Зелёный дом: Роман о Перу

the novel
1966 novel by Mario Vargas Llosa

The Green House (Original title: La Casa Verde) is the second novel by the Peruvian writer Mario Vargas Llosa, published in 1966. The novel is set over a period of forty years (from the early part of the 20th century to the 1960s) in two regions of Peru: Piura, a dusty town near the coast in the north, and Peruvian Amazonia, specifically the jungle region near the Marañón river.

The novel was inspired by memories of the author's youth in Piura and a journey through the jungle he made in 1958. Vargas Llosa has described the novel as "a fusion of very different experiences" that had impressed him. The oldest of the stories that compose the book dates back to Piura: ″It's a story of a brothel in Piura, which I remember vividly from when I was in fifth grade of grammar school. It was a green house – or cabin – in the middle of the dunes, on the outskirts of the city, right in the desert, across the river. For us children there was something fascinating about it. Of course I never dared go anywhere near it. Still it left quite an impression on me.″ Six years later Vargas Llosa visited the place and found out that "it had a very strange atmosphere″; ″It was nothing but a single huge room, where the women were, and where there was a three man combo made up of an old blind man, playing the harp, a guitarist known as ′el Joven′ (The Young One), and a lumbering giant who looked like a catch wrestler or a truckdriver, who played the drums and cymbals and was known as Bolas (Balls). Because they're almost mythical characters to me, I've kept their names intact in the book. So the clients used to come in there and take the women out to make love in the dunes, under the stars. It's something I've never been able to forget."

The story is broken into five parts, each of which begins with an impressionistic narrative without paragraph breaks. Each part is then broken into chapters (Parts One and Three have four chapters each; Parts Two and Four, three). Each chapter is further divided into five separate narratives: 1) Bonifacia in the jungle region, 2) Fushia and Aquilino on the Marañón, 3) Anselmo in Piura, 4) various characters involved in power struggles in the jungle, and 5) Lituma and Bonifacia in Piura. The novel concludes with a five chapter epilogue. Vargas Llosa adds to this narrative complexity by referring to characters obliquely ("the lieutenant", "the native", etc.) and by telling the story non chronologically (parallel narratives may be decades apart). He also creates double narratives within chapters without clear demarcation. The effect is to interweave past and present and to suggest an omnipresent and continuing corruption and brutality.

Anselmo: a mysterious stranger who arrives in Piura to build a brothel called the Green House. Antonia (Tonita): a child left for dead by bandits, she dies giving birth to Anselmo's daughter, Chunga. Aquilino: Fushia's reluctant partner in crime, he has worked on the river for 20 years as a pilot and merchant. Bonifacia: an Aguaruna native abducted and raised by nuns, she marries Sergeant Lituma only to become a prostitute at the Green House where she is derisively called "Wildflower." Chunga: Anselmo's daughter, she becomes madame of the new Green House. Fushia: from Brazil and of Japanese descent, he is a sadist, criminal, leader of warrior natives, and leper. Josefino: a resident of Piura and friend of Lituma, he rapes Bonifacia. Jum: an Aguaruna native and father of Bonifacia, he works with Fushia Lalita: Fushia's lover, she starts a new life with Adrian Nieves. Sergeant Lituma: a resident of Piura and husband of Bonifacia, he serves in the Peruvian military in the Amazonia region before returning to his home town. Adrian Nieves: a river pilot involved in the capture of Bonifacia, he works for Fushia and has three children with Lalita. Julio Reategui: the son of a rubber merchant, he colludes with Fushia on the illegal rubber trade and becomes provincial Governor.