Word: aunt
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...Anatolian, Elia Kazan Aunt Julia and the Scriptwriter, Mario Vargas Llosa...
FICTION: The Anatolian, Elia Kazan Aunt Julia and the Scriptwriter, Mario Vargas Llosa ∙Family Trade, James Carroll ∙Famous Last Words, Timothy Findley ∙The Girl of the Sea of Cortez, Peter Benchley The Woods, David Plante
Both Julia and the scriptwriter are from Bolivia, an instant Peruvian joke. Like Charley's Aunt ("I'm from Brazil, where the nuts come from"), rambunctious Julia is not as advertised. She is the former sister-in-law of Mario's uncle and so no blood relative. But by constantly referring to her as Aunt Julia, Mario keeps the tingle of a semi-scandalous relationship in his narrative. Paralleling this "real-life" romance are Camacho's soap operas. Dwarfish but with a melodious voice that has listeners imagining a movie idol, Camacho spends all his waking...
...resentful tone echoes Vargas Llosa novels in which Peru was often depicted as a parody society. Those books had powerful intentions, but they also had moments that recalled Peter De Vries' line about the writer who puts readers into a diving bell and takes them down three feet. Aunt Julia is an ingenious and delightful turnabout, a glass-bottom social comedy that offers some deep, dark perspectives to those who care to look down. -By R.Z. Sheppard...
...Aunt Julia and I watch in openmouthed amazement, by changing props and costumes Pedro Camacho transformed himself [into] an old lady, a beggar, a bigot, a cardinal... During this series of lightning-quick changes he kept talking, in a fervent tone of voice. 'And why shouldn't I have the right to become one with characters of my own creation, to resemble them? Who is there to stop me from having their noses, their hair, their frock coats as I describe them?' he said, exchanging a biretta for a meerschaum, the meerschaum for a duster...