Reviews for La ciudad y los perros (The Time of the Hero - Chinese Edition)

The average rating for La ciudad y los perros (The Time of the Hero - Chinese Edition) based on 2 reviews is 4.5 stars.

Review # 1 was written on 2018-04-29 00:00:00 Tom Aste Lord of the Flies - With Guns As a young man I attended a federal service academy in the United States for four years. So I identify with the conditions in the Peruvian equivalent that Vargas Llosa describes in excruciating detail. From the universal use of nicknames - half of them derogatory, the other half salacious - to the continuous, and often very creative, scheming to evade and outwit authority, to the intentional promotion of sadistic and vulgar brutality in the name of camaraderie, I find myself re-living the most painful, and painfully consequential, period of my life. A rather disturbing transformation takes place in high-testosterone young males when confined together, voluntarily or not, and subjected to a highly regimented daily routine that is strictly enforced. Essentially they become amoral; every unregulated flaw, neurosis, or hiatus of maturity becomes exaggerated and enlarged in their resistance to a pervasive and arbitrary authority. And this regardless of their religious or ethical background. As Vargas Llosa has one of his characters muse about himself, "Sometimes he could go for several days following a routine that made all the decisions for him, gently nudging him into actions he hardly noted." I think the reason for this sort of demonic spiritual ennui lies in the deprivation of not simply physical freedom, but - in the case of a military academy - the insistence upon the development of an attitude of extreme social dependence. The result is a kind of hypnosis. "This place isn't an Academy, it's a prison," says one of its officers. But not even prison puts the demand of spiritual conformity on its inmates, who are only expected to obey, not to admire, the violent ethos of their organization. In the military academy one becomes a stranger not only to one's body as it is constantly stressed by activities that are meant to be tortuous, but also a stranger to one's mind which is the real target of military indoctrination. As one of the officers in charge of the Peruvian academy exhorts his charges,"In the army, Cadets, you've got to have respect for symbols, damn it." This process of ideological 'formation' continues for a full year without respite until one is expected to adopt the role of 'formateur', and do what was done to oneself, to others. This intensive indoctrination, which is explicitly meant to dis-inhibit whatever ethical reservations one has about military service, is direct and unambiguous. For example: if any member of a unit screws up, all suffer. And all are informed why they suffer and who is to blame. The effect of collective guilt is invariable: the weakest in the unit, those who typically screw up, are persecuted by the group until they measure up or leave. If weakness is not found, it is fabricated in order to facilitate the system. Vargas Llosa knows the routine for creating a victim: "He was normal enough when he got here to the Academy, but you and the others gave him such a hard time you made an idiot out of him." Both the physical and psychological therapy are carried out by those who are only slightly older and more mature than those over whom one has charge. These 'leaders' have only recently undergone the same regime that they are expected to execute. The only training they receive is what they have undergone as victims one or two years previously. They believe, because they are taught, that it is their duty to become figures of unpredictable and sadistic authority to those subordinate to themselves. Not infrequently, given a lack of experience, judgement, and conscience, their sadism becomes literal and is carried beyond the merely symbolic. And since there are severe restrictions on the access of adults (experienced officers) who could supervise the application of punishments to the barracks, it is not unusual for discipline to get grossly out of hand. As one of the protagonists points out: "The officers don't know anything about what goes on in the barracks." They are absentee warders who prefer not to know the details of barracks life lest they be held accountable. The lunatics do run the asylum. Vargas Llosa captures this unique and uniquely primitive sociology of barely controlled violence so accurately that it gives me flashbacks. I have no idea whether conditions have altered very much in these institutions in recent decades. I doubt, though, that its essential intimidation and post-adolescent cruelty has been questioned. To eliminate these would be to abolish its core. After a lifetime of experience in other business, academic and social institutions, I have encountered this kind of existence no where else. Its purpose remains a mystery to me since any practice of its mores outside its walls, even in the regular military, would be met with derision and resistance. During the VietNam war, my own epoch, young, 'motivated' West Point graduates were taught the limits of their academy ethos by 'fragging' in the field, that is, the killing of an officer by his own men. In The Time if the Hero, the inadvertent 'escape' of the academy mores threatens to destroy the entire Peruvian military. As the secret of its deptavity becomes public, the entire institution is compromised. My experience suggests that the 'outing' of the military academy is a good thing. It deserves institutional criticism and castigation. I have never perceived that the experience of the military academy regime is in any way useful in building what is typically called character. The academy is an uncivilized existence which has no points of contact with family, business, or social life. Studies have shown that success during one's academy training are entirely uncorrelated with one's advancement in the service, much less one's broader success or satisfaction in life. Rather, the reason that the sociology continues to exist, to the extent that it does, is that it has existed. This is known as tradition, 'we do it to them because it was done to us'. Tradition, from the Latin root tradere, a word connoting simultaneously 'passing on' and 'betrayal'. Both Vargas Llosa and I have little doubt about which interpretation is more appropriate. Tradition is simply a rationalization for continuing abuse. I note with considerable dismay how many of my colleagues from those long-gone days support the kind of systematic political bullying of the current White House. Finally, they appear to believe, they have a Commander-in-Chief worthy of their own training and civic ideals. The effects of indoctrination are indeed penetrating and long-lived. Vargas Llosa's epigram from Jean-Paul Sartre neatly summarizes our common experience of the institution of the military academy and its consequences for the society that harbors it: "We play the part of heroes because we're cowards, the part of saints because we're wicked: we play the killer's role because we're dying to murder our fellow man: we play at being because we're liars from the moment we're born." Perhaps the academy is, as Vargas Llosa implies in the way he presents his narrative alternately inside and outside its walls, merely a more intense, a concentrated version, as it were, of the male-dominated society that moulds it.

Review # 2 was written on 2009-03-24 00:00:00 Angela Riche La Ciudad y los Perros = The City and the Dogs = The Time of the Hero, Mario Vargas Llosa The Time of the Hero is a 1963 novel by Peruvian writer Mario Vargas Llosa, who won the Nobel Prize in 2010. It was Vargas Llosa's first novel and is set among the cadets at the Leoncio Prado Military Academy in Lima, which he attended as a teenager. The novel portrays the school so scathingly that its leadership burned a large number of copies and condemned the book as Ecuadorian propaganda against Peru. تاریخ نخستین خوانش: ماه جولای سال 2006میلادی عنوان: سالهای سگی؛ نوشته: ماریو وارگاس(بارگاس) یوسا؛ مترجم: احمد گلشیری؛ مشخصات نشر؛ چاپ نخست تهران، انتشارات کاروان در 1382؛ تهران، نگاه، 1384، در 560ص، فروست شاهکارهای ادبیات جهان، شابک 9643512134؛ موضوع داستانهای نویسندگان پرویی سده 20م سال‌های سگی، نخستین رمان از نویسنده ی مشهور پرویی، «ماریو بارگاس یوسا» است، این رمان ایشان را برنده ی جایزه نوبل ادبیات کرد؛ «سال‌های سگی»، بر‌خلاف ظاهرِ غلط‌ اندازِ سیاسی‌ اش، اثری به‌ شدت انسانی‌ ست، و با تمام تلخی و آزاردهنده بودنش، بخش مهمی از زندگی نویسنده را، در خود ثبت کرده، و یادمانی جاودان، از سرگذشتِ زندگیِ یک انسان، در آستانه ی بلوغ، با تمام فراز و فرودهایش است؛ این کتاب سرگذشت نوجوانهایی فقیر و درمانده‌ اجتماعی‌ ست، که به‌ تحصیل در دبیرستانی نظامی مشغول‌ هستند، و خواسته و ناخواسته، در معرض خشونت‌ و آسیب‌، قرار دارند نقل نمونه متن: «بجای عبور از حیاط، آن را دور زد، و برای آنکار، دیوار منحنی آسایشگاه سال پنجمی‌ها را در پیش گرفت؛ به انتهای آنجا که رسید، با نگرانی اطراف را پایید؛ میدان سان، با چراغ‌ برق‌های قرین هم، که گرداگرد آن‌ها را مه ‌گرفته بود، وسیع و اسرارآمیز، به نظر می‌رسید؛ علفزار سراسر تاریک را، در آن‌سوی چراغ‌ها، می‌توانست مجسم کند؛ نگهبان‌ها دوست داشتند در آنجا دراز بکشند، و هنگامی که هوا زیاد سرد نبود، به خواب می‌رفتند یا در گوشی صحبت می‌کردند؛ اما او مطمئن بود، که آن شب همه در یکی از مستراح‌ها، به قمار مشغولند؛ در سایه ی ساختمان‌های طرف چپ، به‌ سرعت شروع به رفتن کرد، در حالیکه سعی داشت خود را، از دایره‌ های نور، دور نگه دارد؛ برخورد خیزاب‌ها به صخره‌ های حاشیه ی یکی از زمین‌های دبیرستان نظام، جیرجیر پوتین‌هایش را محو می‌کرد؛ به آسایشگاه افسران که رسید، لرزید، و حتی تندتر گام برداشت؛ سپس میدان سان را میانبر زد، و خود را در تاریکی علفزار پرتاب کرد؛ حرکتی ناگهانی، در نزدیکی او، چون ضربه ‌ای تکان‌ دهنده، همه ترس‌هایی را که بر آن‌ها غلبه یافته بود؛ بازگرداند.؛ لحظه ‌ای دودل ماند، سپس چشم‌های لامایی را، به درخشندگی کرم شب‌تاب، تشخیص داد، که با نگاهی آرام و عمیق، او را می‌نگریست.؛ خشماگین گفت: «گورتو گم کن!»؛ حیوان بی‌حرکت باقی ماند؛ کابا اندیشید: (این حیوون لعنتی هیچ‌وقت نمی‌خوابه؛ حتی غذا نمی‌خوره، پس با چه چیزی زنده س؟)، به راه ادامه داد؛ دو سال و نیم پیش؛ هنگامی‌که برای ادامه ی تحصیل به لیما آمد، از دیدن آن حیوان کوهستانی، که در میان دیوارهای تیره و بادگیر دبیرستان نظام لِئونسیو پرادو، آرام پرسه می‌زد، شگفت‌زده شد؛ چه کسی این لاما را به دبیرستان نظام آورده بود؟ از کدام قسمت سلسله کوه‌های آند؟ دانش آموزان از او به ‌جای هدف استفاده می‌کردند، اما وقتی سنگ به او می‌خورد، کوچک‌ترین اعتنایی نمی‌کرد؛ همین‌قدر با نگاهی حاکی از بی‌اعتنایی محض، از آن‌ها دور می‌شد؛ کابا اندیشید (حالت سرخپوست‌ها رو داره)، به ‌سوی کلاسها، از پلکان بالا رفت؛ حالا جیرجیر پوتین‌ها نگرانش نمی‌کرد، ساختمان به ‌جز میزهای تحریر، نیمکت‌ها، و باد و تاریکی، خالی بود؛ شلنگ‌انداز راهرو طبقه بالا را پیمود؛ سپس ایستاد؛ نور ضعیف چراغ ‌قوه، راه را، به او نشان داد؛ «جاگوار» گفته بود، شيشه دوم، از دست چپ؛ و آری، درست گفته بود، شيشه لق بود؛ کابا با ته سوهان شروع به کندن کرد؛ خرده ‌ها را در دست دیگر جمع می‌کرد؛ مرطوب و پوک بودند»؛ پایان نقل تاریخ بهنگام رسانی 13/08/1399هجری خورشیدی؛ ا. شربیانی