Praise the stepmother

In Praise of the Stepmother ( Spanish Elogio de la madrastra ) is an erotic novel by the Peruvian Nobel Prize for Literature, Mario Vargas Llosa, from 1988. Nine years later, “ The Secret Notes of Don Rigoberto ” appeared as a continuation of this story.

content

After Alfonso's mother, Doña Eloisa, died in Lima , his father, Don Rigoberto, married the beautiful, divorced, forty-year-old Doña Lucretia. Alfonso only makes the father happy. He'll probably be top of the class again. The slender boy presents Don Rigoberto with one of his last school assignments - “Praise the Stepmother”. This is Alfonso's essay on a free subject. The effect is devastating. The father throws Alfonso's stepmother out of the house. What happened? The skinny Alfonso had revealed to the father that Doña Lucretia had committed marriage several times. The precocious boy and stepmother had used several days of business trips from the landlord - an insurance employee - to Trujillo and Piura and slept together. The “happy child” had mounted the stepmother like a “skilled rider”. The mostly lazy straw widow had previously given the staff off duty.

Quotes

Die young as an ideal: "I will die beautiful and happy."
"To me, going unnoticed means being happy."
Talking about physical love in concrete terms also means writing against the conventional syntax: "I give myself up, you masturbate, suck me up."
Pleonasm: "Glass showcase"

Self-testimony

Interview on September 13, 1990 in London: The author confesses that he never censors himself while writing. The text is a little bit surreal . Vargas Llosa had previously read Apollinaires Les maîtres de l'amour (Master of Love), Aretino and de Sade, among others . Freud played a role in relation to the sovereignty of Lucretia. The author calls himself an agnostic and "not a believer". In spite of all of this, he allegedly did not hear any serious opposition from the Church to the lewd, anomalous text. Regarding the decadence of the child Alfonso, a thought of Battalion , according to which innocence could be both angelic and diabolical, was probably quite decisive.

The author included six subjectively oriented picture reviews in the novel. Vargas Llosa was particularly inspired by Francis Bacon's painting Head I (1948). Another painting we discussed is Weg nach Mendieta 10 (1979) by Fernando de Szyszlo (1925-2017) and the following portraits:

Jacob Jordaens : Kandaules, King of Lydia, shows his wife to Minister Gyges (1646)
François Boucher : Diana after bathing (1742)
Titian : Venus with Cupid and Music (around 1555)
Fra Angelico : The Annunciation (1442/43)

reception

Hanspeter Brode reviewed the novel on January 16, 1989 in the “ FAZ ”, Wolfram Schütte on August 5, 1989 in the “ Frankfurter Rundschau ”, Volker Hage on August 11, 1989 in “ Die Zeit ”, and Rolf Grimminger on September 24, 1989 in the “ Süddeutsche Zeitung ” and M. Halter on October 5, 1990 in “ die tageszeitung ”.

source

Mario Vargas Llosa: Praise the stepmother. Novel. Translated from the Spanish by Elke Wehr . Licensor Suhrkamp, Frankfurt am Main 1989, Heyne, Munich 2000, ISBN 3-453-16516-0 .

literature

José Morales Saravia: Mario Vargas Llosa in the German-speaking area. For the introduction. In: Publication server of the Ibero-American Institute, pp. 13, 21 and 26th
Thomas M. Scheerer : Mario Vargas Llosa. Life and work. Suhrkamp, Frankfurt am Main 1991, ISBN 3-518-38289-6 .

Individual evidence

↑ Source, p. 4, 4. Zvo
↑ Source, p. 159
↑ Source, p. 64, 9. Zvu
↑ Source, p. 208, 6. Zvo
↑ Source, p. 182, 6. Zvo
↑ Source, p. 186, 1. Zvo
↑ Thomas M. Scheerer: Mario Vargas Llosa. Life and work. Suhrkamp, Frankfurt am Main 1991, pp. 163-171 and p. 205
^ Source, between pp. 136 and 137
^ Source, before p. 177
↑ Source, between pp. 32 and 33
^ Source edition, between pp. 80 and 81
↑ Source, between pp. 112 and 113
^ Source, between pp. 208 and 209
↑ Scheerer, p. 205, 11th line vu, pp. 212-219

[1] Source, p. 4, 4. Zvo

[2] Source, p. 159

[3] Source, p. 64, 9. Zvu

[4] Source, p. 208, 6. Zvo

[5] Source, p. 182, 6. Zvo

[6] Source, p. 186, 1. Zvo

[7] Thomas M. Scheerer: Mario Vargas Llosa. Life and work. Suhrkamp, Frankfurt am Main 1991, pp. 163-171 and p. 205

[8] Source, between pp. 136 and 137

[9] Source, before p. 177

[10] Source, between pp. 32 and 33

[11] Source edition, between pp. 80 and 81

[12] Source, between pp. 112 and 113

[13] Source, between pp. 208 and 209

[14] Scheerer, p. 205, 11th line vu, pp. 212-219


Novels and short stories	The leaders (1959) • The city and the dogs (1963) • The green house (1966) • The young dogs (1967) • Conversation in the “Cathedral” (1969) • The captain and his women's battalion (1973) • Flaubert and "Madame Bovary": The Eternal Orgy (1975) • Aunt Julia and the Art Writer (1977) • The War at the End of the World (1981) • Mayta's Story (1984) • Who Killed Palomino Molero? (1986) • The Storyteller (1987) • Praise to the Stepmother (1988) • Death in the Andes (1993) • The Fish in the Water (1993) • Letters to a Young Writer (1997) • The Secret Notes of Don Rigoberto (1997 ) • The Goat Festival (2000) • Paradise Is Elsewhere (2003) • The Bad Girl (2006) • The Celt's Dream (2010) • Fonchito y la luna (2010) • A Discreet Hero (2013) • El barco de los niños (2014) • The unveiling (2016)
Plays	La huida del Inca (1952) • La señorita de Tacna (1981) • Kathie y el hipopótamo (1983) • La Chunga (1986) • El loco de los balcones (1993) • Ojos bonitos, cuadros feos (1996) • Odiseo y Penélope (2007) • Al pie del Támesis (2008) • Las mil noches y una noche (2009) • Los cuentos de la peste (2015)
Essay volumes	Nationalism as a new threat (2000) • Victor Hugo and the temptation of the impossible (2004) • The world of Juan Carlos Onetti (2008) • Everything boulevard: Whoever loses his culture, loses himself (2012)