I came to The Bad Girl by Mario Vargas Llosa (Faber and Faber) with the memory of The Feast of the Goat, Llosa’s searing portrayal of ageing Dominican Republic dictator Rafael Trujillo and the last days of his regime, so I could be forgiven for high expectations.
The Bad Girl is a novel rich in atmosphere and nostalgia, as the action moves from Lima to Paris to Tokyo, London and Barcelona over the period of several decades. The narrator, Ricardo, has loved the “Bad Girl” of the title since he was a teenager. Each time he meets her, she bears a different name and he loves her without knowing who she really is. She’s tempestuous, remote, uncaring, selfish and always denies their teenage fling. But she’s beautiful and gorgeous and their clandestine meetings continue around the world.
As for Ricardo, the details of his life appear grey and insignificant unless the Bad Girl is around to add colour and vibrancy. He becomes an interpreter for Unesco, which doesn’t further the plot much, but is, as the Guardian remarked, rather an obvious metaphor for someone who lives his life through other people.
In the final part of the book the Bad Girl gets her comeuppance and finally starts to know what’s good for her. Is Llosa really capable of creating a vibrant, interesting female character whose life is not bound by stereotype? The ending might not be exactly happy, but it is too neat to offer much satisfaction. Her sexuality — always icy, like her cold self — is pathologised and becomes the vehicle for her author’s revenge.
Yet despite it all I can’t help enjoying the joy Ricardo takes in loving such a bad, bad girl. It’s a fun read because, if nothing else, Llosa certainly knows how to spin a good yarn, but it’s one without much depth.