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    In Praise of the Stepmother: A Novel
    In Praise of the Stepmother: A Novel
    In Praise of the Stepmother: A Novel
    Ebook133 pages2 hours

    In Praise of the Stepmother: A Novel

    By Mario Vargas Llosa

    3.5/5

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    About this ebook

    With meticulous observation and the seductive skill of a great storyteller, Vargas Llosa lures the reader into the shadow of perversion that, little by little, darkens the extraordinary happiness and harmony of his characters. The mysterious nature of happiness and above all, the corrupting power of innocence are the themes that underlie these pages, and the author has perfectly met the demands of the erotic novel, never dimming for an instant the fine poetic polish of his writing.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherMacmillan Publishers
    Release dateMar 4, 2011
    ISBN9781429921831
    In Praise of the Stepmother: A Novel
    Author

    Mario Vargas Llosa

    Mario Vargas Llosa was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature "for his cartography of structures of power and his trenchant images of the individual's resistance, revolt, and defeat." He has also won the Miguel de Cervantes Prize, the Spanish-speaking world’s most distinguished literary honor. His many works include The Feast of the Goat, In Praise of the Stepmother, and Aunt Julia and the Scriptwriter, all published by FSG.

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    Reviews for In Praise of the Stepmother

    3.5/5

    201 ratings15 reviews

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    • 4/5
      So there I was, rushing down the center aisle of my employment [WARNING: name drop alert!] when Candace Bergen steps out in front of me and smiles, "So there you are; I have been looking everywhere for you." That was OK, I guess, as she was quite the beauty, but our doings were always colored by my sense of wonder that she was married to a giant of world cinema, one Louis Malle! And, some years before, he enchanted me and the world with his Murmur of the Heart, a film that had audiences cheering on its hapless teen-aged hero to seduce his step-mother. Now that is what I call 'charm!' But Nobel Laureate, Peru's Mario Vargas Llosa goes Malle one better, because his lead protagonist is even younger, an impish, angelic prepubescent child named Alfonso. And Little A has a carnal fascination so deep-seated toward his lovely step-mom Lucretia that none of us, character or reader alike, know what to make of any of it, especially when the narrative is clouded by befuddled Lima businessman and husband Rigoberto. There is, however, no charm in this misadventure! Proponents of this novel would call it Erotic Fiction, but, for me, we are in the heights of Literary Fiction, in Lolita country so to speak. Nabokov would be proud! And, allow me to add, this is one beautifully written novel, translation or not!
    • 4/5
      Well, this $2 clearance book is certainly different from my normal repertoire. The story is simple, but the writing/prose is complex. Six pieces of artwork with its own story are interwoven between the chapters; each artwork tale is lightly or directly aligned to the main story. Together they form the most unlikely tale of eroticism that breaches decency. After all, how can the subject of incest and a painting of the annunciation arouse one’s imagination? Perhaps that’s what make this erotica a worthy read despite the subject.The 40-year-old Dona Lucrecia had married the widower, Don Rigoberto, who has a stepson, Fonchito, whose face is as angelic as a cherub. Fonchito is physically affectionate towards his new stepmother to a magnitude that stirs her insides. Meanwhile, her lovemaking with her husband is a nightly ritual and legend not to be missed. Though Fonchito’s boyhood age was never mentioned, his seductions (with a threat of suicide) are eventually successful resulting in an expected love triangle, which of course, doesn’t end well. It’s not difficult to guess who is the true “evil-doer” behind this mess.The curiosity of this book lays with the artistry of the prose. The basics of a human being is amplified – from the love-making, and more importantly, the arousals leading to the love making, to Don Rigoberto’s nightly primping making himself presentable to his lovely Lucrecia. A full chapter is devoted to his defecation, feet and armpit cleaning, that ends with him admiring his own unicorn. He is a different kind of metro-sexual, entirely devoted to Lucrecia. Each art is enveloped in an imaginative story. The best of which is Llosa’s interpretation of “Diana at the Bath” by Boucher. Diana had hunted, bathed, and being tended to by her favorite, Justinianna, who will pleasure her, make love to her, suck her toes, all while an unseen goatherd lusts for them. Get the idea? At times, the naughty theme made my cheeks turned toasty. “…you were blind and on your knees between my thighs, kindling my fires like a groveling, diligent servant.” At other times, it made me smile: “Making an intense intellectual effort – to recite aloud the Pythagorean theorem – Don Rigoberto halted halfway in its course the erection that was beginning to bare it amorous little head, and splashing it with handfuls of cold water, he calmed it down and returned it, shy and shrunken, to its discreet foreskin cocoon.” And the incest was cringe worthy, “Only a moment before, he had been a youth without scruples, of unerring instinct, riding her like an expert horseman.” Though the book is likely not for everyone, this quote makes the book complete for me. We all need happiness. “The bliss he had found in his solitary hygienic practices and, above all, in the love of his wife appeared to him to be sufficient compensation for his normalcy. Having this, what need was there to be rich, famous, eccentric, a genius? The modest obscurity that his life represented in the eyes of others, that routine existence as the general manager of an insurance company, concealed something which, he was sure, few of his fellows enjoyed or even suspect existed: possible happiness.”
    • 4/5
      An odd novella that was not exactly (or even remotely) to my taste, but oddly compelling reading. The story is a love triangle between an older man, his new wife, and the man's young son (exactly how young I hate to imagine). It proceeds in thick, excruciating detail to focus on a few days in their lives, with about one-third of the book devoted the man's nighttime routine, including extremely detailed descriptions of what most politely could be called his toilette. About seven of the chapters center around paintings that are reproduced in the book -- and which are the fulcrum of somewhat bizarre and not overly sexy sexual fantasies. All of which comes to a satisfying conclusion with a twist that retrospectively makes sense of some of the books peculiarities.
    • 4/5
      I wasn't really sure where this book was going when I started reading it. It seemed to focus on the sexual fantasies and activities of Don Rigoberto, collector of erotic paintings and his new and younger wife Lucrecia. The reproduction of some of these paintings in the book provide the theme to some of the stories told and as the book progresses, so do the erotic nature of the paintings.But Don Rigoberto has a son, Alfonso, an angelic looking cherub, affectionate and seemingly guileless. All he wants is the love of his stepmother and Lucrecia finds herself torn between the love she feels for the boy and how she thinks she ought to treat him. The events in the final chapters changed my view of the characters and the events that had taken place in the preceding chapters. The genius of Llosa is highlighted in the way he exposes the darker motivation behind the actions taken by his characters. It wasn't a book I was entranced with at the beginning, but I was wowed by the time I arrived at the last page.
    • 1/5
      Generally, I start reading a book without any idea what it a book, well when I read fiction I guess. I never read the back of the cover, haha, but maybe I should start. I'm not sure what I thought this book would be about, but what it turned out to be was not what I expected. It was a weird book about incest, and strange back stories. I really did not enjoy it. It was work to finish.
    • 1/5
      I didn't suffer this much with any book since Twilight. But now I'm older and wiser and have learnt that we don't have to finish every books we started.
    • 5/5
      I read this in one sitting. Llosa offers the reader an erotic, provocative, shocking view of the human spirit. The narration moves from the tale of a man, his second wife and his son to interpretive narration focused on classic works of art. His theme takes the reader deep into the instinctive and sensual part of their being and boldly suggests that it is a fine line between what is a human being's dark side and evil. Where does sensuality become depravity? The references to and interpretations of the classic paintings speak to the timeless nature of our darker yearnings and the dilemmas they create. Do not venture into this one unless or until you prepare for an unsettling read.
    • 4/5
      "In Praise of the Stepmother" is a thought-provoking fantasia on innocence, sex, and art which never fails to force us into questioning our most precious of assumptions. Not wishing to have our own little bourgeois moralities threatened is, I suppose, one reason why many people have dismissed this novel as "disgusting" or "immoral" or something equally nonsensical.At its core rests a simple story. After a failed marriage with his young son Alfonso's mother, Don Rigoberto marries Dona Lucrecia, a woman whom he truly adores and is certainly erotically infatuated with. On the first page of the novel, Alfonso, a boy of ten or twelve, leaves a note on his stepmother's pillow congratulating her on her fortieth birthday, and saying that he will do his best to become first in his class to reward her. This is the inaugurating move in a cat-and-mouse game that drives the entire novel forward in a series of events that reaches its apex in a lurid sexual encounter between Alfonso and Lucrecia which occurs while Rigoberto is on a business trip. She does not deliberately set out to do this, yet still has found herself titillated by the occasional fugitive thought of her and her stepson in coitus. At the very end of the novel, we find out that Alfonso wrote an essay for school in which he details his erotic relationship with his mother and, to make matters worse, read it to his father. Why? We don't know. In the last pages of the book, the housekeeper asks Alfonso why he would do such an insidious thing to the stepmother he loved so much, to which he replies, "I did it for you," seemingly setting the entire wheel rolling toward tragedy and destruction once more.Vargas Llosa artfully interlards the worlds of the erotic and sensual (the lovemaking of Lucrecia and Rigoberto) with Rigoberto's mundane daily ablutions - the trimming of his nose hairs, the application of cologne to his body, the special care that he gives his feet and hands. This spiritual aubade to the body, which apparently bored so many readers, is what drew me in and made turned the reading into an almost ecstatic experience. This was only heightened by the six exquisite colored plates that are placed in the novel to accentuate themes in the story.Alfonso's duplicity (or was it duplicity after all?) asks, as Slavoj Zizek has done by other means, "Isn't love the ultimate act of violence?" After this novel, it is impossible not to see the ulterior and tenebrous underbelly of the most innocent of gestures. Whose desire is outlawed, Lucrecia's or the boy's? Can Don Rigoberto somehow turn outside that scrutiny to which he so easily applies to himself in his daily bath in order to answer what has happened under his roof? Some of these questions are never answered, but the way Vargas Llosa asks them makes reconciling one's self to the novel and its moral imperatives deliciously fun.
    • 4/5
      Don Rigoberto is a prosperous Peruvian businessman with a passion for art, especially of the erotic variety. He takes meticulous care of his aging body, the better to enjoy his evenings with his new bride Lucrecia. Lucrecia's only worry as she celebrates her fortieth birthday is whether her stepson Alfonso will accept her as his mother. Little does she suspect that the ambitious youth plans to establish an entirely different type of relationship with his beautiful stepmother.The novel is structured around several works of art which are pictured in the text. Approximately every third chapter is a dream sequence in which one of the characters projects him or herself into the painting, living out the fantasies which reflect the dreamer's desires of the moment. These chapters form a very interesting, and sometimes provocative, perspective on how we view and interpret art.In Praise of the Stepmother is an erotic, intriguing and surprising short novel. The story continues in The Notebooks of Don Rigoberto.
    • 4/5
      An odd novella that was not exactly (or even remotely) to my taste, but oddly compelling reading. The story is a love triangle between an older man, his new wife, and the man's young son (exactly how young I hate to imagine). It proceeds in thick, excruciating detail to focus on a few days in their lives, with about one-third of the book devoted the man's nighttime routine, including extremely detailed descriptions of what most politely could be called his toilette. About seven of the chapters center around paintings that are reproduced in the book -- and which are the fulcrum of somewhat bizarre and not overly sexy sexual fantasies. All of which comes to a satisfying conclusion with a twist that retrospectively makes sense of some of the books peculiarities.
    • 3/5
      Hmmm...I'll confess that the story's often-scintillating eroticism held my interest. Also, several back stories behind the portrayed artworks struck me as ingenious -- to me, they were the book's best feature.But, overall, I was left wondering what points the author wanted to make, and also why he felt the story was worth publishing. Stylistically and conceptually, the story left me feeling underwhelmed -- I had expected more substance from the work of a Nobel laureate. If I had read another of the author's books, would I have gathered a better first impression of Llosa? If so, which one?
    • 4/5
      Simply shocking. From a distance, one would think it might be yet another short, easy-to-read love story; it's nothing like that. A perfect family, a succession of happenings and images, a lot of imagination used to build and follow a diabolic plan against the stepmother. And it's all inspired by art... beautiful paintings in a wonderful house, the appearance of innocence - a perfect world. It only becomes real & cruel on the last page... of a 30 pages story. Extremely intense.
    • 5/5
      A perfect little fable. I read this at a time when memoir fiction was ruling over America. It was splendid to read a book by an author who actually wanted to do more than just lay his past sins out on the page. In Praise of the Stepmother is incredibly inventive in its construction, beautifully written in its prose, and one of those books that just sucks you into its own world.
    • 5/5
      A wonderfull combination of erotic ideas and art. Little reproductions of the paintings are inside the book. Marvellous!!
    • 5/5
      This is one of those books that makes you nervous and queesy at the thought of the actual premise -- a woman having sexual relations with her young stepson. But the way in which Vargas Llosa narrates the story grips you from the beginning and wont let you put this book down.

    Book preview

    In Praise of the Stepmother - Mario Vargas Llosa

    One.

    Doña Lucrecia’s Birthday

    The day she turned forty, Doña Lucrecia found on her pillow a missive in a childish hand, each letter carefully traced with great affection:

    Happy birthday, stepmother!

    I haven’t any money to buy you a present, but I’ll study hard and be first in my class, and that will be my present. You’re the best and the fairest one of all, and I dream of you every night.

    Happy birthday again!

    Alfonso

    It was past midnight and Don Rigoberto was in the bathroom performing his ablutions, slow-paced and complicated, before going to bed. (Next to erotic painting, bodily cleanliness was his favorite leisuretime pursuit; spiritual purity concerned him far less.) Touched by the little boy’s letter, Doña Lucrecia felt an irresistible impulse to go to him, to thank him for it. Those lines were really her acceptance within the family. Would he be awake? No matter! If he wasn’t, she would kiss him on the forehead, very gently, so as not to wake him.

    As she descended the carpeted stairs of the darkened town house on her way to Alfonso’s room, she thought to herself: I’ve won him over. He loves me now. And her old fears about the child began to evaporate like a light snow gnawed away by the summer sun of Lima. She had neglected to put on a dressing gown; she was naked beneath her thin black silk nightdress, and the full white curves of her body, firm still, seemed to float in the shadow illuminated here and there by glancing reflections from the street. Her long hair hung loose and she had not yet removed the teardrop pendants at her ears, the rings and the necklaces that she had worn for the party.

    There was a light still on in the youngster’s room—Foncho certainly read far into the night! Doña Lucrecia knocked softly and went in: Alfonsito! In the yellowish cone of light from the little bedside lamp, there appeared, from behind a book by Alexandre Dumas, the startled little face of a Child Jesus. Rumpled golden curls, mouth agape in surprise baring a double row of gleaming white teeth, big wide-open blue eyes trying to bring her forth from the shadow of the doorway. Doña Lucrecia did not move, observing him with tender affection. What a lovely child! A born angel, one of those court pages in the elegant erotic etchings that her husband kept under quadruple lock and key.

    Is that you, stepmother?

    What a nice letter you wrote me, Foncho. It’s the best birthday present anybody has ever given me, I swear.

    The boy had leapt from under the covers and was now standing on the bed. He smiled at her, his arms opened wide. As she came toward him, smiling too, Doña Lucrecia surprised—divined?—in the eyes of her stepson a gaze that changed from happiness to bewilderment and riveted itself, in astonishment, on her bosom. Good heavens, you’re practically naked, she suddenly thought. How could you have forgotten your dressing gown, you idiot. What a sight for the poor boy. Had she had more to drink than she should have?

    But Alfonsito’s arms were now about her: Many happy returns, stepmother! His voice, fresh and carefree, made the night young again. Doña Lucrecia felt the slender silhouette of frail bones against her body and was reminded of a little bird. The thought crossed her mind that if she hugged him tightly to her, the child would break like a reed. With him standing on the bed, the two of them were the same height. He had twined his thin arms around her neck and was lovingly kissing her on the cheek. Doña Lucrecia embraced him, too, and one of her hands, gliding beneath his navy-blue pajama top with red stripes, made its way up his back, her fingertips feeling the delicate gradations of his vertebrae. I love you lots, stepmother, the little voice whispered in her ear. Doña Lucrecia felt two tiny lips linger on her earlobe, warming it with their breath, kissing it and nibbling it, playing. Alfonsito appeared to her to be laughing as he caressed her. Her breast was filled to overflowing with emotion. To think that her women friends had prophesied that this stepson would be the major obstacle for her, that because of him she would never be able to be happy with Rigoberto. Deeply moved, she kissed him back, on the cheeks, the forehead, the tousled hair, as, vaguely, as though come from afar, without her having really noticed, a different sensation suffused every last confine of her body, becoming most densely concentrated in those parts—her breasts, her belly, the backs of her thighs, her neck, shoulders, cheeks—exposed to the child’s touch. Do you really love me lots? she asked, trying to free herself from his embrace. But Alfonsito would not let her go. Instead, as he sang out in answer: Lots and lots, stepmother, more than… he clung to her. Then his little hands grasped her by the temples and thrust her head back. Doña Lucrecia felt herself being pecked on the forehead, the eyes, the eyebrows, the cheek, the chin… When the thin lips brushed hers, she clenched her teeth in confusion. Did Fonchito know what he was doing? Ought she to push him brusquely away? No, of course not. How could there be the least perversity in the mad fluttering of those mischievous lips that twice, three times, wandering over the geography of her face, alighted on hers for an instant, hungrily pressing down on them.

    All right, to bed with you now, she finally said, freeing herself from the boy’s embrace. She did her best to appear more self-assured than she felt. Otherwise, you won’t get up in time for school, sweetie.

    Nodding his head, the boy got into bed. He eyed her, laughing, his cheeks flushed a rosy pink, an ecstatic look on his face. How could there be anything perverse about him? That pure little face, those eyes filled with joy, that little body tucking itself in between the sheets and snuggling down: weren’t they the personification of innocence? You’re the corrupted one, Lucrecia! She pulled the covers over him, straightened his pillow, kissed his curls, and turned out the lamp on the night table.

    As she was leaving the room, she heard him trill: I’ll be first in my class and that will be my present for you, stepmother.

    Is that a promise, Fonchito?

    Word of honor!

    In the intimate complicity of the staircase, on her way back to the master bedroom, Doña Lucrecia felt on fire from head to foot. But it’s not a fever, she said to herself in a daze. Could a child’s unthinking caress have put her in such a state? You’re becoming depraved, woman. Could this be the first symptom of old age? Because there was no question about it: she was all aflame and her thighs were wet. How disgraceful, Lucrecia, shame on you! And all of a sudden there came back to her the memory of a licentious friend who, at a benefit tea for the Red Cross, had given rise to flushed cheeks and nervous titters at her table when she told them that taking afternoon naps naked, with a young stepson raking her back with his nails, made her as hot as a firecracker.

    Don Rigoberto was stretched out on his back, naked, on top of the garnet-colored bedspread with its repeated pattern of what appeared to be scorpions. In the dark room, lighted only by the glow from the street, his long, pale white silhouette, with a thick patch of hair at his chest and pubis, remained motionless as Doña Lucrecia took off her slippers and lay down at his side, not touching him. Was her husband already asleep?

    Where were you? she heard him murmur, in the thick, drawling voice of a man speaking from out of a dream-fantasy, a voice she knew so well. Why did you leave me, darling?

    I went to give Fonchito a kiss. He wrote me a birthday letter you wouldn’t believe. So affectionate it almost made me cry.

    She sensed that Don Rigoberto scarcely heard her. She felt his right hand stroking her thigh. It burned, like a steaming-hot compress. His fingers fumbled about amid the folds of her nightdress. He’s bound to notice that I’m soaking wet, she thought uneasily. But it was a fleeting uneasiness, for the same violent wave that had startled her so on the staircase washed over her body once more, giving her gooseflesh all over. It seemed to her that all her pores were opening, waiting anxiously.

    Did Fonchito see you in your nightdress? her husband’s voice dreamed aloud, in passionate tones. You may have given the boy wicked thoughts. Perhaps he’ll have his first erotic dream tonight.

    She heard him laugh excitedly, and she laughed, too. Whatever are you saying, you idiot? At the same time, she pretended to slap him, letting her left hand fall on Don Rigoberto’s belly. But what it touched was a human staff, rising and

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