In Vargas Llosa's literary world, unhappiness and suffering are as pervasive as the two responses with which individuals strive to prevail over their feelings of malaise: rebellion and fantasy. In the 1960s – as a committed socialist – Vargas Llosa was persuaded that human dissatisfaction was directly linked to the shortcomings of the same political and economic realities that inspire the most urgent works of literature. Conversation in The Cathedral (Conversación en La Catedral, 1969), a towering achievement, depicted the ripple effects of political corruption on individuals, communities and a whole nation. In the 1980s, Vargas Llosa abandoned his socialist convictions, and became an outspoken advocate of free market democracy. He no longer argued that revolutionary violence was a legitimate means to achieve the kind of political change that would eliminate the causes of human discontent. In fact, he began to make the counter-claim, that political unrest and instability could be traced directly to the same illusion he once held: that social utopias are possible. In this decade his novels were concerned with the fragility of societies assailed by fanatics, political opportunists or wellintentioned idealists. The War of the End of the World (La guerra del fin del mundo, 1981), for example, explored the propensity of humanity to idealise violence with the visions of apocalyptic religious leaders, the patriotic fervour of military professionals, or the abstractions and intimations of intellectuals who fail to comprehend war for what it is: a devastating collective experience. In the 1980s, Vargas Llosa remained optimistic that our propensities to unrest and instability could be effectively diffused.