The Bad Girl

This novel by Mario Vargas Llosa tells the story of Ricardo, a good boy who falls in love with a bad girl. It begins in Lima and moves on to various exotic locales, Paris (where Ricardo works at UNESCO as a translator), swinging London in the 1960's and Tokyo. The bad girl is first introduced as Lily, a Chilean girl visiting Lima with her sister. Lily sheds that life and identity when she is exposed as a fraud but Ricardo is smitten and never gets over it. Years later she resurfaces in Paris as Arlette, an aspiring revolutionary, and Ricardo is ready to resume where they left off. Once again she vanishes and reappears in a different skin with a a new name, a lifelong pattern. She uses Ricardo when she needs him, between relationships with a series of wealthy men. Ricardo allows Lily to drop in and out of his life at her convenience and seems to derive a masochistic satisfaction from humiliation at her hands. It is a lifelong obsession that can only end with the death of one of the characters. This is not a great love story or even a convincing one. I failed to see the allure of self-centred, greedy Lily and just wanted to see her get her comeuppance. I had no sympathy for Ricardo, in fact I felt like slapping some sense into him (he probably would have enjoyed it). It took me far too long to read this book during a particularly busy period in my life when I had a lot of personal distractions. This interfered with the flow of the narrative. However, I doubt that my opinion of The Bad Girl would have been improved by a closer, more diligent reading. It is what it is, somewhat far-fetched and a little bit corny.