Month: February 2020

1) the Mario Vargas Llosa telling the story is obviously older than the “Marito” who is living it . . . how would you describe the tone? what is the attitude of the narrator to the young man he was? 

According to Google, Llosa was 41 when he wrote Aunt Julia and the Scriptwriter, which would help to define the sort of relationship between the 18-year-old and him. From a reader’s point of view, the tone for the Mario chapters seem quite descriptive and there isn’t really any underlying emotion behind it. However, when we were talking about it in class today, it would make sense that he might be a little sentimental over particular moments or emphasise certain parts of his story that was important to him – whether he’s intentional about it or not.

2) if every other chapter, basically, represents one of Pedro Camacho’s serials —if they didn’t happen, in other words, what is the point of spending so much time on these characters/events/conflicts?

Initially it might be to keep the readers updated on the serials and give them an opportunity to get to know the scriptwriter in ways that Mario’s encounters with him don’t show us. While the Mario-chapters are plenty descriptive and tell us about Camacho’s character and the issue he’s currently working through, the serial-chapters do add an extra intertextual layer of context behind the events that are happening. Personally, I find it quite amusing to be confused with what’s happening in his serials, just as everyone else is – including the characters of Aunt Julia and the Scriptwriter, because it provides such a refreshing and absurd point-of-view into Camacho’s issues that you would have to infer yourself as the reader. Like some sort of first-hand experience.

3) If a story is basically, “one time, in one place, something happened” then it’s not really literature —it’s journalism or history or maybe even just gossip. Literature is usually thought to express something timeless —something true in a bigger sense. What might this novel be saying about life?

[Rough thinking, not actual structured answers to an essay question] Something about the versatility of Mario’s situation? But then again incest isn’t that popular (to my knowledge at least). Maybe the pains of love? Wanting someone but things being in between of you acquiring that love? Maybe the incest is a time stamp.

Explain an idea that Vargas Llosa seems to be exploring and show how the two quotes you’ve chosen relate to this. You can use OTHER examples or ideas, too, if you like (250 – 300 words).

• reality and the imagination are in conflict / in a state of tension
• art sanctifies life
• life is better than art

In Aunt Julia and the Scriptwriter, Mario Vargas Llosa maintains variation in his book by alternating between narration from the first person, coming from his character’s point of view, to serials created by Pedro Camacho. There seems to be an underlying, recurring idea of reality and imagination constantly being in a state of tension. For example, when Mario has the pleasure of attending a recording session of one of Camacho’s serials in person, he finds the process quite different from what he imagined. The Bolivian scriptwriter delivered a ‘moving’ monologue where “naturally it was the words ‘art’ and ‘artistic’ that was repeated the most frequently… like some sort of magic formula that revealed and explained everything”. This quote continues, mentioning Mario’s surprise at the effect Camacho’s words had on the actors. This shows the two sides that imagination and art hide behind, where we question its authenticity but also the beauty of reality ad whether the sacrifice of authenticity is worth it. This might also relate to the sound effects man who was creating a cacophony of sound, yet managed to produce something that would be overlooked in real life all the time, yet managed to gain an appreciation and a sense of realism despite all the labour that went into the production.

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Explain the stylistic features that indicate the author’s intentions (audience, purpose, context, etc).

These videos that were released by Nike which featured Kobe Bryant and other famous people such as Aziz Ansari and Kanye had a very interesting way of approaching the consumers when selling these shoes. Initially, the first time I watched these videos I thought they were just trying to sell the set of ‘shoes’ that Kobe was referring to, but when we were talking about it as a class, it transformed into an underlying allure for Nike in general. The ads feature famous people who play to their own strengths in characteristics, for example with Aziz Ansari, he was actually quite rude, which caused a bit of resentment towards him, despite the fact that they were all being bullied by Kobe. With each level, a new famous figure was featured and they generally became more likeable. As a class, we analysed why, all of sudden, did we (the audience) feel more sympathy towards these people that we’ve never met instead of resentment. Some of the ideas that bounced around were that the fact that Kobe was bullying them and they were generally more submissive, shown by the occasional dipping of the head when they were told that they weren’t “a system” or “hadn’t achieved success”. This aroused sympathy in the audience and from then, we related and were subconsciously involved with them as underdogs.

If we focus on the style of the advert and what kind of scene it’s taking place in, people may recognize that it looks vaguely like a Ted talk. When it comes to Ted talks, people generally would associate them with success, inspirational origin stories, basically a respectful environment for people to learn something new or enrichen their thinking. What’s interesting is that Nike chose to associate this type of feeling, while simultaneously involving elements of comedy portrayed by the famous figures and a pop culture sense of humour.