The City and the Dogs

Introduction

The City and the Dogs is the first novel by writer Peruvian Mario Vargas Llosa, and won Nobel Prize in Literature 2010. Its importance is crucial because it showed a series of modernity in Peruvian narrative. Its English title is The Time of the Hero and is written by Lysander Kemp (Williams, pp. 245).

Thesis

Mario Vargas Llosa is the son of Latin America. The deep connection between reality and the American land raises his ideas on the derivative of cellulose, with an expressive language and religion, in a realistic world characterized by displaying their works in Latin American social context.

In "The City and the Dogs" aside from the main plot and linear characteristic of the story, beginning to weave a few parallel stories that analepsis resorting to begin to throw light on the genesis and life of some characters in the story, however, are belatedly identified. Agility, ingenuity and apparent confusion with these frames seem to block the account, based on the story that becomes less confusing, appearing toward the middle and end of the text frames (Wechsler, pp. 165).

It is this game space and time, marking the pulse of a structure that focuses attention on trying to dispel the initial confusion trying to solve a puzzle. At times, the fit between the parts is sudden and unexpected helping to shape kaleidoscopic reality of the story, until the game ends to accommodate their parts.

Kemp's The Time of the Hero

The Time of the Hero is La Ciudad y Los Perros', translation written by Lysander Kemp. Although, Kemp has done an admirable work in translating the text but due to the diversity of the culture, he misinterpreted few of Peruvian military traditions and customs. For instance, the depiction of “dog” in Vargas Llosa's work and Kemp's work differ considerably, as Llosa's "Skimpy" or "Dogs" are pseudonyms that students in fourth and fifth grade school called the students of third-grade, Leoncio Prado (Hancock, pp. 37). The concept of a dog in this work is a marked feature that is appearing inferior, abused and subjugated.

In this respect, the "dog" Vargas Llosa stands as the ultimate symbolic representation of a world that presents the characters as entities in their eternal struggle for identity within a context that appears unavoidable adverse (Llosa, pp. 56). Kemp's mistake was the result of his limited knowledge of Peruvian military academy life, whereas, Vargas has the in-depth knowledge of his customs, and he supported them with his personal experience of the academy.

At several occasions, the reader felt unsatisfied due to the inaccuracy of translation. It is very critical for the credibility of the work that it depicts the true essence of the culture; in The Time of the Hero Kemp lacked this understanding of the Peruvian Perspective presented and described by Vargas Llosa (www.daemcopiapo.com). Kemp's mistake was that, he translated the book too literally, and mislaying the context.

The metaphor “dog” is used for fresh graduated cadets in the Peruvian society, to explain their strife throughout their ...