Travesuras de la nia mala (The Bad Girl: A Novel)
Travesuras de la nia mala (The Bad Girl: A Novel) | 
 enlarge | Author: Mario Vargas Llosa
Publisher: Alfaguara
Category: Book
List Price: $19.95
Buy New: $13.57
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Avg. Customer Rating:  30 reviews
Media: Paperback
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 376
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.9
Dimensions (in): 8.9 x 5.6 x 1
ISBN: 9707704667
Dewey Decimal Number: 863.7
EAN: 9789707704664
Publication Date: May 30, 2006
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Product Description
Ricardo, at an early age, sees his life-long dream fulfilled: to live in Paris. But an encounter with a past love will change everything. The young girl, adventurer, pragmatic, wicked, calculating, and mischievous, will drag him out of his small world of ambitions. This is the story of the intimate love that occupies more than three decades of Ricardo s life, and it is also a fascinating tale traveling through Europe, South America, and Japan. Starring in the backdrop are Peru s history from 1950 to 1987 and its swinging from democracy to dictatorship; Paris in the sixties and its great philosophers Sartre and Camus; the decade of the 70s in London, the birth of a new culture, drugs, music, hippies, freedom of love; Japan s big dealer lords, and, finally, Spain halfway through the 80s. Creating an admirable tension between comedy and tragedy, Mario Vargas Llosa plays with reality and fiction to release a story in which love presents itself as indefinable, owner of a thousand faces, just like the mischievous girl. Passion and distance, chance and destiny, pain and pleasure... Which is the true face of love? Description in Spanish: Ricardo ve cumplido, a una edad muy temprana, el sue que en su Lima natal aliment desde que ten uso de raz : vivir en Par . Pero el rencuentro con un amor de adolescencia lo cambiar todo. La joven, inconformista, aventurera, pragm ica e inquieta, lo arrastrar fuera del peque mundo de sus ambiciones. Testigos de ocas convulsas y florecientes en ciudades como Londres, Par , Tokio o Madrid, que aqu son mucho m que escenarios, ambos personajes ver sus vidas entrelazarse sin llegar a coincidir del todo. Sin embargo, esta danza de encuentros y desencuentros har crecer la intensidad del relato p ina a p ina hasta propiciar una verdadera fusi del lector con el universo emocional de los protagonistas. Creando una admirable tensi entre lo c ico y lo tr ico, Mario Vargas Llosa juega con la realidad y la ficci para liberar una historia en la que el amor se nos muestra indefinible, due de mil caras, como la ni mala. Pasi y distancia, azar y destino, dolor y disfrute... Cu es el verdadero rostro del amor?
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| Customer Reviews: Read 25 more reviews...
 Nobel Academy, are you there? May 31, 2006
18 out of 20 found this review helpful
This is another terrific one from MVLL and something really new is that the style is totally different from most of his other novels, the story goes in a straight line to the end, no flashbacks or mixed dialogues among different characters in mixed places or times, it is just a straight tale but a superb one, this fact is important because it will surely content to most people who used to think that his novels were excessively complicated to allow a clear reading.br /Personally I believe that MVLL has been telling the stories as he has been feeling them, e.g. Conversation in the Cathedral is precisely that, as a conversation one tends to go by the branches and forgets the main line sometimes, however, all the facts help to construct a view of the story.br /Along these years MVLL has also been constructing with each of his novels a complex and a unique technique that probably he abandons now to tell a story from a very simple perspective coming from a simple character and why not to finally reach all kind of readers.br /I prefer not to take so much time doing what most people will do reviewing the story, I would just say that it is a lovely but real one (I liked more than Love in time of the Cholera of Garcia Marquez simply because it is just more realistic without a happy ending but with a more likely ending)br /This story basically deals with a man who loves a woman without conditions along all his life and even though he regrets his decisions and feelings he concludes that his only inner force comes from this weird love and moreover that the only reason to be alive is to believe that some day they will be together, the story occurs in different times and places all of them described masterfully by MVLL, we can almost see and smell Paris in the 60's, London in the 70's and the things that happened during those years.br /What I think is the most important fact of this novel is that MVLL used to have a debt with his public, he probably never constructed before so rich a female character as he does with the Bad Girl in this novel, he didn't make it as well with the Aunt Julia nor with Flora Tristan and the other women in his novels, this character (the Bad Girl) is so rich and complex that shines itself, Bad Girl's intricate mind is finally almost comprehended at the end of the story when Ricardo can join all the pieces of her story and knows her father in Peru, well MVLL has just paid his debt.br /With this novel MVLL shows to the world that he possesses one of the widest horizons in the contemporaneous writing, after a very hard research work, he is able of telling a story based on himself as a school boy (La Ciudad y los Perros or Time of the Hero), of describing the most terrible "misunderstanding" in the Brazilian backlands during the XIX century (The War of the end of the world, for me one of his best two novels, the other is Conversation in the Cathedral), of telling vividly the story of one of the scariest dictators in the XX century (the superb Fest of the Goat), of telling the story of Gaugin and Flora Tristan and their search for "paradise" whatever it meant for them and now, with this extraordinary tale, of giving us an extraordinarily strong story about love but fundamentally about the human nature and the inevitable flow of time.br /I'm so tempted of writing an open letter to the Nobel's Academy to ask for him this year's Literature Nobel award, I cross my fingers to avoid the idea that like Borges he could die without win it, If someone wants to join my crusade just write to my e-mail.br /I wrote this comment in English but I red the novel in Spanish, I think it will be translated soon to the English.br /Enjoy this extremely nice reading.
what a voice July 22, 2006
9 out of 9 found this review helpful
Vargas Llosa has a powerful and dynamic storytelling style. It reminds me of Nabokov. The characters, the descriptions, the cameo appearances of various relatives and friends- all lend a depth that makes this more than just a memoir-like novel.br /br /Su manera de escribir es poderosa y encantadora. Que escritor mas imponente- antes de este libro, he leido solamente La tia Julia y el escribidor, pero ahora quiero leer otros de sus libros. Sugeriencias? La violencia no me apetece.
Correction June 26, 2006
8 out of 8 found this review helpful
I just want to make a correction to jC "iRebel" (Andover MASS). This book is a novel written by Mario Vargas Llosa. The author of "Liberty for Latin America" is Mario's son, Alvaro Vargas Llosa, who is a journalist. This novel does not have anything to do with politics or economics, it is a love story.br /By the way, I read the book in spanish and it was just great, however it is not one the greatest of Mario.
He always loved and never had her, who always had him January 12, 2007
7 out of 8 found this review helpful
This is one of the best books I've read in 2006, if not the best. It tells the story of a man slaved and abused by a woman - "La Nia Mala", the bad girl - he keeps loving for his whole life. He's a looser, she's someone who spends her whole life looking for grandeur, richness and pleasure. She comes to, and goes from, his life, always being accepted and always despising and abandoning him. And his life - he, a Peruvian as Vargas Llosa himself - takes place in the rebel Paris of the 60s and in the swinging London of the 70s. He's a man who never had another woman in his life than the "bad girl" - and that never really had her, who always had him.br /I have recommended the book to many people; all of them have been thrilled and have compulsively read - and have suffered with the man and loved the book.br /I have read it in Spanish (as written by Vargas Llosa), but there is an English translation.
Muchsimos razones para amar 'Travesuras' January 27, 2007
6 out of 7 found this review helpful
Pobre Ricardito: Este "pichiruchi" (un mal pagado traductor) ama a una chica cuyo nombre verdadero ni siquiera se enterar hasta muy tarde en su vida. br /br /Pero despacio: La historia de amor ya comienza en el verano de 1950 en el distrito limonense de Miraflores dnde el nio bueno (Ricardo) se enamora de la nia mala quin por aquel entonces an se llamaba Lily. Pero no dura mucho tiempo el romance. Ricardo se va a Paris para trabajar como traductor y interprete. Pero - que sorpresa! - la nia mala, ahora convertida en la camarada Marxista Arlette, tambin se encuentra all. Comienza otra breve romance hasta que la nia mala se fue a Cuba. br /br /Despus de su regreso a Francia a la nia mala le gusta mudarse de nuevo y se encontrar en Londres durante la era de los hippies. Y quin crees le seguir a la nia mala hasta all? S, claro: Ricardo. No voy a continuar aqu para no revelar demasiado, pero claro, hay algn punto en que cambiar drsticamente toda la historia... br /br /Es una historia sobre traicin, obsesin, decepcin, una ambicin desmesurada y sobre todo sobre las muchas facetas de amor. Ricardo es una persona tpicamente pequeoburguesa y la nia mala es una persona que aspira mucho a la felicidad econmica. Qu va a ganar: el dinero o el amor? Qu crees?br /br /Creo que hay gente - como yo - a quin le gusta muchsimo leer este libro; pero posiblemente haya otro tipo de gente a quin no le va a placer mucho sta ultima novela del hombre ms famoso de Arequipa (la ciudad blanca de Per). El razn es que Travesuras de la nia mala es un libro bastante diferente a los dems de Vargas Llosa. br /br /Escrito en el estilo clsico de las love-stories del siglo XX, MVLL me sorprendi grandemente con esa novela. Como ya mencion antes, yo amo este libro. Muchas gracias Mario por sta excelente novela!
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