Captain Pantoja and the Special Service:
Bell-Villada, Gene
ified, is a more, not less, rigorous ideal a human situation characterized by com- spirit of Keane's undertaking if he would and that it involves more, not less, pain plexity, change,...
...sion the Army gave me...
...Unfortunately, ord was absolutely perfect), the Captain There are, of course, respectable and "Pantiland" (as folks call it) becomes duly stands up for his subordinatesreasonable responses to such a question the talk of the jwngle towns, aspired to by hookers included...
...I'm just happy, girl . . . " Panta is opening and closing his arms, Wallace Fowlie squatting and jumping...
...Capt...
...Seabury, $14.95, 412 pp...
...A random example: BRECST: human beings, a problem today closely "I hate you...
...Out of compassion and experi- (SSGFRI...
...Acclaimed by fort to be more sympathetic to the human perks, while the Special Service, armed all as an administrative genius, he falls as plight, he...
...and continuing with Bonino challenges all Christians to face file down-to-earth questions of cal kudos throughout the New World and his early sense of a writer's vocation and .' orld peace...
...Vol ker stresses, and rightfully so, like a Chink...
...Panta, don't talk Translated by John Nowell Mr...
...top brass appoint loyal career adminis- big generals-but Pantaledn, every inch I do not wish to trivialize what is obvi- trator Capt...
...hydroplane, a colorful flag and even a incapacity to distinguish between what What kind of "loving God" is it who, bouncy hymn (sung to the "Mexican Hat might or might not be deemed legitimate possessing information vital to human Dance"), soars to dizzying success, be- administrative material...
...His graveside oration which safeguard our traditional idea of streetwalkers, envied by wanton citi- to the Brazilian-a speech conceived, he God...
...different situations, times and places, with action and description placed not around the talking but rather fitted into Brecht on stage those old cracks, the "he said-she said" portions...
...Pochita throws a Klaus Volker lonesco...
...And so a reproved and has done if it is to avoid giving offense...
...dead in a skirmish with some sex-pirates, human moral actions, this God knows Panta aggravates things by having her exactly what should be done in every gene Sell-Villada buried with military honors and instance and our task is to find out what God knows...
...pillow at him...
...Keane, we are "called into a loving personal relationship with God" and sin is the breaking of this relationship...
...In the heat of his own shop...
...campy headlines about "BLOOD, PAS- phere now hanging over the reactionary After reading Special Service, that PenSION AND BASE INSTINCTS...
...impression that Keane's God is the tradiThese ticking time bombs go off all at tional eternally unchanging, all-powerful Mario Vargas Llosa once...
...Panta, now a national celebGod wants only through the "discernabout this lewd misconduct, the Peruvian rity, is pressured for resignation by the ment of spirits...
...Together with (among student days in Augsburg and Munich Be ble for today s Worka others) Garth Marquez, Cortazar and (somewhat reminiscent of Villon's life in Paris), with tavern drinking and ani- Jose Miguez Bonino Puig, he is one of a generation of Latin American novelists now garnering criti- mated discussions...
...Klaus Volker, is co-editor of the Some of those in-between descriptions complete works of Bertolt Brecht, and eventually become full-length para- has served as a director of plays in Gergraphs that summarize entire scenes- many and Switzerland...
...Pantaledn Pantoja to solve an army man, hopelessly attached to ously a long-standing doctrine, but it the problem...
...As if this weren't enough, a Special Service-is eloquent and movcosts, particularly since it is in such con- formerly passionless Panta (the Cap- ing, yet ridiculous given the circumflict with so many crucial features of our tain's nickname) falls for and shacks up stances, while his earnest plea about experience...
...A typically humorless bureau- ner of social rot in the Peruvian 1950s...
...and, the Old...
...equal Opportunity...
...Vargas Llosa has even achieved "aspirations" (marvelous tion of dry military dispatches, juicy per- warned against the danger of war with euphemism) being entered into ledger sonal letters, verbose radio rhetoric, and Chile-not a remote eventuality, given books under the guise of laundry exlurid sensationalist news reports (with the highly-charged, militarized atmos- penses (laundered money, literally...
...Keane acknowledges the pronouncing-in uniform-a deeply-felt W rIH frustrated soldiers going sexu- funeral eulogy, praising her as a soldier difficulty of this task and admits that ally amok in Amazon outposts, and fallen in action...
...According to that .it would be more congenial to the realization and possibility...
...To the writing of Vargas Llosa thereby turning novelistic this study he has brought a German's procedure literally inside-out...
...Strangely naive, lives, withholds it or releases it only con- comes the Peruvian military's most effi- even saintly (his pre-Special Service recsequent upon prayers and sacrifices...
...I never thought I'd get ahead with the mis- THE AUTHOR of this biography, Mr...
...the tropical rainforest, covert in mufti, demoralized Captain Pantoja is reasGranted that such expressions as "God with his mother, wife and new-born signed to the distant Andes where-amid speaks" or "God calls" are metaphori- daughter housed away in civilian se- the cold and the vicunas-he will no cal, still they must be used with more crecy, a diligent Pantoja quietly launches doubt do as thorough a job as quartermascaution and qualification to avoid por- the "Special Service for Garrisons, Fron- ter as he had done as brothelkeeper...
...And solve it he does-too hierarchy, can't even imagine running must be explained more fully than Keane well and none too wisely...
...Why don't you . A BIOCRAPSY associated with the plays of Beckett and, please me...
...In- political upheavals from the time of ternational, Mario Vargas Llosa is a World War I to the post-World War II Peruvian cosmopolite who has lived in years...
...A younger Vargas Llosa was his play of 1918, Baal, in which the hero social justice His eloquent plea rightly assumes tnat the reality of the Gospel...
...When his Brazilian amour is shot and all-knowing God...
...But if we would recognize that this zens, and excoriated in the florid broad- later insists to the generals, as a pep-talk, idea of God, is, after all, our idea, we casts of a slick radio demagogue named a needed spur to low morale within the might be less inclined to save it at all "Sinchi...
...Themes of Rimbaud are also s3 95 paperback academy he had once attended-were audible in his play of 1923, In the Jungle A1 bookstores or from the publisher burned in public ceremony at that very of Cities, an important text in its school...
...runs the risk of presenting us with surveys, accountants, a river boat, a a result of his own bland innocence, his with a more repugnant image of God...
...TMs mouthful of ofcialese terful technique and his fascinating proence, Keane wishes to avoid the older denotes what will become a vast network tagonist, Vargas Llosa pulls it off with view that God has clearly revealed how of mobile brothels, staffed by experi- high artistry...
...Now, From the ribald to the bureaucratic attractive as this is, its real significance depends upon just how we understand the CAPTAIN PANTOjA AND THE SPECIAL fatale of all the prostitutes who goes by divine-human relationship...
...Still it creator who invites us to struggle with inevitably leads to a reconsideration of might not be presumptuous to suggest him to bring forth a new world richer in our understanding of God...
...Keane sensitively describes with a luscious "Specialist," the plum -motivating team spirit and group effiCommonweal: 346 ciency leaves his superiors quite dum- action unfolds) sweeps through all man- high seriousness and adopting a humorfounded...
...The book is a complete account of London, Paris, Barcelona, San Juan and the playwright's life, beginning with his An fnrerpretalion 01 the Message of the also the U.S...
...All "God language" is, of sharing in the creative life of a loving autonomy along the lines I am suggesting course, profoundly inadequate...
...Hence, as regards Harper & Row, $10.95, 288 pp...
...His panoramic masterpiece, foreshadowing of the theater of the ab- FORTRESS PRESS 2900 Queen Lane Conversation in the Cathedral (the latter surd, and especially in the problem it Philadelphia PA 19129 is not a temple but a bar where the basic exposes of communication between 8 June /979: 347...
...cient single organism...
...catapulted to notoriety when, back in murders his best friend: an episode urges each of us to come to grips with Lima, some 1000 copies of Time of the faintly recalling Verlaine's shooting of the others vdpl fare Hero-his first novel, set in a military Rimbaud...
...Pantoja is your claswe are to live and that only human per- enced dames who gladly trade in the sic organization man-loyal to the team versity prevents us from recognizing this rigors of night life for regimentation, and to authority, obsessed with order and revelation...
...traying God as an inarticulate message- tier and Related Installations Seem raunchy...
...One gets the SERVICE the sobriquet of La Brasilena...
...ous, ribald tone...
...knowledge of his own country and its Currently the president of P.E.N...
...Paradoxically, in Keane's ef- steady pay, Sundays off and other such work, zealous to a fault...
...ified, is a more, not less, rigorous ideal a human situation characterized by com- spirit of Keane's undertaking if he would and that it involves more, not less, pain plexity, change, novelty and pain, yet he think of human morality not as a slavish and sacrifice...
...The translation into contempodeath of the Novel, Vargas Llosa further tain Pantoja sniffs out corruption in high rary American by Christ and Kolovakos develops his own third-person device- places, but it also presents something of is first-rate-one of the better renderings the intermixing of dialogue from totally a break, Vargas Llosa here shedding his of modern South American prose fiction...
...And yet, with his massender...
...The scandal sheets have often we can achieve knowledge of what civilian fathers and husbands up in arms a heyday...
...The entire foreign sentiment (see New York Times, privates, and soldiers' payments for story is told through an artful combina- February 15...
...to page, Captain Pantoja is no pop- purchases, its closing down of opposition Here we see "undersigned" colonels realist puff job-no "straight" third- or media, its tendency to whip up anti- coolly tabulating the sex needs of buck first-person narratives here...
...The plot is funny crat oblivious to the humor of his role, in Complementing his career as novelist of enough, but the real laughs come from the end Pantaleon appears more com- Peru's armed forces, Vargas Llosa re- iVargas Llosa's variegated linguistic plex, a kind of foolish hero or tragic fool.cently spoke out against the ruling mili- registers -ranging from the earthily colThough easy and amusing from page tary regime, criticizing its huge arms loquial to the deadpan-bureaucratic...
...seems to be content with a rather antisep- carrying-out of the eternal unchangeable tic God untouched by these features of orders of a divine potentate, but as the Development of a doctrine of human reality...
...For Southern Cone...
...tagonese term "Specialist" seems oddly those doomsayers who proclaim the As in the author's earlier books, Cap- jocose...
Vol. 106 • June 1979 • No. 11
