Captain Pantoja and the Special Service

Captain Pantoja and the Special Service (Spanish name: Pantaleón y las visitadoras) is a short novel of Mario Vargas Llosa about an army captain send to the jungle with a mission: to form a professional team of “visitadoras” (that is, prostitutes) to alleviate the troops’ needs. Basically, a mobile Red Light District. Hilarity ensues.

In other words, the same things he criticized in The Time of the Hero, this time Played for Laughs.


 * All Men Are Perverts: Constantly played with. It’s even more obvious at the end, when we see a lot of previous masculine characters with prostitutes.
 * Band of Brothels
 * Easy Evangelism
 * The Fundamentalist
 * Hooker with a Heart of Gold: Not gold, per se, but almost all the "visitadoras" are in fact very likeable (as in personality).
 * Hungry Jungle: The jungle engulfs everyone in it and drives them slowly insane, proven by the soldiers’ horniness and the Arc sect.
 * Japanese Ranguage: By a Chinese. Oh well.
 * Lawful Stupid: Pantoja. He stands to his orders even if that’s bad for him.
 * Only Known by Their Nickname: Most of the "visitadoras".
 * Reassigned to Antarctica:.
 * Red Light District
 * Talk Show
 * Unusual Euphemism: "Visitadoras".
 * Write What You Know: Word of God says the story is based on fact. Make of that what you will.