Mario Vargas Llosa - The War of the End of the World

Deep within the remote backlands of 19th-century Brazil sits Canudosa libertarian paradise. Home of prostitutes, bandits, beggars, Canudos embodies the revolutionary spirit in its purest and most apocalyptic form. In one of his most brilliant and tragic novels, Mario Vargas Llosa creates an unforgettable tale of passion, idealism, adventure, and man's struggle to be free.

Comment: I was lent this book because it has a theme that interests me somewhat, the need to believe in someone to the point of making people ignore so many other things, such as it happens with people who behave themselves as messianic or prophets.

In this fictional tale based on real life happenings, the author Mario Vargas Llosa picked as his focus an historical moment from Brazil's society back in the late 19th century. In this book he created a fictional scenario based on what happened when a group of people fought the Brazilian army to defend their land and beliefs, while the army mistakenly thought they were pro-monarchy, thus against the new founded Republic.

The key figure is António Conselheiro, the Counselor, who is believed to be a prophet from God who will unite the people and lead them into a better life, following the laws of God. But how could have such a situation get to the point where it ended up in so many people dead?

This is the second book I read by this author and I'd say the other one I've read was clearly a story about emotions while this one is about facts and expectations.

In this story I was looking for to see how the character of the so called prophet "Counselor" would affect his believers to the point of them changing for his words and fighting for his ideas. After all, isn't this how these people start? By promising something, by using people's fears and difficulties to lead them towards what to think?

In this case, the base was set by the way of the land: poor, uneducated people who lived off agriculture and stealing who saw in that man an answer and a way to be part of a group that would accept and defend them. Religion was important but not the matrix for all the people which the author cleverly described with his incredible cast of characters.

Interestingly, the Counselor isn't a character that drives the action. He is there, in the background, he acts now and then but most of the novel is seen through the eyes of many other characters.

I can see the author did this deliberately to seduce us into being friendly with some character's plights and emotions somehow but to me this only led to a certain confusion because it's too many people to pay attention to. The cast of characters is huge, many names are common so they are attributed to more than one character... 

Then there's the side of the army, the officers and military people and their supporters who just look like art of a whole and I can't distinguish between them individually.

Not to forget the many monologues and battles until the final one where the book ends. I think this book was too big, too descriptive and confusing and the author could have stressed out other situations more, like the prophet's role and the action taking place instead of each little scene.

I suppose the author wanted to write a masterpiece and in terms of plot and cast he managed that but sadly, for me, his writing isn't always appealing and I felt a little annoyed at times when my attention would be taken from something interesting (like the motivations of some characters for instance) to boring scenes (like the countless battle moves among "sides").

Anyway, this was interesting to some point but I certainly wouldn't want to re-read it...

Grade: 5/10