Letters to a Young Novelist

by Mario Vargas Llosa

(Picador)

Like Rainer Maria Rilke’s Letters to a Young Poet, Mario Vargas Llosa’s Letters to a Young Novelist aims to coach budding writers, revealing what the author calls “the secret anatomy of the novel”.

Each chapter is a letter responding to a young fan who seeks to learn the skills to become a novelist. Vargas Llosa addresses his own philosophy of writing as a career and the challenges within, as well as basic techniques, including style, levels of reality and the use of time.

He points to Jorge Luis Borges’ story ‘The Secret Miracle’ to discuss the use of time. For narrative technique, he looks at Gustave Flaubert’s Madame Bovary, and the names go on from all around the world: Alejo Carpentier, William Faulkner, Pierre de Mandiargues, Julio Cortazar, Ernest Hemingway, Louis-Ferdinand Celine…

The Peruvian Nobel laureate mentions books and authors as examples of the best of each technique. His suggestions intrigue the reader and spur the desire to investigate each work he mentions to the extent that at the end of the book, the reader is more likely to be inspired to read than to write.

What better way to find out what makes an author great than to read the books he has chosen to fill his mind with?

Vargas Llosa refers to fiction as “the fruit of a deep dissatisfaction with real life”. In the first chapter, he writes: “Fiction is a lie covering up a deep truth.” At the end the book he reminds the young novelist that when all is said and done, no one can teach anyone else how to be a great writer.

He also describes how skill, practice, hard work and organisation are all part of the process. The writer is not just creating stories and people and lives, he is also inventing a format to convey those creations. 

“To isolate theme, style, order, points of view, etcetera, to perform a vivisection is always, even in the best of cases, a form of murder.”

Originally written in Spanish and translated by Natasha Wimmer, it is a very valid and useful book, especially for readers who are undertaking any creative writing effort. And for those who aren’t, Vargas Llosa’s letters function as a sort of recommended reading list. 

The best advice is given at the very end: forget about all of this and write!