Mario Vargas Llosa's novel, The Bad Girl, is a fabulous read, despite the sorry translation of the title. In Spanish, Vargas Llosa's Madame Bovary-inspired romp is called Travesuras de la Niña Mala, which roughly translates as "The Naughty Tricks of the Bad Girl." The Bad Girl isn't half as fun (or marketable) a title.
But the English-language title can't dampen the liveliness that Vargas Llosa infuses into Madame Bovary's plot and (especially) characterization. This vivacity derives from two factors. First, Vargas Llosa has empathy -- perhaps even too much -- for his Bad Girl and Ricardo, the stand-ins for Emma and Charles Bovary. Unlike Flaubert, who famously wrote, "Bovary bores me, Bovary irritates me, the vulgarity of the subject gives me bouts of nausea" (quoted in The New Yorker), Vargas Llosa is plainly aroused by his Bad Girl. Her travesuras are -- far from being boring, irritating and vulgar -- something close to the meaning of life. As for Ricardo, he's no pathetic medical-officer-masquerading-as-a-doctor, no joke-hat wearing, club-foot tormenting butt of the author's derision. To the contrary, Ricardo is fidelity personified, the yin to Bad Girl's yang, the oppositional force without which the Bad Girl's travesuras have no power.
Second, Vargas Llosa has the benefit of writing post-Freud. Characterization in the age of the psychotherapist is, quite naturally, psychological. Flaubert's characters, however, are psycholgoically flat. We see -- ad nauseum we see -- their actions, but we are not privy to any depth of thought, and so their actions pile up, page after page, without our caring (until the accretion suddenly collapses Emma's world in the last 50 pages, and we do care -- we are horrified -- at the speed and force of the tornado that spins her to death).
In places, Flaubert implies that the superficiality of his characters' thought is the very reason we should condemn them. Seeing "Amor nel cor" (love in my heart) on his seal, Rodolphe realizes that it's the wrong message to imprint on his "I'm dumping you" letter to Emma. "Oh well, who cares!" he concludes, before smoking three pipes and going to sleep (p. 189).
But Flaubert's psychologically bereft characterization is not entirely by design; it's also of necessity. Pre-Freud, people didn't think with the same self-awareness as they do now. Actions didn't demand the same kinds of explanations -- I did it because my parents were mean to me; I suffered in my youth -- as they do now. Vargas Llosa's Bad Girl therefore has a backstory that allows the reader, if inclined, to excuse her.
Of course, the Bad Girl's sob story is no excuse. Going from rags-to-riches is no exemption from the simple respect of human dignity that we owe others, regardles of their status. Nor does childhood hardship waive the duties of maturity. Vargas Llosa believes this (and punishes the Bad Girl accordingly), but he doesn't really feel it (I suspect -- his Bad Girl has him wrapped around her finger). Still, the richness of the Bad Girl's psychological development, however halting, and the excruciating psychological pain Ricardo suffers -- touchingly rendered -- make the story a page turner where Madame Bovary is (in parts) a soporific.
And, of course, there's the sex.
But the English-language title can't dampen the liveliness that Vargas Llosa infuses into Madame Bovary's plot and (especially) characterization. This vivacity derives from two factors. First, Vargas Llosa has empathy -- perhaps even too much -- for his Bad Girl and Ricardo, the stand-ins for Emma and Charles Bovary. Unlike Flaubert, who famously wrote, "Bovary bores me, Bovary irritates me, the vulgarity of the subject gives me bouts of nausea" (quoted in The New Yorker), Vargas Llosa is plainly aroused by his Bad Girl. Her travesuras are -- far from being boring, irritating and vulgar -- something close to the meaning of life. As for Ricardo, he's no pathetic medical-officer-masquerading-as-a-doctor, no joke-hat wearing, club-foot tormenting butt of the author's derision. To the contrary, Ricardo is fidelity personified, the yin to Bad Girl's yang, the oppositional force without which the Bad Girl's travesuras have no power.
Second, Vargas Llosa has the benefit of writing post-Freud. Characterization in the age of the psychotherapist is, quite naturally, psychological. Flaubert's characters, however, are psycholgoically flat. We see -- ad nauseum we see -- their actions, but we are not privy to any depth of thought, and so their actions pile up, page after page, without our caring (until the accretion suddenly collapses Emma's world in the last 50 pages, and we do care -- we are horrified -- at the speed and force of the tornado that spins her to death).
In places, Flaubert implies that the superficiality of his characters' thought is the very reason we should condemn them. Seeing "Amor nel cor" (love in my heart) on his seal, Rodolphe realizes that it's the wrong message to imprint on his "I'm dumping you" letter to Emma. "Oh well, who cares!" he concludes, before smoking three pipes and going to sleep (p. 189).
But Flaubert's psychologically bereft characterization is not entirely by design; it's also of necessity. Pre-Freud, people didn't think with the same self-awareness as they do now. Actions didn't demand the same kinds of explanations -- I did it because my parents were mean to me; I suffered in my youth -- as they do now. Vargas Llosa's Bad Girl therefore has a backstory that allows the reader, if inclined, to excuse her.
Of course, the Bad Girl's sob story is no excuse. Going from rags-to-riches is no exemption from the simple respect of human dignity that we owe others, regardles of their status. Nor does childhood hardship waive the duties of maturity. Vargas Llosa believes this (and punishes the Bad Girl accordingly), but he doesn't really feel it (I suspect -- his Bad Girl has him wrapped around her finger). Still, the richness of the Bad Girl's psychological development, however halting, and the excruciating psychological pain Ricardo suffers -- touchingly rendered -- make the story a page turner where Madame Bovary is (in parts) a soporific.
And, of course, there's the sex.
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