Politics and Post-Modernism

In the new novel by Peruvian writer Mario Vargas Llosa there is an arresting sequence in which the protagonist and his revolutionary comrades stop at the ancient mountain community of Quero. They rest there for two hours before continuing their flight from government troops sent to bring them back to be punished for revolutionary crimes against the state. What is striking in the handful of pages devoted to Quero is not the quality of the political ideas brought forward or the revelation of character facilitated by the protagonist’s reflections. What emerges so forcefully, rather, is a powerful sentiment of disgust focused not only on the trappings of the place but on its inhabitants. That disgust, we cannot but note, is accompanied...