The Bad Girl Part 1

Before  I jump into everything, I wanted to say that I love this book. It’s the first book in a long time I literally couldn’t put down.

Marriage, Religion and Modesty

Religion is somewhat relevant in the novel, as it should be, because South Americans tend to be Catholic and it is very prevalent in their culture. It comes up very early on when Ricardo explains about his and Lily’s suedo-relationship. He describes it as “making out was a formula that included everything from anodyne kisses to the tongue-sucking and wicked touching that had to be confessed to the priest on first Fridays as mortal sins.” Here we see the modesty associated with religion coming through. The modesty actually goes so far that Lily won’t kiss Ricardo on the lips. They’ll touch lips for a second and then she’ll get dramatic and refuse any more. Modesty doesn’t have to do just with sex, it continues into clothing. This is evident when Lily makes it very clear that if she was a movie star, “she’d never let them take a picture of her in a bikini.” We have to discount this statement because this takes place in the 1950’s/60’s so while we consider a picture in a bikini to be facebook appropriate, it was considered scandalous at the time and Lily is trying to prove herself as a modest woman. Despite their firm religion, Lily nor her sister seem to have intentions of marrying seeing as neither had any interest in a steady boyfriend. To Ricardo, this doesn’t make sense. He asks “if they were so free, why didn’t either Lily or Lucy want a steady boyfriend?” The answer is obvious: because they wanted to stay free. Later, when Lily is known to as a guerrilla fighter, she tells Ricardo that she’ll “say a rosary for you to pass, even though I’m not a believer,” which is an obvious rejection of religion. Much later, Ricardo’s friend, Juan, tells him about bringing three friends to the house of the woman whom he lives with but has no sexual relation with. They are three hippies and he admits having fears about allowing them into the house. They tell Mrs. Stubard, the elderly homeowner and host, that “they formed a love triangle and that the three of them making love was their homage to the Holy Trinity – the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit,” which to Mrs. Stubard is probably a disgraceful act to compare to her religion. She later explains to Juan that this is far beyond her experience because she had never even seen her late husband naked, even when they made love due to modesty expectations in relationships. Later, Juan contracts AIDs and when he feels his time is short, he asked Ricardo to search for a Catholic priest he could confess to before dying. “After being estranged from the Church for many years, God had allowed him to return to the faith he had been brought up in, which now brought peace to his life” and soon after that, “it was a comfort to know Juan had died like a saint, reconciled with God and religion, in a true angelic state.”

Idolization of another culture

From the very beginning, Ricardo is determined to leave Peru and move to France because he believed that “in France life was richer, happier, more beautiful, more everything than anywhere else” and makes plans to leave from an early age. This attitude is further developed from hearing stories from Lily about how other countries have it easier than Peru, even though all of those stories were lies. Once he moves to France, he doesn’t really embody the whole French culture. He makes friends with other ex-patriot Peruvians and sort of forms a group with them. Although he studies French and is fluent in it and partakes in some of their culture, he never really lets go of his Peruvian background. Lily, on the other hand, discards her Peruvian history completely. “Peru was something she had very deliberately expelled from her thoughts like a mass of bad memories (poverty, racism, discrimination, being disregarded, multiple frustrations?), and, perhaps, she had made the decision a long time ago to break forever with her native land.” He goes on to talk about the “countless difficulties, defeats, sacrifices, concessions she must have suffered in Peru, in Cuba, in order to move ahead and reach the place she was now.” Ricardo continues to struggle with his identity while Lily is content with her many identities. He recounts that “I undoubtedly had stopped being Peruvian in many senses. What was I, then? I hadn’t become a European either, not in France and certainly not in England. So what are you, Ricardito?” In an attempt to change where he stood in relation to the rest of the world, he decides to “take the steps necessary to obtain French nationality, since with a French passport greater possibilities for work would open to me.”

Lying and New Identities

Lying is what Lily does for a career. She starts early when she and her sister lie about being Chilean. She lies about wanting to take part in the Cuban revolution in order to obtain a scholarship that would allow her to get out of Peru. During the revolution, the MIR policy was that the people involved were not allowed to disclose their true identity to anyone within or outside of the organization. Lily (I’ll refer to her as this throughout my post because it’s easier) takes this to heart and maintains it throughout her life. She goes on to have an affair with Comandante Chacon simply because he is rich and powerful. Next she is Madame Robert Arnoux. In this marriage, she describes herself as “a faithful spouse, the perfect wife,” which we know is one of her famous lies. Shortly after making this remark, she begins an affair with Ricardo. He tries to get her to leave her husband for him, which she eventually does, but she doesn’t leave to marry Ricardo. She leaves to deplete his life savings from a Swiss bank account he had been using to evade taxes. He can’t do anything about it authoritarily because he would be forced to admit to tax evasion which would put him in prison.  Lily next assumes the role of Mrs. Richardson. When Ricardo goes to talk to her at a party for the first time in years, she is cold towards him, as if she’d never met him before and had no interest. She later yells at him “let go of me, you fucking beast…you’ll make trouble for me.” She says that because her husband is very suspicious, she must take very many precautions so in order to see her, Ricardo is also sucked into the lies. Later, she says she can’t leave her husband despite being very upset with her life as it was within the horse racing community. Because of the ending to her husband’s previous marriage that financially ruined his ex-wife, Lily finds the idea of leaving and having no money at all impossible to comprehend. The last identity Lily assumes in the first half of book is what she calls the wife of a Japanese mafia boss. This is a stupid lie because it’s easily contradicted when Mitsuko says “Mr. Fukuda is a little strange, they say he’s involved in some rather obscure business in Africa. But I’ve never heard that he’s a criminal or anything like that. It’s true he’s very jealous. At least, that’s what Kuriko says.” This turns out not to be the case when it is discovered that Lily’s Japanese husband actually wants her to have sex with Ricardo when he comes to visit them. It’s just not very clear until the end that Lily plays a very submissive role in that relationship and having sex with Ricardo was to please her husband. When Ricardo doesn’t follow along with the plan, she is torn apart because she hasn’t completed what her husband asks her to do. This relationship is the first that causes Ricardo a great deal of jealousy because he feels as though Lily may actually be in love with him. Lily swears up and down that it’s not the case but admits that it causes her this weird sickness which could be equated to love sickness. She also says that her husband “doesn’t love me. Not me, not anybody. He’s like me that way.”

Life Ambitions

It’s fairly obvious that Lily is not in the pursuit of happiness through love but instead through power and money. Because of her life experiences, life to Lily was “a jungle where only the worst triumphed, and ready to do anything not to be conquered and to keep moving higher.” Lily is after a perpetual adventure and every time things get boring or frustrating, she leaves to start a new adventure that will bring her higher on the social totem pole. “I’d only stay forever with a man who was very, very rich and powerful, which you’ll never be, unfortunately.” It couldn’t be more straightforward: they’ll never be together but Ricardo chases her all over the world anyway. Ricardo’s life ambitions are completely different from Lily’s and have been since they were children. He says his plan is to get “a nice steady job that would let me spend, in the most ordinary way, the rest of my days in Paris.” So he’s not looking for adventures or hardships or constant movements and that’s why they can never be together. She’s annoyed with his way of life. She says “you’re very nice but you have a terrible defect: lack of ambition. You’re satisfied with what you have, aren’t you? But it isn’t anything, good boy. That’s why I couldn’t be your wife. I’ll never be satisfied with what I have. I’ll always want more.” Even Paul finds Ricardo’s way of life mundane. He says “every south American comes to Paris to do great things. Do you want me to believe that you’re the exception to the rule?” which is actually pretty derogatory and I’m surprised he’d say that to a friend.

Applications to Love and Desire

It’s pretty sad how tied up Ricardo is with Lily. When he has her the first time, he says it’s the happiest night of his life and he’ll love her forever, which is true. He’ll love her forever and he’ll never be as happy again as he is that night. As discussed in class, Ricardo is disillusioned by love and sees Lily for something she might not be. In Paul’s opinion, Lily isn’t even pretty and is amazed with her affair with Comandante Chacon because she’s skinny and ordinary. Knowing she was with another man cause Ricardo a love sickness that he describes as an ulcer in his stomach and a new one forms each time he thinks about her. He realizes that “It was stupid to go on loving someone so insensitive, someone who was sick of me, who played with me as if I were an idiot, who never showed me the slightest consideration. This time you must absolutely free yourself from that Peruvian, Ricardo Somocurcio!” Yet he still goes against his words and offers her help when she’s in trouble, whatever she needs, because he still loves her. This constant back and forth decision causes self loathing. He actually yells at himself that “it’s your fault, Ricardo. You knew her. You knew what she was capable of. She never loved you, she always despised you. What are you crying about, little puissant? What are you complaining about, what are you grieving for, dimwit, prick, imbecile?” So now we know it’s irrational love. He’s being hurt but he’s so wrapped up in her that he can’t leave even though he knows he should. He even says, as we discussed in class, “I was sure it was my good fortune, and also my misfortune, that I would always love her.” He knows his love for her causes him pain but it’s good pain because it is love so he’ll stay despite being hurt constantly. Every time something goes wrong between them or he goes years without hearing from her, he just dives into his work to provide a distraction. Lily’s patterns of spouse-jumping reflect that every time she gets what she wants, a husband with money and power, she ends up unhappy because of some fatal flaw and it turns out not to be what she wanted at all. It’s also worth pointing out that she takes up art classes, which her husband (Richardson) approves up because she seems unhappy. She uses that as an excuse to see Ricardo every Wednesday and Friday which is very Madame Bovary-esque. We also see two occasions where love is the cause of death. Juan contracts AIDs, most likely from unprotected sex during the “Free-Love” era and ides from that. Salomon commits suicide after being broken up with despite seeming to be coping well. There’s also the Japanese culture which is that cause of Salomon’s broken relationship. In Japanese culture, public displays of affection are not tolerated and Solomon is too clingy for his girlfriend to be comfortable with.

Ricardo and Lily’s Relationship as a Whole

I thought it was strange that Lily refuses to participate in sex. She even covers her eyes with her arm so not to see him, as if she’s pretending it’s someone else. Instead of participating, she expects him to do all of the work and to do “what she likes” every time. She calls him “good boy” while he calls her “bad girl” which seems cute at first until you realize how accurate it is. Lily has an enormous amount of power over Ricardo because he’s so in love with her, he allows himself to be whipped. She tells him to tell her “cheap sentimental things” all the time just to boost her self confidence but never reciprocates emotions. She acts as though letting him take her out is doing him a favor but when he has another obligation and can’t meet at the appointed hour, she gets all bent out of shape and throws a fit. When she talks about leaving, earlier in the novel, she says “I know, you’ll cry, you’ll miss me, you’ll think about me day and night,” but never says she’ll feel the same way. While Ricardo later suspects she may love him, she says “I’ve never said ‘I love you, I adore you’ and really meant it. never. I’ve only said those things as a lie. Because I’ve never loved anybody, Ricardito. I’ve lied to all of them, always. I think the only man I’ve never lied to in bed is you.” So maybe she’s incapable of love, although she seems to love the Japanese man, which I don’t understand at all since he’s the first husband who cheats on her and makes it well known.

Lily’s Superficiality

It starts off small. Lily likes to be told that standing next to her husband (Arnoux), she looks very young. She insists upon getting 8 hours of sleep every night to prevent getting wrinkles. That’s a weird thing to be paranoid about when you’re 20 something. But what really got me was her comment that “happiness, I don’t know and I don’t care what it is, Ricardito. What I am sure about is that it isn’t the romantic, vulgar thing it is for you. Money gives you security, it protects you, it lets you enjoy life thoroughly and not worry about tomorrow. It’s the only happiness you can touch.” My whole life people have said that money can’t buy happiness. I guess no one told Lily that because she’s out searching for a happiness that doesn’t exist. Every time she finds a man that can provide monetary security, she hates him and leaves. What kind of happiness is that if you have no one to share it with?