SOURCE: Kristal, Efraín. “Captain Pantoja and the Special Service: A Transitional Novel.” Review of Contemporary Fiction 17, no. 1 (spring 1997): 52-7.

In the following essay, Kristal examines Captain Pantoja and the Special Service as an illustration of Vargas Llosa's period of “artistic transition” in the early 1970s, during which the author began to move away from rigidly rule-abiding characters to fanatics who challenge any impediment to their fervent beliefs.

Mario Vargas Llosa's reflections on socialism have always informed the themes of his major novels. In the 1960s, when he was an enthusiastic supporter of the Cuban revolution, his novels reflected his conviction that Peruvian society was too corrupt for reform. In the 1980s, after repudiating socialism, his novels explored the dangers of ideology. Unlike the 1960s or 1980s, the 1970s—the period dealt with in this essay—were for Vargas Llosa a time of political ambivalence: he was no...