Mario Vargas Llosa has died | Hacker News Reader

Mario Vargas Llosa has died

nytimes.com

212 pointsfunkaster80 comments

He once punched Gabriel García Márquez. I remember learning about this while reading Vargas Llosa as an adolescent, still sounds hard to believe: https://www.theparisreview.org/blog/2019/03/06/when-mario-va...

More details here: https://archive.ph/vabvA (Spanish)

Recent article on him in the London Review of Books, exploring his rightward turn as he grew older:

https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v47/n05/tony-wood/why-did-he...

Fairly biased article:

“In 2018, he celebrated Lula’s imprisonment in Brazil on dubious corruption charges, and the following year exulted in the right-wing coup that deposed Evo Morales in Bolivia. Since then he has voiced his support for far-right candidates such as José Antonio Kast in Chile and Jair Bolsonaro in Brazil…”

“Dubious” charges against Lula? — He was convicted of accepting a seaside apartment as a bribe for helping the OAS construction company get lucrative deals with state oil firm Petrobras.

Did Lula not do that? The claim is that Lula was targeted to keep him out of the election. Seems exactly the motivation for the various charges against Trump. Are charges dubious only when the right does that against the left? Marine Le Pen is another recent example of “dubious” charges being ok as long as it’s only going left against right.

Also Bolsonaro was termed “far right,” but Lula not called “far left?”

Does anyone actually do any neutral reporting or analysis? It seems that anyone to the right of JFK is “far right” while anyone to the left of Marx is “left leaning.”

More importantly, does anyone care any more? Seems like tribalism has gotten much worse over the past few years. The truth is, in the example of Lula is that is is/was very corrupt, but that he’s a leftist seems to excuse that.

Lula "far left" lol I wish...

Bolsonaro termed "far right" seems to be on the mark though. The guy praises military dictatorship, with many military figures in his government. He targeted the press and judiciary as enemies of the nation, and so on.

Lula hasn't nationalized industries, hasn't seized wealth, or even tried to, so "far left" doesn't seem to be as fitting. Where are the burnt churches?

Now, about corruption, I'm pretty sure neither shine, but that's Brazil for you. Wasn't the Bolsonaro family found to have bought around 50 properties in cash? Smells about as corrupt as the other side, sadly.

The media's use of the the term "far right" for democratically elected politicians is actually a really useful tell. They are unintentionally signaling how biased they are.

Either: "This politician, who received millions of votes is very far right of me (I am very far to the left)."

Or: "I am the center of the left-right spectrum, and this politician who received millions of votes is quite a ways to the right of me (the center), so they are obviously far right."

so, it doesn't tell you much.

if someone is democratically elected they can’t have en extreme ideology?

Extreme relative to what? The left-right framework is purely arbitrary and relative. I would argue the center should be set at the political views of the average voter. If 50% of voters elect a politician, I would then argue the candidate is quite close to the “center”.

Since most presidential elections are basically 50/50, every president and their opposition are all basically in the center, I guess.

Are there any conservative leaders that the media doesn't call "far right"?

the majority of them.

there's nothing dubious about Le Pen, she was found guilty of embezzlement for €3millions of public funds.

It’s not dubious but it’s not equal justice. The head of the IMF, Christine Lagarde, was found guilty of transferring €403 million from EU taxpayers to a certain tycoon, but she did not receive a verdict and now runs the ECB.

Don't forget Salvini's party, that stole at least 49M between 2008 and 2010. Nothing bad happened: they just have to return them, 600k per year, for 70 years. It's calculated that the final real value of the returned money will be less than 20M. Absolute scandal.

Le Pen was convicted of embezzlement for transferring European Parliament funds to run her National Front.

Legarde was convicted of negligence for approving the payout of the two decade long Tapie arbitration.

These are not the same.

> Seems exactly the motivation for the various charges against Trump.

I think that you can conspiracize both, or regard both as normal judicial process, but, if you say that it's just fair play against Lula and conspiracy against Trump, then I think that you are just aiming the hypocrisy in the other direction.

Lula's convictions were all overturned by the Supreme Court, so no, we shouldn't believe that he did the things he is accused of. Note that Bolsanaro was already in power when this happened, so there is little reason to suspect him of wielding power over the courts or anything like that.

And just because you're opposing a far right extremist like Bolsanaro doesn't make you a far left politician. For example, Le Pen is a far right extremist politician, but Macron is definitely not far left (though Jean-Luc Melanchon, the third place in the previous election, could rightly be called a far left candidate).

>Bolsanaro was already in power when this happened, so there is little reason to suspect him of wielding power over the courts or anything like that.

Bolsonaro had only made one appointment to the Supreme Federal Court at the time of the judgement in favor of Lula in 2021, while 7 of the 11 had been appointed by Lula or Dilma Rousseff. Yes, Lula was not in a position to pressure the supreme court as president but I don't think one should assume he had zero influence either. I'm not intimately familiar with Brazilian politics though and wouldn't want to unfairly imply any of the judges were in any way corrupt so I'll just leave it at that.

> Does anyone actually do any neutral reporting or analysis?

no, of course not, what a silly question. you think people are falling over themselves to tell you how things are for your sake?

You lost it at the far left/right part. Lula is far left only for the people who believe in the fight the communism plot. For the majority, he is much more aligned with the center, so called “centrão”, so much that neither the leftists are pleased with him anymore.

Lula is not far left by any reasonable definition of both "far" and "left"

> Did Lula not do that?

I'm not an expert and not that knowledgeable about the case but it seems to me the accusation -famously- stated things like "We have no hard proof" (...) "(but) we are convinced he did it"

Again - if the accusation states 'We have no proof', under assumption of innocence, yeah; he "didn't do it"

>Also Bolsonaro was termed “far right,” but Lula not called “far left?”

Bolsonaro was such an unbelievably terrible president that The Economist, that infamous right-wing rag (full disclosure: I am a long-time subscriber), endorsed Lula against him in 2018. If you're going to complain "does anyone care any more?" about a loss of common sense in politics, you probably shouldn't pair that complaint with a defense of Jair Bolsonaro, of all people.

> Dubious” charges against Lula? — He was convicted of accepting a seaside apartment as a bribe for helping the OAS construction company get lucrative deals with state oil firm Petrobras.

Yes, since nobody yet proved that the apartment was Lula's apartment. And tt was discovered several problems with Lula's charges, which was judged by a person that later was rewarded by Bolsonaro with a job as minister.

> Also Bolsonaro was termed “far right,” but Lula not called “far left?”

Lula is not far left, but center left. He is a social democrat at best, not a communist.

> "Dubious” charges against Lula? — He was convicted of accepting a seaside apartment as a bribe for helping the OAS construction company get lucrative deals with state oil firm Petrobras

is it also called a bribe when someone pay for it? I think it is called lawfare

> Also Bolsonaro was termed “far right,” but Lula not called “far left?”

Is lula exalting Stalin and trying to install a proletariat dictatorship?

Many prominent figures in Latin America and Spain turned away from socialist and communist positions after experiencing their effects: Guillermo Cabrera Infante, Octavio Paz (also Nobel Prize), Fernando Savater, Jorge Edwards, Jorge Luis Borges, Teodoro Petkoff...

Savater has not experienced socialism, Spain has never been socialist, Savater has been always someone in great need of attention and joins anyone who gives him that. And the Spain's fascism has give him that. I've seen it since He was teaching in University In San Sebastian and was easier to find him in certain bars and in the horse races than at his work.

> Spain has never been socialist

This seems like a no true scotsman argument, Spain has been mostly governed by a socialist party since it became a democracy:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spanish_Socialist_Workers%27_P...

Despite the name and its history, today they are just the Spanish socialdemocrats, from that same link:

> Historically Marxist, it abandoned the ideology in 1979

And you probably think that North Korea is a Democratic Republic too causes it's says so. Look at what they do not at what the say.

They did kill nuns though.

Where were they from? As a South American I'm having difficult figuring out which country is socialist in this continent. Venezuela?

Most (all?) the terrorist groups of Latin America were self-declared marxist/communist, like "Shining Part" in Peru: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shining_Path

That's true. Which just prove the government of those countries were never marxist/communist.

Not even close. For example:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Right-wing_paramilitarism_in...

This is much more revealing of how western media reports on Latin America than anything.

Except the most pervasive and deadliest terrorist groups in the history of South America have been the government, in the form of right-wing military dictatorships, often preaching about free market and being backed by the USA. People just forget to refer to them as such.

Argentina's military rulers were not free marketeers. Far from it. They were brutal though.

Is there anyone who both understands what the term free market term entails and still argues for it? Somehow no proponent of free markets has managed both success and influence

Only teenagers think they know what it is and that it is the solution to all problems

And yet, "free market" advocates are boldly positioned in publications across our culture, pitching utopia and delivering dystopia.

How is your reply relevant to my comment? I said the Argentine military rulers were far from free marketeers, and indeed, so they were. Their ideas in economics were very much of the protectionist / populist sort, and not just as to international trade, but in every way. It's almost as though the only difference between them and Perón et. al. was really about who shall govern, not what shall they do, except perhaps that the military rulers were a bit more subtle in their populism in that they were explicitly against cults of personality. Oh, and let's not forget that Perón was a military ruler... Basically it was a turf war -- a brutal one, yes, but let's not pretend that any of them were free marketeers doing what laissez faire American gringo yankee capitalists wanted. They did take training help from the U.S. at various times (don't forget that Argentina had several distinct post-war periods of military rule), and Pinochet in Chile in particular had the support of Nixon and Kissinger and the U.S. government, but the Argentine junta of 1976-1983 did not have Carter's support.

Necessary read (operation condor):https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Condor

Jorge Luis Borges neither started from a socialist position nor ever experienced the effects of socialism, so I don't know what he's doing on this list.

That's pretty much the least interesting thing you could possibly say about the author.

What are a few of the most interesting things you could possibly say?

Probably my favorite author of fiction. The feast of the goat (la fiesta del chivo) is at the top of my list if you have not read him.

I agree, and I agree with that recommendation.

It's the first one of his books that I read and I remember being completely in awe at his ability to write a novel as if he had a machine that allowed him to look into the minds of anyone at any time or place and then document what he saw.

That novel is about a totalitarian system, that of Trujillo in the Dominican Republic, and it's eerie how I started seeing the little details of human behavior that enable it in the story elsewhere later as well.

"La Fiesta del Chivo" brilliantly captures the vibrant essence of Dominican mannerisms and the melodic rhythm of the Spanish accent, instantly transporting me back to the DR. Beyond its rich cultural portrayal, the novel masterfully unfolds its gripping subject matter with unforgettable power.

Que en paz descanze.

*descanse

zhank you

He was a hugely talented writer, but I hate all his books because of how depressing they are.

Conversation in the Cathedral absolutely blew my mind when I first read it. Honestly, just the first section would have made a great book all on its own.

One of my favorite authors and one of the best novelists of all times. I am grateful he existed and that he wrote so much amazing books. I am sad that he's gone.

May he rest in peace!

The War of the End of the World, unfortunately the only book I read, but it left a lasting impression.

Rest in peace.

Give feast of the goat a shot. It’s still great and a much quicker read.

Will do, thanks for the recommendation.

I can recommend his Los cachorros (The Cubs).

I've read many of his books and I could certainly recommend all of them.

He was an extraordinary writer.

I acquired that one in Argentina last year, will probably read it next week. I only ever read Lituma en Los Andes and El Sueño del Celta, they were nice enough.

My mind was blown when I read it as a teenager.

For folks reading in Spanish here, what is his most accessible work? (I am a ~B2 in Spanish and have wanted to read a novel of his for a while.)

I found his memoir much more readable in Spanish than his fiction.

Gift link: https://www.nytimes.com/2025/04/13/books/review/mario-vargas...

I realized last night that I’ve never read anything by him in translation (there was one book in English—A Writer’s Reality—which was in English, but that book was based on lectures given in English and there is no Spanish original. As my ex-wife often says, “No good reason to read the translation if you can read the original.” La Fiesta de la Chivo influenced the form of the novel I’m currently querying (which, despite having had three excerpts published as short stories, appears destined to be yet another trunked work). The biggest challenge I found reading Vargas Llosa is that section and chapter breaks tend to be infrequent giving fewer opportunities to pause while reading.

> The biggest challenge I found reading Vargas Llosa is that section and chapter breaks tend to be infrequent giving fewer opportunities to pause while reading.

I don't mean to be snarky, but, seriously, can't you just pause whenever you want? I understand that the lack of breaks mean that the book doesn't define natural points to pause, but it still seems that one can impose such breaks oneself.

Yes, in theory you can pause at any point, but in practice it is not that easy to stop. I remember not hearing the boarding call and losing a flight while reading La fiesta del chivo…

that good eh

I prefer to pause reading at chapter breaks or, if necessary section breaks. Of course, with some authors you may be looking for paragraph breaks (and in the case of Proust, even those might be dozens of pages apart). Natural breaks in the narrative just make the most sense for stopping off and resuming a read.

The War of The End of The World is one of the best books I’ve ever read:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_War_of_the_End_of_the_Wo...

Read him while learning Spanish. Conversación en la Catedral is very saddening, but left long lasting impressions and made me a hint to read on history of South America.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mario_Vargas_Llosa

muy triste :(

“Four, said the Jaguar”

La ciudad y los perros sure is a great, if messed up, book.

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