’s past where he hung a cat from
a curtain.
o We learn at some point that Fushia ripped off and deceived Don Fabio and
Don Julio
Describes the mysterious Anselmo and his arrival in Piura-nobody knows where he is
from, and although he claims to be Peruvian, no one can place his accent. Due to his
charming and charismatic nature, he quickly ingratiates himself with the locals,
whose only problem with him is his attitude and behaviour towards women when
drunk.
o 57-chapter ends ominously saying that nothing happened during his first
month there, implying that something will happen after.
o Eusebio Romero-shopkeeper
Jum, a native Indian with some sway, is introduced. Again the focus is on Julio’s
business and dealings with the Indians, especially concerning rubber. Ends with a
very ominous note about how the former governor, Teofilo Cañas wished to return
to Lima, but it’s implied he didn’t because of the natives. Ends on a cliff-hanger as
(possibly Benzas) wonders if anyone is aware of what the Indians did to ‘un Cabo’
less than a month ago. This could be Roberto Delgado?
o Manuel Aguila/Pedro Escabino/Arevalo Benzas
Lituma and his cousins drink in the Mangancheria, ends with Lituma toasting
Bonifacia.
o 63-Possible foreshadowing as José jokes that Lituma corrupted them all.
III
Cuts between Bonifacia pleading with Superiora to stay and a scene where Bonifacia
comes across two pupils in the larder before she let the pupils escape, one is a little
girl and constantly groans. There is clearly something not quite right about these two
and their relationship/effect on Bonifacia is. Superiora tell Bonifacia she has to go.
A masterful, terribly complicated and quintessential MVL chapter. Cuts between two
accounts of the same event-Fushia meeting la Lalita and the two running off
together, to Uchamala-One account is Fushia and Aquilino, another is Lalita’s mother
and Doctor Portillo, who is interviewing the mother about her claim and
compensation, but who is also working for Reategui.
o Fushia resents the fact Julio has gotten off scot-free regarding the illegal
rubber trade they were involved too-selling rubber, under the guise of
tobacco, during war time-so profiteering.
o 72-Ambiguity as to whether or not Fushia raped Lalita, ‘’La agarré virgencita…
Era como tener una mujer y una hija a la vez.’’
o Also ambiguity as to the extent to which Lalita’s mother was aware of what
was going on.
