In Vargas Llosa's comic novel [Captain Pantoja and the Special Service], Pantoja, captain in the Peruvian army, is sent to the backcountry city of Iquitos to implement a special service for soothing the troops' lust so set to boiling by the jungle heat, spicy foods, and the incredibly beautiful women of Iquitos. With dedication and probity, Pantoja, an officer whom the term "regular army" fits perfectly, sets out to develop a complex and elaborate operation which will provide the men with special service on a regular basis….

Vargas Llosa distances the reader from the characters and their action by telling more than half of the novel through military reports, newspaper items, and radio broadcasts. In the chapters where he uses scenes of dialogue, the author distractingly jolts the reader back and forth between several scenes occurring simultaneously. These devices do not conceal but heighten the fact that the novel's plot is skimpy and the pace slow.

The book's satire of the military's mindless adherence to procedures and the pitiful slaves to which this reduces men is linked with another satiric motif, contrasting the love tied up in crucifixions with the love a woman gives a man, a theme which apparently still needs arguing in Peru….

Captain Pantoja and the Special Service [praises] the strength, courage, and faith of men who are made fools by the fools who command them. Vargas Llosa's execution of this theme is … suavely and pleasantly carried off…. (p. 635)