I realized last night that I’ve never read anything by him in translation (there was one book in English—A Writer’s Reality—which was in English, but that book was based on lectures given in English and there is no Spanish original. As my ex-wife often says, “No good reason to read the translation if you can read the original.” La Fiesta de la Chivo influenced the form of the novel I’m currently querying (which, despite having had three excerpts published as short stories, appears destined to be yet another trunked work). The biggest challenge I found reading Vargas Llosa is that section and chapter breaks tend to be infrequent giving fewer opportunities to pause while reading.
> The biggest challenge I found reading Vargas Llosa is that section and chapter breaks tend to be infrequent giving fewer opportunities to pause while reading.
I don't mean to be snarky, but, seriously, can't you just pause whenever you want? I understand that the lack of breaks mean that the book doesn't define natural points to pause, but it still seems that one can impose such breaks oneself.
Yes, in theory you can pause at any point, but in practice it is not that easy to stop. I remember not hearing the boarding call and losing a flight while reading La fiesta del chivo…
that good eh
I prefer to pause reading at chapter breaks or, if necessary section breaks. Of course, with some authors you may be looking for paragraph breaks (and in the case of Proust, even those might be dozens of pages apart). Natural breaks in the narrative just make the most sense for stopping off and resuming a read.