The Green House.

VARGAS LLOSA, Mario.

$500.00

Item Number: 144690

New York: Harper & Row, Publishers, 1968.

First edition of the author’s masterpiece. Octavo, original green cloth. Presentation copy, inscribed by the author on the half-title page, “To John Mario Vargas Llosa.” Near fine in a near fine dust jacket. Jacket design by Guy Fleming. Translated by Gregory Rabassa.

The Green House draws on Vargas Llosa's experiences growing up near a brothel in the northwestern Peruvian town of Piura. The novel, which juggles multiple plots, locations, shifting points of view, and more than 30 characters, reflects Peruvian society's vast inequalities. Critics considered it a classic "total" novel--a fusion of style, subject, and form that convinces readers that an illusory reality may be even "truer" than reality. "Mario Vargas Llosa's message seems to be that man, like the jungle, has a mysterious energy which cannot in the end be explained or subdued. His characters may be saints, villains, victims, or nothing in particular, but they break out of the pages of this magnificent novel with the stubborn uncontainability of life itself" (V.S. Pritchett, The New Statesman).