From the Bookshelf of Boxall's 1001 Books You Must Read Before You Die…

The War of the End of the World

Mario Vargas Llosa

Start date: October 15, 2012

Finish date: November 15, 2012

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Feb 20, 2011 Chloe rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: fiction, 1001-list, i_am_in_love, god-is-god, latin-america, magical-realism

There are books at which we arrive to too soon, books that are forced down our throats by well meaning instructors and friends, books that are passed on with loving grace and books that are clung to relentlessly for years. There are books of which we hear much yet never open and obscure books that catch our eye in a musty booksellers that swiftly become those items with which to cudgel our own friends. There are books that you forget minutes after reading and books that haunt your steps for year There are books at which we arrive to too soon, books that are forced down our throats by well meaning instructors and friends, books that are passed on with loving grace and books that are clung to relentlessly for years. There are books of which we hear much yet never open and obscure books that catch our eye in a musty booksellers that swiftly become those items with which to cudgel our own friends. There are books that you forget minutes after reading and books that haunt your steps for years like a ghost of memory. Those are the books which I am always in search of, the always rare tomes that live on inside of you long after the final page is turned and inform your worldview for years, either consciously or not. Without realizing the import at the time, picking this lengthy read from atop my ever-growing to-read pile was the defining moment of my entire year.

Mario Vargas Llosa is an author of whom I had heard much, yet, for one ill-conceived reason or another, had never picked up any of his works and read them. All throughout my hodgepodge affair with Latin American authors there he has sat, waiting patiently as I endured the brilliant-but-meandering Garcia Marquez, the imaginative-yet-overblown Allende, the deliberately obtuse Bolano. Finally on a cold morning in February, as I cursed at my stacks of books purchased in haste and then left to linger for months, the spirit of inspiration that first moved me to acquire this structurally unsound stack of literature lit once more upon my shoulder and whispered at me to pick that beautiful red cover featured above from the neglected horde. Nothing has been the same since.

It is remarkably easy to dive deep into the world of post-Monarchist Brazil, populated by a vast coterie of the wretched and the ignorant and torn apart by the shifting winds of change and the turning of one epoch to another. Brazil has won its freedom from the monarchs of Portugal and is constructing its first civil government- with all the implements of the State which we take for granted now: marriage available for the first time outside of a church, a census to better know the nascent country's people and its needs, taxes to be paid for the creation of new roads and railways to better connect this country of nigh unfathomable size. Things that we, little more than a century later, take for granted (though we still seem to be having some delay with that whole Civil Marriage thing).

Not so in turn-of-the-century Bahia, a state midway along the coast known today primarily for its vast cacao plantations. In the backlands of this state wanders a man known as The Counselor preaching the Gospels to the illiterate, rebuilding churches fallen into disrepair and, everywhere he walks, showing love and acceptance for the most miserable and misshapen (both physically and mentally), some for the first time in their lives. He builds quite a dedicated following out of the dregs of society, winning over cangaceros (bandits), merchants, beggars and mutants as he travels for many years around the interior. Until one day he is shown a proclamation from the Republic informing the populace that civil marriage is now allowed and a census is to be taken regularly. Seeing this as a full assault on the church to which he is beholden he realizes that the faith is under assault by this new monster called the Republic, who must surely be the Antichrist in disguise. There is nothing to be done but to find some land and build a true city of god where his followers may live in peace. The fledgling state sees this as an open revolt to be quashed immediately lest other regions follow the example of the faithful of Canudos and proceeds to send out that true Antichrist, the Brazilian Army to ruthlessly put down this secessionist movement.

And so begins the tumultuous The War of the End of the World, based on true events but given poetic timbre by Vargas Llosa's pen. A cast of hundreds filters through, all with their histories and viewpoints, none purely evil and all conflicted by the demands this new age makes upon them. The beauty of Vargas Llosa's writing really comes through here as each, rebel and soldier, takes their minute upon the stage and illuminates very clearly the trying nature of these times. The doomed European idealist Gallileo Gall who believes quite fervently in both the ideal of Revolution and the disproved tenets of phrenology. The Dwarf, a member of a traveling circus fallen upon hard times. The near-sighted Journalist who plays the role of a faithless Job here, plagued by misfortune again and again. The retired cangacero Pajeu who has found grace in the Counselor's teachings and makes up for his bloody past by becoming a guerilla leader against the Army expeditions that assault Canudos again and again. The cast is vast but, so consummate is Vargas Llosa's skill, it never becomes overwhelming or difficult to keep straight.

Like the better-known Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Mario Vargas Llosa creates a whole world around the blessed miscreants in Canudos, but also improves upon it by pulling back on the scope of his ambitions and focusing instead on just those events that are germane to the story at hand. Where Garcia Marquez can tend to become overblown and distracted by whatever thoughts pass through his, admittedly admirable, head, Vargas Llosa uses his digressions to better tie his story together. This is performed so perfectly that when, near the end of the tale, a character says that "Canudos isn't a story; it's a tree of stories" you can't help but nod your head in agreement and marvel at Vargas Llosa's deft skill in crafting such an impeccable novel. Having been awarded the 2010 Nobel Prize for Literature one can only hope that this brings his works to a new generation of bibliophiles for he is, without a doubt, one of the finest wordsmiths that I have ever had the privilege of reading. ...more

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Oct 11, 2010 Stacie rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: borrowed, nobel-winning-author, bw11-challenge

Sometimes I read a book that has won an award, or the author is lauded as AMAZING and I am left thinking "why"...not the case with Llosa. I get it. I really get it.

Writing is brilliant. Story sucks you in and makes you duck with each gun shot and swing of a bayonet or machete. There were moments when I wasn't sure who I should be rooting for, each character was written in such a way that I understood their side - their beliefs made the most sense - they were fighting for the same thing, but that ...more

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Sep 29, 2012 Deanne rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: 1001-books-2008

A fantastic book set in Brazil in the late 1800's, a whole cast of characters with a story which is immense. There's no single hero of the piece, and no villain either, but that doesn't seem to matter. It's a book I think has earned a place on the 1001 list of books you must read before you die. Loved it. ...more

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Oct 11, 2020 Arukiyomi rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: 1001-books

A very good long read which has all the intensity of the most roasted Brazilian coffee you can imagine. There’s a lot of conflict here so steer clear if you’re not up for that.

Based on the true story of a hinterland rebellion in northeastern Brazil in the late 19th century known now as the War of Canudos. The coming millenium leads to the formation of a messianic cult formed almost entirely of peasants who form an early version of Occupy to form their own society building their own town of Canud A very good long read which has all the intensity of the most roasted Brazilian coffee you can imagine. There’s a lot of conflict here so steer clear if you’re not up for that.

Based on the true story of a hinterland rebellion in northeastern Brazil in the late 19th century known now as the War of Canudos. The coming millenium leads to the formation of a messianic cult formed almost entirely of peasants who form an early version of Occupy to form their own society building their own town of Canudos.

In the eyes of the government, doing anything they didn’t sanction invited the only solution governments understand: crush the people at all costs. And the cost is high, on both sides. This leads, ultimately to a major tragedy which should never have happened.

Vargas Llosa is, for me, unique in that he’s the only writer based south of San Diego that I can read with ease. For some reason, writers from South / Latin America seems to write in such a tortured enigmatic fashion that you wonder if they do this simply to obscure the fact that they really don’t have much of anything noteworthy to say.

Coelho, Allende, Bolano, Garcia Marquez, Paz – all of these have brought their offerings and received a Cain-like rebuke from me. Even Borges, while he may have much worthile to say, doesn’t half do a song and dance to get there.

But pick up this book and you are captivated from the start. The characterisation is vivid and vast and that includes the unforgiving landscape. The events that unfold are woven back and forth sometimes chronologically, sometimes not, like a baker kneading the dough of some fabulous bread.

But, as you discover early on, this bread will stick in the throat. As a reader you are disturbed throughout. The ending is particularly bitter.

The handling of the crisis shows that almost nothing has changed in the intervening century and a half. Aung San Suu Kyi, Assad, Mohammed bin Salman, King Hamad bin Isa Al Khalifa have all led brutal acts of oppression against their own citizens which are very selectively condemned by our own governments. ...more

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Jul 09, 2013 Anna rated it liked it · review of another edition

Książka przeczytana w liceum lub na początku studiów. Nie dla każdego i nie na każdym etapie życia. Mario Vargas Llosa jest specyficznym autorem i pokazuje Brazylię w swój sposób.

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