Vargas Llosa in the Andes: The Racial Discourse of Neoliberalism

Author(s): Misha Kokotovic

Source: Confluencia, Vol. 15, No. 2 (Spring 2000), pp. 156-167
Published by: University of Northern Colorado
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/27922749
Accessed: 11-05-2015 00:06 UTC

Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at http://www.jstor.org/page/
info/about/policies/terms.jsp

JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content
in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship.
For more information about JSTOR, please contact support@jstor.org.

University of Northern Colorado is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to Confluencia.

http://www.jstor.org

This content downloaded from 132.239.1.231 on Mon, 11 May 2015 00:06:57 UTC
All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions
Vargas Llosa in the Andes:
The Racial Discourse of Neoliber?lisra

MlSHA KOKOTOVIC
University of California San Diego

In a series of influential essays, Peruvian novelist and former presidential candidate Mario
are
Vargas Llosa has argued that Latin Americas indigenous cultures incompatible with
modernity, that, in effect, one can not be Quechua or Aymara and modern at the same
time.1 In order to integrate themselves into modern society, indigenous peoples must
renounce their culture, their
language, their beliefs, their traditions, their customs, and
adopt "the culture of their ancient masters" ("Questions of Conquest" 52). What ismore,
is not an for but rather a a sacrifice
integration option indigenous peoples requirement,
theymust make for the greater good, forVargas Llosa sees the persistence of indigenous
cultures as an obstacle to national development and progress toward greater
equality and
social justice. He thus rejects his compatriot and fellow novelist Jos? Mar?a Arguedas

lifelong literary and political project of transculturation, inwhich Perus indigenous and
itsEuropean cultures would both be transformed through interaction with each other.2
For Vargas Llosa, there isno middle ground. The choice isbetween "preservation," by
which he means literallyfreezing indigenous cultures in time, and amodernization he claims
will solve Latin Americas pressing problem of inequality. Having thus limited the options,
on behalf of
Vargas Llosa does not hesitate to make the decision indigenous peoples. "If
forced to choose," he writes, "between the preservation of Indian cultures and their complete
assimilation, with great sadness Iwould choose themodernization of the Indian population"
("Questions of Conquest," 52-53). Yet the development model he proposes is essentially the
same one which has
marginalized Latin Americas indigenous peoples and excluded them
from political and economic power for over a century.And although the reduction of poverty
and inequality are Vargas Llosas pretext for demanding indigenous assimilation, the free
market, neoliberal economic program he has promoted since his unsuccessful 1990
was the
campaign for the presidency of Peru, of which it centerpiece, has in fact only
increased inequality wherever ithas been applied in Latin America.3

Vargas Llosa had already rehearsed these themes in literary form in his 1987 novel
El hablador, which dealt with the "preservation" of the Machiguenga, an Amazonian
more recent Lituma en losAndes (1993), he goes a step
indigenous group in Peru. In the
further. The persistence of indigenous cultures is here not simply an obstacle to the

156

This content downloaded from 132.239.1.231 on Mon, 11 May 2015 00:06:57 UTC
All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions
solution of pressing social problems, it is the problem, in the form of the Sendero Luminoso
more than the
(Shining Path) guerilla insurgency,which forVargas Llosa is little product
of atavistic indigenous barbarism. The blunt racism of Lituma en losAndes is all themore

significant because it isVargas Llosas first sustained literary engagement with theAndes
and indigenous Andean peoples. Indeed, it could be argued that Vargas Llosas entire
en losAndes has been based on an avoidance of theAndes.
literary career up until Lituma
El habhdor is a good example of this avoidance. Cynthia Steele notes that the

displacement of Perus indigenous "problem" onto a small and "primitive" Amazonian

group in El habhdor to the state
downplays the challenge legitimacy of the Peruvian
represented by indigenous Andean peoples generally and by Sendero Luminoso in particular
(365-366). To argue that cultural identity must be sacrificed to the cause of national
an easier no more valid) case to make for 5,000 or so
development is, after all, (though
Machiguenga than it is for several million Andean Quechua and Aymara speakers. This

displacement is typical ofVargas Llosas avoidance of theAndes. The avoidance may be a

matter of or distaste:
personal taste,

Yo, como arequipe?o, es decir Serrano', deber?a tomar partido por losAndes y
en contra de los desiertos marinos en esta me
pol?mica. Sin embargo, si pusieran
en el dilema de entre este o losAndes, o la selva Amaz?nica?las
elegir paisaje,
tres
regiones que dividen longitudinalmente al Per??es probable que quedara
con estas arenas y estas olas.
(Vargas Llosa, Contra viento y marea III 231)

But there is also clearly a political element involved:

nunca he sentido
simpat?a por los Incas.. .siempre he pensado que la tristeza
peruana?rasgo saltante de nuestro car?cter?acaso naci? con el Incario: una
sociedad regimentada y burocr?tica, de hombres-hormigas, en los que el rodillo
compresor omnipotente anul? toda personalidad individual. (Vargas Llosa,
Contra viento y marea III 231)

Such an attitude toward the Andes and indigenous Andeans is expressed only

indirectly in El habhdor, but is clear in Lituma en losAndes.

Vargas Llosas firstAndean novel is set in the fictional highland mining community
of Naceos at the war
height of Sendero Luminosos against the Peruvian state. Two Civil
Guards are stationed inNaceos to
guard
a government road construction
project from
attack. One of them, Lituma, is a Llosa character familiar to readers of La
guerrilla Vargas
Casa Verde. Originally from the northern, lowland, and criollo city of Piura, Lituma does
not
speak Quechua and finds Andeans incomprehensible. He is completely out of his
element in theAndes. The other Civil Guard is Litumas Quechua-speaking subordinate
Tom?s Carre?o, born in the Andes but raised primarily in Lima. The two are friends
even an
despite Tom?s Andean origins, and Lituma designates him honorary coste?o: "Tor
tumanera de ser,merecer?as haber nacido en la costa. Y hasta en Piura, Tomasito.'" (13).
They confront the ever-present threat of Sendero Luminoso attack as well as the distrust of

VOLUME 15, NUMBER 2 157

This content downloaded from 132.239.1.231 on Mon, 11 May 2015 00:06:57 UTC
All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions
 the road construction workers and other locals. The narrative is set in motion by the
mysterious disappearance of three of the construction workers, which it isLitumas task to
investigate. His investigation is in fact the guiding thread around which the other strands
of the narrative arewrapped, and Lituma en losAndes may thus be read as a detective novel
of sorts, a genre inwhich Vargas Llosa has dabbled before.4 However, the fate of the three

missing workers isnot the only mystery in this novel, for Litumas attempt to find out what
happened to the disappeared men is simultaneously an investigation into the causes of
violence inmodern Peru. If Lituma en losAndes may be considered a detective novel, this
is the largermystery it attempts to solve.
It does so byweaving together four lines of narrative, ofwhich Litumas
investigation
is the first.The second narrative describes five Sendero Luminoso attacks,
emphasizing the
primitive brutality of the guerrillas and the innocence of their victims. The disappeared
men it turns out, were survivors of three of these attacks. The next line of narrative
concerns Dionisio and Adriana, owners of Naceos' only bar and social center as well as
Litumas prime suspects in the disappearances. The fourth and final narrative is the story
Tom?s recounts to Lituma about his
unrequited love for and frustrated romance with a
prostitute named Mercedes, who turns out to be the same Mercedes Lituma once knew in
Piura. These stories are told in fragments, as in earlier
arranged, Vargas Llosa novels such
as La Casa Verde, in a Lituma en losAndes is divided into two
remarkably regular pattern.
parts and an
epilogue. Part One consists of five chapters, each ofwhich has three sections.
The first section of each chapter is always an installment of Litumas
investigation, the
second describes a Sendero Luminoso attack, and in the thirdTom?s recounts his romantic
misadventures with Mercedes. There are four chapters in Part Two, each ofwhich also has
three sections. These are arranged in the same order as in Part One, except that the second
section of each chapter is dedicated to Adriana and Dionisio instead of to Sendero
Luminoso. The epilogue has just two sections. In the first,Tom?s and Mercedes are reunited
in a to their frustrated romance, while the second recounts the
happy conclusion
frustrating and inconclusive results of Litumas investigation.
The narrative form of Lituma en losAndes establishes a kind of structural
equivalence
between Sendero Luminoso on the one hand and Adriana and Dionisio on the other. This
structural equivalence is reinforced by Litumas investigation, which links the two and
identifies both as expressions of an atavistic indigenous barbarism. The alleged survival of
pre-Columbian Andean beliefs and practices, such as ritual human sacrifice, is ultimately
revealed to be the principal source of the violence which plagues late twentieth century
Peru. The only alternative to such violence offered by Lituma en los Andes is the love
between the Piuran prostitute Mercedes and theAndean-born Civil Guard Tom?s, a love
which redeems the former and furthers the assimilation of the latter to the dominant,
culture of Peru. A
europeanized coastal fuller understanding of the novel's treatment of the
problem of violence in Peru requires, however, a closer examination of each of its four lines
of narrative, beginning with the Sendero Luminoso attacks,
following Litumas investigation
toAdriana and Dionisio, and ending with Tom?s' and Mercedes' romance.
The Sendero Luminoso narrative consists of five self-contained sections told in the
third person. The first (17-25) describes the guerrilla's brutal murder of a French tourist

158 CONFLUENCIA, SPRING 2000

This content downloaded from 132.239.1.231 on Mon, 11 May 2015 00:06:57 UTC
All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions
couple for
no apparent reason. In the second (47-57), senderistas massacre a herd of
vicu?as on a "reserva que invent? el imperialismo" (56-57), to the horror of the preserves
deaf-mute guardian, Pedrito Tinoco, whom they spare. A Sendero Luminoso column
occupies the town of Andamarca in the third section (74-86). They execute local
a
government officials and set the residents against each other in blood-letting frenzy of
mutual denunciation for real and imagined offenses. A group of ecologists led by the
aristocratic Hortensiad'Harcourt, a wealthy European-born environmentalist from Lima,
are Senderos victims in the fourth section (106?122). They are executed for collaborating
with the government byworking with Andean communities on reforestation projects. The
fifth section (149-158) tells the story of Casimiro Huarcaya, an albino trader,who on one
a
of his trips gets young woman pregnant and then abandons her.When he encounters her
a to death. She ishis
again she is the leader of Sendero Luminoso unit which condemns him
executioner, but her shotmisses, apparently on purpose, and he survives.
Sendero Luminoso has in fact committed similar atrocities?the vicu?a section, for
on a real event en el agua 217). However, Lituma en
example, is based (Vargas Llosa, El pez
los Andes makes no attempt to examine the social context which gave rise to such
as a result it presents both the senderistas and their
apparently senseless violence, and
victims as littlemore than caricatures. The indigenous guerrillas are portrayed in such a
one-dimensional fashion that even an otherwise admiring review concedes that "los
miembros de la agrupaci?n son apenas bocetos de personajes,
guerrillera figuras
acartonadas que recitan con frialdad consignas, lemas, y justificaciones revolucionarias a la
hora de condenar a sus v?ctimas, permaneciendo e inmunes al
impenetrables di?logo"
(Figueroa 42). Their monologic totalitarian mentality is reminiscent of Vargas Llosas
comments about the Incas, above.
While Sendero Luminoso is the epitome of evil, itsvictims personify innocence, albeit
to and the residents of Andamarca, not
varying degrees. Casimiro Huarcaya though
a out of proportion to their crimes. Despite
completely innocent, receive punishment far
their ties to the government, Hortensia d'Harcourt and her group of ecologists are
more innocent, and their work is shown to benefit even their indigenous
certainly
are more than a
executioners. The French couple Albert and Mich?le guilty of nothing
an innocence which is underscored by the
profound interest in Peru's indigenous cultures,
narrator's incessant cloying references (25 of them in 8 pages) to "la petite Mich?le." And
what could be more innocent than the gentle vicu?as? Moreover, the guerillas' human
victims are arranged along a racially coded scale of innocence and injustice. The whiter the
victims, themore innocent, and the greater the outrage of the injustice committed against
them by Senderos undifferentiated indigenous masses.
As Lituma discovers in his investigation of the Naceos disappearances, however,
Sendero Luminoso is not the only source of violence in the Andes. All three of the

disappeared
men were survivors of senderista violence. Medardo Llantac, now a road
construction foreman, escaped the fate of his government colleagues inAndamarca, where
he had been mayor. The deaf-mute Pedrito Tinoco, now the Civil Guards' domestic
servant, had been themassacred vicu?as' caretaker at the preserve. And Casimiro Huarcaya
lived through his own execution. While all three survive Sendero Luminoso violence, they

VOLUME 15, NUMBER 2 159

This content downloaded from 132.239.1.231 on Mon, 11 May 2015 00:06:57 UTC
All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions
 fall victim to a an even more atavistic form of indigenous barbarism. They are killed by
their fellow road construction workers at the
urging of the bar owners Dionisio and
Adriana. The indigenous workers murder the threemen in order to protect themselves and
the road construction project from both Sendero Luminoso and the apus, ormountain
gods.
They protect themselves from Sendero Luminoso attack by eliminating the threemen
who, because of their past history, aremost likely to draw the guerrillas to the construction
site. And, following ancient Andean tradition, they sacrifice their victims to the apus in

exchange for the apus acquiescence to the road construction

through the mountains.
Lituma does not uncover the true fate of the disappeared men on his own, however. He
must rely on the Danish
professor Paul Stirmsson, whose vast knowledge of Peru's
indigenous cultures and languages is matched only by Lituma's ignorance of them.
Lituma's admiration for the professor knows no bounds: "?ste era como Dios, sab?a todo
y conoc?a todos. ?C?mo, pues, siendo encima un extranjero?" (174). It is Stirmsson who

explains for Lituma the ancient Chanca and Huanca customs: "Era sumanera de mostrar
su respeto a esos del monte, de la tierra, a los que iban a perturbar. Lo hac?an para
esp?ritus
que no tomaran contra ellos. Para asegurar su supervivencia. Para que no
represalias
hubiera derrumbes" (180). Lituma later discovers that at least one of the human sacrifices
involved ritual cannibalism.
Thethird principal line of narrative concerns Dionisio and Adriana, the sinister

couple who incite the workers to engage in barbaric rituals. Adriana entertains
indigenous
bar patrons with her story in two first person sections (209?215, 240?249). As Figueroa
(42) and Penuel (443) both note, the story of Adriana and Dionisio isVargas Llosas

"indigenous" rendition of Greek myth. Like Ariadne, who helped Theseus kill the
Minotaur in its labyrinth, Adriana helps her first lover Timoteo kill a pishtaco, a
cannibalistic Andean mythical figure, in its labyrinthine mountain cave. Like Ariadne,
who was abandoned byTheseus
on the island ofNaxos where she latermarried
Dionysius,
Adriana is abandoned byTimoteo inNaceos where she latermarries Dionisio who, like his
Greek namesake, is a master of drink and dance who participates in the sacrifice of ritual
scapegoats.
However, the pishtaco is not an Andean Minotaur. It is, rather, an indigenous
Andean folk symbol of Spanish, and later criollo, colonialist oppression. Pishtacos are
as white
represented foreigners, and in colonial times theywere said to render the fat from
their victims' bodies for use in the manufacture of church bells. In more contemporary
versions of thepishtaco myth, the body fat is exported to pay off Peru's
staggering foreign
debt or used as a lubricant for all manner of motorized vehicles, as jet fuel for commercial
aircraft, and as propellant forU.S. moon rockets.5 Vargas Llosa is aware of these versions
of thepishtaco myth and of their critical function (182-184). However, by
retelling Greek
myth through the figure of the pishtaco, he neutralizes this anti-colonialist indigenous
tradition. Indeed, he effectively inverts the pishtaco myth so that what was once an

indigenous Andean critique of Spanish and criollo colonialism becomes, in Lituma en los
Andes, a criollo critique ofAndean barbarism. The pishtaco is no longer a foreign exploiter.
He is now an indigenous monster, an Andean Minotaur.

160 CONFLUENCIA, SPRING 2000

This content downloaded from 132.239.1.231 on Mon, 11 May 2015 00:06:57 UTC
All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions
 For Penuel, thiswhitening of indigenous traditions demonstrates that "such beliefs
and practices have been present throughout human history" (453). Vargas Llosas use of
Greek myth is supposed to absolve him of the charge of racism, but it is clearly only the
hold beliefs and
indigenous workers and the equally indigenous Dionisio and Adriana who
engage in practices abandoned by the Greeks (and other "civilized" peoples) long ago.
Moreover, the novels epigraph, from Blake, "Cains City built with Human Blood, not
Blood of Bulls and Goats," a clear distinction between the animal sacrifices
implies
ritual cannibalism
practiced by the ancient Greeks, and the human sacrifices and
still in theAndes. Llosas use of Greek myth does not serve to
supposedly practiced Vargas
universalize the human potential for barbarism, as Penuel would have it.Rather, itdraws
a contrast between the barbarism overcome by theWest, and thatwhich still prevails
sharp
in theAndes.
These three lines of narrative clearly identify indigenous Andean barbarism as the
ifnot the only source of violence in Peru. "Yo me pregunto... si lo que pasa en
principal,
el Per? no es una resurrecci?n de toda esa violencia empozada" (178) mutters the blond
at the ironically named La Esperanza mine where Lituma meets Paul Stirmsson.
engineer
Lituma himself laterwonders

era esos peones, muchos de ellos acriollados, que hab?an

?C?mo posible que
terminado la escuela primaria por lomenos, que hab?an conocido las ciudades,
que o?an radio, que iban al cine, que se vest?an como cristianos, hicieran cosas de
nunca pisaron un
salvajes calatos y can?bales? En los indios de las punas, que
como sus tatarabuelos, se entender?a. Pero en estos
colegio, que segu?an viviendo
cartas y estaban bautizados, c?mo pues. (204?205)
tipos que jugaban

to have failed irremediably in Peru, and these three

The civilizing mission appears
lines of narrative offer no solution to the resulting wave of violence. Lituma receives a
transfer out of the Andes without arresting Dionisio and Adriana or anyone else, and
Sendero Luminoso continues to terrorize the country.
The story ofTom?s' and Mercedes' romance identifies official as another
corruption
source of violence in Peru. State-sponsored violence, however, does not seem to be as
an obstacle to human happiness as is indigenous barbarism. Tom?s begins his
insuperable
Civil Guard career as an official bodyguard for an important drug trafficker. He falls in love
with Mercedes, the lord's mistress, and rescues her from the abusive criminal by
drug
course puts them on the run from both the Peruvian Civil Guard
murdering him. This of
and the drug mafia. Mercedes, who never reallywanted to be rescued, abandons Tom?s at
the first opportunity, in Lima, and takes all his money with her. However, their love
overcomes the corruption and violence inwhich itwas born when she turns up inNaceos,
and they are reunited at the end of the novel. This improbable story is the only part of
Lituma en losAndes in which Vargas Llosa employs his trademark literary techniques.
Tom?s tells Lituma about his frustrated romance with Mercedes in nightly installments in
order toward off the boredom and tension of their remote Civil Guard post. The love story
and the dialogues through which it is narrated are spliced into the conversations between

VOLUME 15, NUMBER 2 161

This content downloaded from 132.239.1.231 on Mon, 11 May 2015 00:06:57 UTC
All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions
Tom?s and Lituma, but the interwoven dialogues or "vasos comunicantes" which Vargas
Llosa used to such remarkable effect in La casa verde and Conversaci?n en La Catedral are
on a
largelywasted here vapid melodrama.
The story is nonetheless crucial to the novels project, for the romantic happy ending
is the only one there is in Lituma en losAndes, and it is the only solution offered to Peru's

problems. In the tradition of the 19th century Latin American national romances Doris
Sommer calls foundational fictions, Vargas Llosa refounds a collapsing Peru through the
romantic union of representatives from its conflicting parts.6 Mercedes, from Piura, and
Tom?s, from the southern Andes and raised in Lima, are the future of Peru. The
relationship and probable marriage between the white piurana and the "good,"
acculturated indian is the only alternative to the barbaric violence of Sendero Luminoso and
the atavistic human sacrifices promoted by Dionisio and Adriana. Given themagnitude of
Peru's contemporary problems, however, Vargas Llosas solution seems even more woefully
at the end of the 20th century than itwas in the 19th. Indeed, it ismore of an
inadequate
than a solution, for itwrites off the Andes as
escape hopelessly barbaric and unfit for
inclusion in the nation: Tom?s receives a transfer toMercedes' hometown Piura and, like
Lituma, turns his back on theAndes (293).
In place of a social analysis of the bloody Peruvian conflict, Vargas Llosa offers the
atavistic savagery of indigenous Andeans as the cause of the bloodshed. By doing so, he
erases over 500 years of post-Conquest history and
largely absolves official, criollo Peru of
to dozens of
responsibility for the conditions which have given rise indigenous rebellions
over the past five centuries, Sendero Luminosos war in the 1980s.7
including Vargas Llosas
admission in his earlier novel ElhabUdor of at least some criollo culpability for the violence

plaguing Peru is here replaced by Lituma's unrestrained race-hatred: "?Serranos de mierda!

a
?Supersticiosos, id?latras, indios de mierda, hijos de la grand?sima puta!" (203). Lacking
substantive social analysis, Lituma en los Andes rules out a collective solution to the
an escape into "el amor y la vida ?ntima" as an alternative to
problem and proposes instead
"la violencia y la tragedia que tienen lugar en la sierra" (Figueroa 41).
on Lituma en losAndes insist on as a
Curiously, the few published articles reading it
serious attempt at social anaylsis. Armando Figueroa claims that "a nivel aleg?rico Vargas
Llosa se vale de una vision antropologica para intentar explicar la ola de violencia que desde
los a?os setenta azota a Per?" (42). And Arnold Penuel asserts that Lituma en losAndes "is
a sources of the violence that has afflicted Peru for somany
masterly exploration of certain
years" (441). The "certain sources" of violence quickly reduce to one for both critics. As
Penuel puts it,

sources of the violence in contemporary Peru, such

notwithstanding themultiple
as centuries of
exploitation, racism, class feeling, and neglect, the spotlight in
Lituma is turned on the native roots of that violence. In prorating the blame for
the violence, Peruvians must accept their share. (457)

162 CONFLUENCIA, SPRING 2000

This content downloaded from 132.239.1.231 on Mon, 11 May 2015 00:06:57 UTC
All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions
 Penuel's "Peruvians" become "Peruvians of the sierra" in the very next sentence, after
which there is no other kind. Their share of the blame turns out to be just about all of it.
For Penuel,

the novel manifestly dramatizes theDionysian element present in Peruvian

society, especially in the sierra.The solution suggested in the novel is the creation
of a much larger role for theApollonian side of human nature. This element is
found in juxtaposition with theDyonisian element, though, since it is reflective
of Peruvian reality, itmanifests itselfas a relativelyweaker force. (454)

Andeans, with their overabundance of the "Dionysian element" are Peru's problem.
The solution lies with the representatives of the "Apollonian element" who, predictably
turn out to be white: Paul Stirmsson, Hortensia d'Harcourt, Lituma, and even the
enough,
French tourists.Their Apollonian rationality "must be allowed to attenuate and positively
channel theDionysian element" which plagues Peru (459).
All Andeans need not despair, however, for there is a model to follow in restraining
theirDionysian qualities. It isworth quoting at length:

The Tom?s-Mercedes storydemonstrates that love can triumph over hatred and
superstition, even in the sierra.A native of the sierra,Tom?s was inculcated with
the traditional indigenous beliefs in apus and pishtacos, as well as with fear and
hatred of outsiders and those who are different.His courage, indeed fortitude, in
a native of the coastal
wooing Mercedes, city of Piura, provides a symbolic model
forhis compatriots of the sierra.They need the courage to incorporate themselves
into the larger Peruvian society and, by extension, into the larger civilized world.
Love, effort, courage, and fortitude are the characteristics they need to succeed.
Hatred and fear of outsiders are shown to be counterproductive, self-destructive,
and destructive of others, including those who attempt to help them. (456)

One wonders who really needs to overcome fear and hatred of those who are
different.While Figueroa at least has one or two critical things to say before gushing that
Lituma en losAndes "confirma que el narrador peruano es sin duda uno de losmejores en
seems
lengua espa?ola" (44), Penuel incapable of anything more than an unselfconscious
echo ofVargas Llosas anti-Andean racism.
In Temptation recent
of theWord, his study of Vargas Llosas entire novelistic
Efrain Kristal offers a somewhat more nuanced en losAndes.
production, reading of Lituma
For Kristal, Lituma en los Andes reflects Vargas Llosas disillusionment with politics

following his 1990 electoral defeat and expresses his growing pessimism regarding the
to social
possibility of political, collective solutions problems. While Vargas Llosas earliest
novels analyzed and critiqued violence as the product of Latin American societies' unjust
social structures, argues Kristal, in Lituma en los Andes violence has no cause and no
solution. For the first time in one of Vargas Llosas novels, "the violent instincts of some
characters no longer have any rational explanation whatsoever; violence just happens"

VOLUME 15, NUMBER 2 163

This content downloaded from 132.239.1.231 on Mon, 11 May 2015 00:06:57 UTC
All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions
 (Kristal 187). Some characters, for instance, "participate in the most depraved acts of
murder and cannibalism for no apparent reason at all" (195). Kristal interprets this as an
indication ofVargas Llosas pessimism about the human condition in general. Yet he, too,
fails to register how such senseless violence is racially coded in Lituma en losAndes. For it
is not just "some" characters who engage in depraved acts?the depravity turns out to be
almost exclusively indigenous and Andean. And Vargas Llosas indigenous Andean
characters do not commit such acts for no apparent reason?Lituma en losAndes
clearly
attributes their behavior to the persistence of barbaric pre-Columbian traditions.
Penuel (458), Figueroa (41), and Kristal (188-189) do, however, quite correctly
trace Vargas Llosas focus on the indigenous roots of Peruvian violence in Lituma en los
Andes back to his report on the murder of 8 journalists near the Andean community of

Uchuraccay in January 1983. Appointed by then president Belaunde Terry to head a

to wrote the commissions
special commission investigate the killings, Vargas Llosa
"Informe sobre Uchuraccay" in Contra vientoy marea 7/787-128) which accuses
(reprinted
the indigenous community of Uchuraccay of the deaths. The report takes note of the

atmosphere of violence the killings occurred, and offers a list of

and tension in which
causes: Sendero Luminoso violence; to
contributing inadequate government response
communities' recent of senderistas,what are delicately, and briefly,
indigenous lynchings
referred to as the "excesses" of government security forces in theirwar against Sendero, the
"structural violence" of poor living conditions in the Andean countryside; the extreme
isolation of the indigenous communities in the region, the long-standing conflicts between
them and their tradition of belligerence when threatened.
The report nonetheless holds the residents ofUchuraccay ultimately responsible for
the deaths, and takes great pains to downplay possible government security forces
involvement in or instigation of the killings. According to the report, residents of
killed the 8 and their after a
Uchuraccay journalists guide mistaking them for column of
Sendero Luminoso guerrillas which theUchuraccainos feared was coming to take reprisals
for indigenous communities' recent lynchings of presumed senderistas: "La Comisi?n ha
a la convicci?n absoluta de que los comuneros.. .confundieron a los nueve forasteros
llegado
que se con un destacamento senderista" {Contra vientoy marea LLL100). The
aproximaban
reports theory of mistaken identity requires that the journalists, three of whom spoke
Quechua, had not had a chance to speak with their attackers and identify themselves: "La
Comisi?n tiene la convicci?n rehtiva de que los periodistas debieron ser atacados de

improviso, masivamente, sin que mediara un di?logo previo" (Contra viento y marea ILL
101). The subsequent recovery of one of the journalists' cameras provided photos which
indicated that theUchuraccainos had indeed attacked the journalists. However, the photos
also cast doubt on the report'smistaken identity theory by showing that the journalists had
in fact had an opportunity to identify themselves before being attacked (Flores Galindo,
Buscando un Inca 329n). In a later article, Vargas Llosa acknowledges the photographic
evidence of a dialogue between the journalists and their attackers (Contra viento y marea
777 187-188), but does not address the problem this creates for the report's theory. If the
Uchuraccainos knew theywere killing journalists and not senderistas,why did they do it?

Despite such inconsistencies and the commission's at times shoddy investigative

164 CONFLUENCIA, SPRING 2000

This content downloaded from 132.239.1.231 on Mon, 11 May 2015 00:06:57 UTC
All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions
 procedures, the report largely succeeded in absolving the government and its security
forces of any direct responsibility for themurders.8
Whether or not there actually was government involvement in the
killings, the
reportmakes use of various rhetorical ploys to downplay that possibility. Most interesting
for theUchuraccay report s relationship to Lituma en losAndes is its attempt to establish
the independence of the Uchuraccainos actions by highlighting their use of atavistic
to the report, the commission discovered
indigenous ritual. According

ciertos indicios, por las caracter?sticas de las heridas sufridas por las v?ctimas y la
manera como ?stas fueron enterradas, de un crimen que, a la vez que pol?tico
social, pudo encerrar matices m?gico-religiosos. [Contra viento y marea III 125)

The indications were that the victims were stripped naked and buried face down as
one would do with a devil or demon, and their eyes,mouth, and ankles appeared to have
been mutilated consistent with traditional Andean beliefs that doing so prevents victims
from recognizing, denouncing, or returning to harass their killers. The report s language is

highly speculative, however: "Las lesiones de los cad?veres descritas por la autopsia
apuntan a una cierta coincidencia con estas creencias" (126, my emphasis). While its
on the ritual aspects of the as atavistic indigenous
emphasis killings effectivelymarks them
murder (rather than state-promoted violence), the "Informe sobre Uchuraccay" is on the
whole careful not to make the persistence of traditional indigenous practices carry too
much of the arguments weight.
The attribution of the nations problems to its indigenous "backwardness,"

tentatively formulated in the "Informe sobre Uchuraccay," finds its culmination 10 years
later in Litumas en losAndes,
unapologetic race-hatred. In Lituma Vargas Llosa dispenses
with all reference to the structural violence of poverty, exclusion of indigenous peoples
from national life, or any other possible causes of violence in Peru. Instead, he burdens
atavistic indigenous barbarism with the fullweight of everything that iswrong with Peru.
In earlier novels such as La casa verde and Conversaci?n en La Catedral, Vargas Llosa
en los
explored complex reasons for Perus social problems. The same is not true of Lituma
Andes, where the answer to the question Vargas Llosa once asked in Conversaci?n en La
se hab?a
Catedral, "?En que momento jodido el Per??" (13), seems to be: before the

Conquest.

Notes
1
Mario Vargas Llosa, "Questions ofConquest: What Columbus Wrought, andWhat He Did
Not," Harpers 281 (1990), 45-53; "Cabezazos con laMadre Patria," inEl Pa?s,Madrid (26 de
enero 1992), 11-12; "Novels Disguised asHistory: The Chronicles of theBirth of Peru," in
Mario Vargas Llosa: A Writers Reality,Syracuse,NY: SyracuseUniversity Press, 1991, 21-38;
"LatinAmerica: Fiction and Reality," in
Modern Latin American Fiction: A Survey,ed. JohnKing,
London: Faber and Faber, 1987, 1-17; "El nacimiento del Per?," El Pa?s,Madrid (13 de abril

VOLUME 15, NUMBER 2 165

This content downloaded from 132.239.1.231 on Mon, 11 May 2015 00:06:57 UTC
All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions
 1986), reprinted inContra vientoy marea, III: 1964?1988, Mario Vargas Llosa, Barcelona: Seix
Barrai, 1990, 365-78.
2
For a concise statementofArguedas' literaryand political project, see his "No soy un
acu? turado..." which appears as a prologue to his posthumously published novel El zorrode
arriba y el zorro de abajo, M?xico, D.F.: Colecci?n Archivos, 1992, 256-258. On Arguedas and
transculturation, see Rama, Transculturaci?n narrativa en Am?rica Latina, M?xico, D.F.:
Angel

Siglo XXI, 1982.

3 For
Vargas Llosas account of his 1990 presidential campaign, see his El pez en el agua,
Barcelona: Seix Barrai, 1993. For a more critical analysis seeElecciones 1990, Demonios y
redentoresen el nuevoPer?: Una tragedia en dos vueltas,Carlos Iv?nDegregori y Romeo
Grompone, Lima: Institutode Estudios Peruanos, 1991. On the effectsof neoliberal economic
policies inLatin America, seeTheNew EconomicModel inLatin America and itsImpact on Income
Distribution and Poverty,ed. Victor Bulmer Thomas, New York: St.Martin s Press, 1996.
4
See, for example, his ?Qui?n mat? a PalominoMoler??, Barcelona: Seix Barrai, 1986.
5 see Juan Ansi?n,
For more tales, particularly contemporary versions, ed., Pishtacos:
onpishtaco
De a Lima: Tarea, 1989.
verdugos sacaojos,
6
See Doris Sommer, Foundational Fictions: TheNational Romances ofLatin America, Berkeley:
University ofCalifornia Press, 1991, and "IrresistibleRomance: The Foundational Fictions of
Latin America," Nation andNarration, ed. Homi Bhabha, New York: Routledge, 1990, 71-98.
7While Sendero Luminosos
political program and ideology have littleor nothing in common
with indigenous cultures, and while its top leadershipwas made up ofmestizo intellectuals,not
indigenous peasants, it isnonetheless undeniable thatSendero attracted the support of thousands
of indigenousmen and women who fought in itsranks.For the argument thatSendero Luminoso
was not an indigenousmovement, see "Qu? dif?cil es serDios: Ideolog?a y violencia pol?tica en
Sendero Luminoso," Carlos Iv?nDegregori, inPer? en elfin del milenio, ed. Heraclio Bonilla,
M?xico, D.F.: Consejo Nacional para laCultura y lasArtes 1994, 119-138.
8 a few hours
Llosa and the other commission members spent only in Uchuraccay, where
Vargas
theyarrivedby helicopter accompanied by army officers(FloresGalindo, Buscando un Inca 329 ).

Works Cited
Ansi?n, ed. Pishtacos: De a Lima: Tarea, 1989.
Juan, verdugos sacaojos.

Arguedas, Jos? Mar?a. "No soy un aculturado..." El zorro de arriba y el zorro de abajo. M?xico,
D.F.: Colecci?n Archivos, 1992. 256-258.
Bonilla, Heraclio, ed. Per? en elfin del milenio.M?xico, D.F.: Consejo Nacional para laCultura
y lasArtes, 1994.
Bulmer Thomas, Victor, ed. TheNew EconomicModel inLatin America and Its Impact on Income
Distribution and Poverty.New York: St.Martins Press, 1996.
es serDios: Ideolog?a y violencia pol?tica en Sendero
Degregori, Carlos Iv?n. "Qu? dif?cil
Luminoso." Per? en elfin del milenio. Ed. Heraclio Bonilla. M?xico, D.F.: Consejo
Nacional para laCultura y lasArtes, 1994, 119-138.

166 CONFLUENCIA, SPRING 2000

This content downloaded from 132.239.1.231 on Mon, 11 May 2015 00:06:57 UTC
All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions
 Degregori, Carlos Iv?n, yRomeo Grompone. Elecciones 1990, Demonios y redentoresen el nuevo
Per?: Una tragedia endos vueltas.Lima: Institutode Estudios Peruanos, 1991.

Figueroa,Armando. "El regresodel Cabo Lituma: Dos mundos andinos vistos porMario Vargas
Llosa." Quimera 122 (1994): 40-44.
Flores Galindo, Alberto. Buscando un Inca: Identidad y utop?a en losAndes. 4a edici?n. Lima:
Editorial Horizonte, 1994 [1986].
Mario Vargas Llosa. Nashville: Vanderbilt
Kristal, Efra?n. Temptation of theWord: TheNoveh of
University Press, 1998.
Penuel, Arnold M. "Intertextualityand theTheme ofViolence inVargas Llosas Lituma enhs
Andes." Revista de EstudiosHisp?nicos 29 (1995): 441-60.
Rama, Angel. Transculturaci?nnarrativa enAm?rica Latina. M?xico, D.F.: Siglo XXI, 1982.
Sommer,Doris. Foundational Fictions: TheNational Romances ofLatin America. Berkeley:
University ofCalifornia Press, 1991.
-. "IrresistibleRomance: The Foundational Fictions of Latin America." Nation and
Narration. Ed. Homi Bhabha. New York: Routledge, 1990. 71-98.
Steele, Cynthia. "Rese?a de Elhabhdor deMario Vargas Llosa." Revista de Cr?tica Literaria
Latinoamericana 15.30 (1989): 365-367.

Vargas Llosa, Mario. Lituma en losAndes. Barcelona: Planeta, 1993.

-. El en el
pez agua: Memorias. Barcelona: Seix Barrai, 1993.

-. "Cabezazos con laMadre Patria." El Pa?s,Madrid (26 de enero de 1992): 11-12.

-.A Writers
Reality. Syracuse: SyracuseUniversity Press, 1991.
-. "Questions ofConquest: What Columbus Wrought, andWhat He Did Not." Harpers
281 (1990): 45-53.
-. Contra vientoy marea III: 1964-1988. Barcelona: Seix Barrai, 1990.
-. "LatinAmerica: Fiction and
Reality."Modern Latin American Fiction: A Survey.Ed.
JohnKing. London: Faber and Faber, 1987. 1-17.
-. El hablador. Barcelona: Seix Barrai, 1987.
-.
?Qui?n mat? a Pahmino Moler??. Barcelona: Seix Barrai, 1986.
-. Conversaci?n en La Catedral. Barcelona: Seix Barrai, 1969.
-. La Casa Verde. Barcelona: Seix Barrai, 1965.

VOLUME 15, NUMBER 2 167

This content downloaded from 132.239.1.231 on Mon, 11 May 2015 00:06:57 UTC
All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions