The Real Life of Alejandro Mayta: A
Novel by Mario Vargas Llosa
Is Truth Garbage Or Is The Garbage The Truth ?
The Real Life of Alejandro Mayta is an astute psychological portrait of a
modern revolutionary and a searching account of an old friends struggle to
understand him. First published in English in 1986, the novel probes the
long and checkered history of radical politics in Latin America.
Personal Review: The Real Life of Alejandro Mayta: A Novel by
Mario Vargas Llosa
People always repeat the phrase, "don't judge a book by its cover", but the
cover of my copy of THE REAL LIFE OF ALEJANDRO MAYTA expresses
the content more appropriately than almost any other cover I can
remember in that it points directly to Peru and the central problem of
literature. A mass of Peruvian-style figures stand in darkness, almost
obscured. You have to look carefully to see them at all. A single chink in
the cell door, a single beam of light in a dark place---all that is revealed in

color are the eyes and brow of a solitary man. Do we know what is
happening in Peru---exploited, misgoverned, racked by revolution and
poverty ? Can we know what really happens in life ? Can we understand
the motivations and deepest emotions of other human beings ? Can
literature actually create or, at least, reproduce these ? Vargas Llosa
creates a gripping novel out of unlikely pieces. An obscure Trotskyite
revolutionary, a member of a party whose membership stands at seven,
gets involved in an uprising in an Andean town in 1958. The author-as-
narrator is in Paris at the time. He returns to Peru later and in 1983,
spends a year trying to track down the people involved (family, colleagues,
co-conspirators), to learn what motivated this event and its central
character, Alejandro Mayta. He interviews everyone he can find. We jump
between these interviews and the re-creation (or is it the actual truth ?) of
what happened twenty-five years before. The time line is obscured. We
shift constantly between two or more times on every other page,
sometimes even on one page. This is a literary trick which some people
may find annoying or disconcerting, yet I urge you to stay with the novel.
Slowly, the author puts together a picture of an idealistic revolutionary who
dissented from nearly everything. The sources tell him of a homosexual
dreamer who lived a secretive life in every respect, who had no money,
and who was (or wasn't) the inspiration behind the Andean mini-revolt of
1958. "If he had been able to control his sentiments and instincts, he
wouldn't have led the double life he led, he wouldn't have had to deal with
the intrinsic split between being, by day, a clandestine militant totally given
over to the task of changing the world, and, by night, a pervert on the
prowl..." We begin to understand Mayta, though some of the interviewees
are obviously lying. But Vargas Llosa creates a present (1983) in which
Peru is overwhelmed by a Vietnam-like war---invaded by leftwing Cuban
and Bolivian forces with Soviet help, who are counterattacked by American
marines and airforce. Cuzco is destroyed, the country is collapsing.
Though Sendero Luminoso did bring Peru almost to its knees, none of this
happened. So can we believe the stories told by everyone about Alejandro
Mayta ? Is the story about Mayta years ago true as written by our
narrator ? I mean, he's obviously exaggerating even about the present.
Suddenly, after a vivid description of the uprising, the narrative ends. The
Rashomon-like last 34 pages reveal everything or nothing. We are left
with questions, but no answers. Vargas Llosa writes, "Since it is
impossible to know what's really happening, we Peruvians lie, invent,
dream, and take refuge in illusion. Because of these strange
circumstances, Peruvian life, a life in which so few actually do read, has
become literary." No matter what you decide, if you live in Peru, you'll
have to face the garbage in the streets. In America, it's on TV. There's a
lot of garbage around us. Is it in people's minds as well ? Can there be
truth ? This is the question this powerful, disturbing book leaves with you.
A tour de force.
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