Week 9: Captain Pantoja and the Special Service (Llosa)

 Hi everyone! I hope everyone is having a great start to their week. This week I chose to read Mario Vargas Llosa’s Captain Pantoja and the Special Service and I think I enjoyed it? I found some parts of the novel such as the objectification of women and the rapes to be disturbing, but other parts I actually really enjoyed. I, like a few others have mentioned in their blogs, was also surprised to hear about the history of the military and their actions at the time as Jon mentioned in his lecture. I think it was the things like this that made me question the novel's true genre and if comedy or dark comedy was the right way to describe it. There were a few other times where I was a bit confused as to what was going on as the novel involved a lot of different captains, colonels, and lieutenants, but it was easier to follow along than 100 Years of Solitude. 

I think the part that I enjoyed the most and found the most relatable was the lengthy gossip letter that Pochita wrote to her sister Chichi. I found this part really funny, as this felt like the gossip sessions that me and my friends have about every single detail in our lives. I found it hilarious and so on point with her character that she spilt all of her husband's top secret secrets to her in writing and just brushed it off as her being a “dumbbell”. I also felt that my reactions to the novel so far were reflected in Pochita’s letter. She seemed just as confused as I was by the dynamic of the town, her husband's potential infidelity, and the “insanity” that washes over the men once they enter the Amazon. The whole time up until this section of the book, I just kept saying “what” or “he did what” and then Pochita's letter really summarized mine, and I'm sure many others' feelings when reading the first bit of the novel. 

As for the rest of the novel and question of comedy, I think it is a potential satire on society, the human condition, and the army. The sexual desires in this book cannot be stopped, and the solution to the rape and sexual assault problems is not one that I think would fly with most people in today’s society. The comedic aspects did not hit as hard for me as I was expecting, and most of the time I think I was just laughing because I knew that was the intention of the novel. I’m not sure how or which umbrella of humor to categorize this novel under, so my question to you all is do you think that this novel can be categorized under your own definition of comedy? Does it fall under more of a black comedy type as Jon mentioned in the lecture? Or do the satirical elements allow for a very specific type of dark humor to emerge?


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