Conversation in the "cathedral"

Conversation in the ›Cathedral‹ ( Spanish: Conversación en La Catedral ) is the third novel by the Peruvian Nobel Prize laureate Mario Vargas Llosa from 1969. It is and describes a portrait of Peru under the dictatorship of Manuel A. Odrías in the 1950s Living in different social classes. One of the big themes of the novel is the disgust of the “sorry bourgeois boy” Santiago Zavala at the corrupt Odría government (1948-1956). In narrative terms, over fourteen years are spanned well beyond those seven years.

action

In Lima , the 30-year-old journalist Santiago Zavala, who has “a small post in a newspaper”, happens to meet the black Ambrosio Pardo, a former driver of his late father. Both go to the bar called La Catedral and talk for about four hours. Santiago has been away from home for years because he no longer wanted to lead the easy life of a son from a rich family.

1

The story tells of the days far back when Santiago's father Fermín Zavala did big business as an entrepreneur - among other things because his friend Cayo Bermúdez had given him lucrative government contracts. More precisely, the past is rolled out from the point in time when Santiago's mother Señora Zoila threw out the maid Amalia. Fermín Zavala not only builds the highway from Lima to Pacasmayo , but also runs a pharmaceutical company. In the latter, he hires Amalia.

Cayo Bermúdez, from Chincha, appointed by his old classmate, the Junta Interior Minister Colonel Espina, as security director in the Odría government team, had taken his childhood friend Ambrosio as a chauffeur to Lima. Cayo Bermúdez had kept himself and his wife Rosa afloat in Chincha by selling tractors. Rosa had to stay in Chincha, but was financially supported by Cayo Bermúdez.

Fermín Zavala calls his favorite child Santiago "Flaco" (Eng. "The Slender"). He is called by the sister Tete and the brother Chispas intelligence beast. Santiago doesn't take his law degree at the University of San Marcos in Lima very seriously. He doesn't like to become a poet, but he likes literature. He works indecisively in a communist cell, but prefers to remain a sympathizer of the party. In contrition, he confesses to his comrades that his father is close to the government. Santiago is arrested while preparing a solidarity strike with the trams. Cayo Bermúdez did not first ask the Interior Minister, Colonel Espina, but decided to prick the "boil San Marcos". Stormtroopers in the university - Espina is beside herself. Cayo Bermúdez knows that people like Odría won't stay in power forever. He will be the whipping boy after Odría.

Fermín Zavala's loyalty to the government was not far off. Odría was disappointed when the henchman turned down the "Senator". Fermín Zavala confides in his son that one day he will chase Odría away. Nevertheless, his reputation is enough to personally bring out his favorite son Santiago, who is sitting behind the bars of a prefecture. Cayo Bermúdez humiliates his friend Fermín Zavala. The son Santiago conspired with the Cahuide several times from home. Fermín Zavala knows that his friend is watching him. Notwithstanding various promising offers from the father, Santiago had left home shortly after his release from prison, dropped out of university and became a poorly paid journalist.

2

Cayo Bermúdez was promoted to Minister of the Interior after a coup attempt by Colonel Espina and from then on kept a lover - Señora Hortensia. In her luxurious villa, this mistress of the minister has sex with her best friend, Señorita Queta, a prostitute. Working in the pharmaceutical company hadn't been the right thing for Amalia. Now she has come to work as a housemaid with Señora Hortensia. As soon as the señora is out of the house, the chauffeur Ambrosio knocks on Amalia's kitchen door and sleeps with the young woman. Ambrosio fears that he will be caught with Amalia and lose his job, but he confesses his love to her.

There is a general strike in Arequipa . At a rally there, among other things, the resignation of Cayo Bermúdez is demanded. The workers do not want to end the strike until the interior minister has resigned. Because Fermín Zavala sympathizes with the strikers and he is considered a follower of the conspirator Colonel Espina, he is persecuted by Cayo Bermúdez, his business is almost ruined and has to hide outside of Lima.

Civilians like Cayo Bermúdez are removed from the government after the workers' unrest. The Minister of the Interior is looking for a long run; flees to Brazil. He didn't say goodbye to Hortensia. A military cabinet rules Peru. The strike in Arequipa is ended. Fermín Zavala, emerging from hiding, goes in and out of Hortensia's villa.

Chispas and Santiago meet. The brother holds the journalist against his departure from the family. Chispas has the solution: go to the parents on the spot and make up. Santiago does not accept the offer. He lives on in his pension. Tete asks Santiago at a meeting. The sister doesn't even know that the brother turned away from the communists and turned to the drinkers.

3

Vargas Llosa leaps forward in time. Instead of Odría , Prado is suddenly president. As a journalist, Santiago is summoned to the scene of a crime. Señora Hortensia was brutally murdered. The descent of the Musa, as the dead woman is now called, had progressed inexorably after the flight of her patron Cayo Bermúdez. After considerable financial difficulties, she had moved from the villa to modest living conditions and had decided to work as a singer. The songs and the audience have been different over the past few years and the “Queen of the Nightclub” ›Embassy‹ has not gotten any younger. The Musa Hortensia had drunk, swallowed pills, attempted suicide and lived with her friend Queta. The "home" of the prostitute Queta is the brothel of the French Ivonne. Ivonne can't overlook the snooty fuss from the time in the villa for Hortensia.

At the beginning of the third part, another story to be retold is mentioned. Ambrosio had been forced to flee from Lima to the jungle, more precisely to his hometown of Pucallpa . There in the province he was financially ruined. Amalia, who was with him, became pregnant in the jungle city.

Back to the murder story. Queta cannot get over the death of her friend and complains to Ivonne of her suffering. From the conversation it emerges that "Goldei" (Fermín Zavala) had Hortensia killed. Hortensia wanted to blackmail the rich entrepreneur. Fermín Zavala used his former chauffeur Ambrosio as a murderer after Fermín Zavala was blackmailed by Hortensia. Hortensia wanted to inform Señora Zoila of her husband's homosexual relationship with Ambrosio.

Ambrosio becomes a father: Amalia gives birth to a daughter and names her Amalia Hortensia.

Since the novel is declared a conversation, Vargas Llosa allows himself further leaps on the time scale:

Santiago wants to be reconciled with his father. He warns him; informs him of the content of an anonymous letter to the editorial staff of his newspaper. A thug, the father's chauffeur, is named as a murderer. Fermín Zavala defends his driver. Ambrosio is not a thug. The father took over Ambrosio from Cayo Bermúdez because the interior minister wanted a policeman as a chauffeur. Fermín Zavala laments his son's suffering. The government contracts that Cayo Bermúdez had stolen from him were given to the Pradists.

Ambrosio operates in Pucallpa as a haulage company with bus trips to Tingo María, 250 kilometers away . He is cheated by his partner and destroyed in business. In Pucallpa, Amalia learns that her mistress Hortensia has been murdered and, as a former employee, fears police reprisals. In a private conversation, Ambrosio confesses to a friend from the secret police that he killed Hortensia because he felt sorry for his master, the blackmailed Don Fermín. It was that good friend who had sent Ambrosio back into the jungle. The good friend's relative there in Pucallpa had been an extremely bad recommendation as Ambrosio's new business partner.

4th

Again a look into the future stands at the beginning of the romance part. Fermín Zavala dies after his second heart attack . He had previously traveled to New York with his wife and daughter and had himself examined there.

The father does not give up hope. Santiago is to continue running the company with his brother. Santiago opposes it; marries the young nurse Ana Rosa, a dark-skinned, thin, little girl with crooked legs and bad breath, without her parents and siblings knowing. Ana's heart is in the right place and she uses swear words. When Santiago introduces his wife at home, there is a scandal. Señora Zoila makes a scene for the prodigal son. You part in anger.

Amalia will not survive her next pregnancy. The young woman and child die in childbirth.

Fermín Zavala dies. During the funeral service, Ana makes up with her mother-in-law. But even after the reconciliation, Santiago keeps his distance from the family. He refuses all lucrative offers from his brother, who is now very financially strong.

Ambrosio returns penniless to Lima and kills abandoned dogs there in a sack. Santiago does not understand his social decline. Ambrosio could have asked Santiago's father for help when he was still alive.

Cayo Bermúdez is back in the country and lives in a villa in Chaclacayo. There is a swimming pool in the garden.

Quotes

• The busy entrepreneur Fermín Zavala: "Parliament is suitable for those who have nothing to do."
• "If you hug too much, you get little to pack."
• On the hygiene of the bachelor: "Every week a laxative and a fuck , ..."
• "Life is a swing, sometimes it goes up, sometimes it goes down."
• One of the many male supporting characters smiles " hybrid ".
• A radio communication to a distant location is interrupted by a series of "electrical burps".
• Ambrosio says at the end of the novel: "A person has his pride, no matter how deep he is in the shit."

shape

The novel consists of four parts that are artfully interwoven. The two levels of present and past change constantly. The present refers to the exchange of words between Santiago and Ambrosio in the restaurant ›Cathedral‹ and the past refers to the content of the conversation. Apart from the two levels, the text contains passages that do not fit into the simple two-level model. What are meant are text stretches that the reader thinks an omniscient narrator is talking about. This includes those sections about which Santiago and Ambrosio cannot say anything. Vargas Llosa writes, for example, "... Amalia tried to introduce herself ..." or "... thought Queta ...". There are other clues as to who is narrating. Ambrosio says "young gentleman" to Santiago. But in the narrative maze of the first part, such pointers are not of any great help. As indicated, Vargas Llosa is not slavishly adhering to this two-level concept.

reception

• With Scheerer, after reading it, the impression of the subjectivity of what is communicated remains. Even more - the author would offer a mind game; present fragments of thoughts.

• Lentzen focuses on social inequalities, for example between the Cholo Cayo Bermúdez - son of a wealthy moneylender and the "negro" Ambrosio and goes to the pillars of power, like the police, secret police and paid civilian thugs. The socially stronger dominates the weaker; For example, Fermín Zavala forced Ambrosio to engage in homosexual practices. After all, Ambrosio even murders out of submission for his master. With this, the “negro” seals his social decline, from which Fermín Zavala does not catch him. Good relationships are the be-all and end-all in bourgeois circles. Santiago gets the job in the newspaper editorial office only with the advice of his uncle Clodomiro. As an opportunist, Fermín Zavala does business with those in power. Favorite son Santiago cannot tolerate such morals and leaves the house.

literature

Used edition

• Conversation in the 'cathedral'. Novel. Translated from the Spanish by Wolfgang A. Luchting. Suhrkamp, ​​Frankfurt am Main 1984 (German translation: Claassen, Düsseldorf 1976), ISBN 978-3-518-37515-0 (st 1015)

Further editions in German

• "The other side of life". Novel. Translated from the Spanish by Wolfgang A. Luchting. Claassen, Düsseldorf 1976, ISBN 3-546-46129-0

Secondary literature

• Thomas M. Scheerer : Mario Vargas Llosa. Life and work. Suhrkamp, ​​Frankfurt am Main 1991, ISBN 3-518-38289-6
• Norbert Lentzen: Literature and Society: Studies on the relationship between reality and fiction in the novels of Mario Vargas Llosas. Romanistischer Verlag, Bonn 1994 (Diss. RWTH Aachen 1994), ISBN 3-86143-053-3

Remarks

1. ↑ At the end of the novel, Belaúnde is president (edition used, p. 619, 8. Zvo). That is the time from 1963 to 1968.
2. ↑ Alejandro Esparza Zañartu (Spanish: Alejandro Esparza Zañartu ) is modeled on the figure of the future Minister of the Interior, Cayo Bermúdez (Edition used, p. 306, 8. Zvu) (Scheerer, p. 46, 6. Zvu).
3. ↑ Before General Odría became president in 1950, he headed a military junta from 1948 (see also Spanish Manuel A. Odría ).

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Edition used, p. 4
2. ↑ Scheerer, p. 43, 18. Zvo
3. ↑ Scheerer, p. 42, 16. Zvu
4. ↑ Edition used, p. 501, 8th Zvu
5. ↑ Scheerer, p. 42, 21. Zvo and edition used, p. 620, 8. Zvu
6. ↑ Edition used, p. 168 below
7. ↑ Edition used, p. 199, 1st Zvu, see also Spanish Cahuide
8. ↑ see for example the edition used, p. 338, 14th Zvu
9. ↑ Lentzen, p. 56, 12. Zvo
10. ↑ Edition used, p. 331, 18. Zvo
11. ↑ Edition used, p. 446, 14. Zvo
12. ↑ Edition used, p. 607, 11. Zvu
13. ↑ Lentzen, p. 26, 19th Zvu
14. ↑ span. Chaclacayo
15. ↑ Edition used, p. 164, 15. Zvu
16. ↑ Edition used, p. 270, 7th Zvu
17. ↑ Edition used, p. 335, 16. Zvu
18. ↑ Edition used, p. 347, 21. Zvo
19. ↑ Edition used, p. 350, 14th Zvu
20. ↑ Edition used, p. 391, 15. Zvu
21. ↑ Edition used, p. 627, 14. Zvo
22. ↑ Edition used, p. 424, 9. Zvu
23. ↑ Edition used, p. 536, 15. Zvu
24. ↑ see for example the edition used, p. 84, 2nd Zvu or p. 130, 6th Zvo
25. ↑ see for example the edition used, p. 117, 9. Zvu (There it says “thinks”. “Thought” would be appropriate.)
26. ↑ Scheerer, p. 43, 5. Zvo
27. ↑ Lentzen, p. 28, 13. Zvu
28. ↑ Lentzen, p. 23, 12. Zvu
29. ↑ Lentzen, p. 32, 12. Zvo
30. ↑ Lentzen, p. 39, 4th Zvu
31. ↑ Lentzen, p. 40 above
32. ↑ Lentzen, p. 50 middle
33. ↑ Lentzen, p. 52 above
34. ↑ The output used is not free from printing errors (see for example p. 320, 4. Zvo).