In Alma Guillermoprieto's article called "The Bitter Education of Vargas Llosa" an interesting fact sort of struck me. Vargas Llosa was married to his aunt, divorced, and then married his first cousin. That immediately reminded my of Garcia Marquez's 1oo Years of Solitude in which many of the Buendias inter marry.
What confuses me: Do Latin Americans view marrying family members as incest? Is there any particular reason for inbreeding like the aristocratic class of Europe? In 100 Years of Solitude, inbreeding had a particular danger for the Buendia family, resulting in the destruction of Macondo (it has been awhile since I have read the book, so please correct me if I am wrong). The first Buendia's (Jose Arcadio Buendia I believe) wife (Ursula?) vainly attempted to prevent the inbreeding of the Buendia family and thus the deformed child with the extended spinal cord. However, in the account of Vargas Llosa, these facts of marriage to his aunt and his cousin were presented almost as normal profile data. What is the view of inbreeding in Latin America?
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I got the impression from this article that Vargas Llosa's situation was not exactly the norm in Latin America (though it certainly wasn't considered in Guillermoprieto's article as an outrageous perversity). It seemed to me that Vargas Llosa's marital history was part and parcel of his self-admittedly stifled and stunted adolescent exposure to sexuality. The theme comes out even more strongly and poignantly in Vargas Llosa's novels In Praise of the Stepmother and its sequel The Notebooks of Don Rigoberto. However, I do think there is something to say about the broader and more inclusive conceptions of family in Latin America that may lead to a "softer" reaction to inter-familial sexual relationships.
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