Old Flame the Perpetual Orgy: Flaubert and Madame Bovary by Mario Vargas Llosa Translated by Helen Lane; Farrar, Straus & Giroux; 240 pages; $17.95

By R.Z. Sheppard

Mario Vargas Llosa's autobiographical novel Aunt Julia and the Scriptwriter amorously paired a young man with an older woman. In The Perpetual Orgy, a highly original work of nonfiction, part literary testament and part critical study of Madame Bovary, the author confesses to carrying a torch for the novel's heroine, soon to be 130. Peru's Vargas Llosa belongs to a long line of Emma Bovary's professional admirers. Gustave Flaubert's scandalous character has vamped the imaginations and intellects of writers from Baudelaire to Woody Allen, whose l971 short story The Kugelmass Episode conjures a contemporary character who can transport himself to Yonville to play a role in Madame Bovary. "The mark of a classic," wrote Allen, "is that you can reread it a thousand times and always find something new."

Vargas Llosa would agree. He was a student in Paris when he first encountered Emma nearly 30 years ago. Of subsequent rereadings, he writes, "I have always had the sensation that I was discovering secret facets, unpublished details." This feeling is especially keen when the novel is discussed along with Flaubert's intimate correspondence. Vargas Llosa does this with elan and insight not unexpected from one of the world's most accomplished novelists.

The relationship between Flaubert and Emma Bovary emerges as a passionate substitute for real life. "The one way of tolerating existence," he wrote, "is to lose oneself in literature as in a perpetual orgy." In turn, Vargas Llosa pulls off a great escape by transforming criticism into a sensual romp. It is a delightful experience, for it is not often that an international man of letters admits to preferring pornography to science fiction and sentimental stories to horror tales. Perhaps even more daring is his avowal of old-fashioned formalism, of books "that are rigorously and symmetrically constructed, with a definite beginning and a definite end, that form a closed circle and gave the impression of being perfect, finished works."

His ideal, of course, is Madame Bovary, a novel whose only flaw may be that its perfection chills the sympathies traditionally required for a cozy read. Emma's large appetites and rebelliousness may be less scandalous today, but they are no less frightening than they were to the l9th century French bourgeoisie.

Yet it is the intensity of her needs that ensures her greatness as a literary character, a point that elicits wholehearted sympathy from Vargas Llosa, who as an outspoken young writer and Peruvian hotspur once caused quite a stir in conservative Lima. "It is not only the fact that Emma is capable of defying her milieu," he writes, "but also the causes of her defiance that force me to admire that elusive little nobody. These causes are very simple and stem from something that she and I share intimately: our incurable * materialism, our greater predilection for the pleasures of the body than for those of the soul, our respect for the senses and instinct, our preference for this earthly life over any other." In making this pronouncement, Vargas Llosa satisfies his own craving: to make love to a masterpiece in public.