Week 9: Captain Pantoja and the Special Service: Mario Vargas Llosa’s Comic Anarchy
For this week's reading I read Captain Pantoja and the Special Service: Mario Vargas Llosa’s Comic Anarchy. Despite its name, I can't say that I found the reading particularly funny. I was pleased to see that Jon discussed the somewhat strange and messed up nature of Vargas Llosa's world. Knowing that this book was intended to be a comedy made it slightly confusing for me to read, as I did not find the actual content to be comedic. Given that sex was a major theme throughout the novel I often wondered whether this was for comedic reasons or rather as a way of taking something out of the context it normally is in for a greater effect. I found it strange that the main problem these characters were faced with was that these soldiers needed women to be systematically provided for them, in order to satisfy them, which is certainly problematic and demeaning. I think the language that Llosa uses in the novel is also interesting. Calling the prostitutes “specialists” and the “spec...