|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
EDITORIAL POLICY: Publishers and authors are invited to submit books for review in Hispania; in general, journal numbers will not be reviewed. Hispania cannot accept unsolicited reviews nor honor requests to review specific books. Members of AATSP who wish to be considered as reviewers may send copies of curricula vitae to the Book Review Editor. Those assigned books for review will receive a style sheet and a statement of editorial policy. Index of Authors, Titles, and
Reviewers
Peninsular Literature Ackerlind, Sheila R., Patterns of Conflict: The Individual and Society in Spanish Literature to 1700 (Martínez) 984-85. Acosta de Hess, Josefina, Galdós y la novela de adulterio (Sackett) 989-90. Barrow, Geoffrey R., The Satiric Vision of Blas de Otero (Ugalde) 992-93. Boehne, Patricia, The Renaissance Catalan Novel (Durán) 984. Blue, William R., Comedia: Art and History (Williamsen) 986. Brown, Frieda S., Malcolm Alan Compitello, Victor M. Howard and Robert A. Martin, eds., Rewriting the Good Fight: Critical Essays on the Spanish Civil War (Smoot) 991-92. Carazo, Jesús, Los límites del paraíso (Glenn) 994. Damiani, B. M. and R. El Saffar, eds., Studies in Honor of Elias Rivers (Naylor) 985-86. Crispin, John, et al., eds., Los hallazgos de la lectura: Estudio dedicado a Miguel Enguídanos (Landeira) 988-89. Ebersole, Alva V, Sobre arquetipos, símbolos y metateatro (Cazorla) 986-87. Ellis, Robert Richmond, The Tragic Pursuit of Being. Unamuno and Sartre (Ouimette) 990. Gilman, Stephen, The Novel According to Cervantes (Fiore) 987-88. Gray, Rockwell, The Imperative of Modernity: An Intellectual Biography of José Ortega y Gasset (Mermall) 991. Nichols, Geraldine C., Escribir, espacio propio: Laforet Matute, Moix, Tusquets, Riera y Roig por sí mismas (Bieder) 994-95. O'Connor, Patricia W., Dramaturgas españolas de hoy: una introducción (Vosburg) 993-94. Scanlon, Geraldine M., Pérez Galdós: «Marianela» (Sackett) 989-90. Latin American Literature Amilat, ed., Judaica Latinoamericana: estudios sociohistóricos (Lindstrom) 997-98. Cuesta, Barbara de la, The Gold Mine (Vásquez) 1005-07. Feierstein, Ricardo, ed., Cuentos judíos latinoamericanos (Lindstrom) 997-98. Fitz, Earl E., Machado de Assis (Courteau) 996-97. Gómez-Martínez, José Luis, ed., Anuario Bibliográfico de Historia del Pensamiento Ibero e Iberoamericano, 1986 (Donoso) 1002-03. Hernández, Irene Beltrán, Across the Great River (Vásquez) 1005-07. Kanellos, Nicolás, ed., Biographical Dictionary of Hispanic Literature in the United States. The Literature of Puerto Ricans, Cuban Americans, and Other Hispanic Writers (Johnson) 1003-05. Kanellos, Nicolás y Jorge A. Huerta, eds., Nuevos pasos: Chicano and Puerto Rican Drama (Aparicio) 1001-02. Lindstrom, Naomi, Jewish Issues in Argentine Literature (Salgado Gordon) 998-99. Maturo, Graciela, Fenomenología, creación y crítica: Sujeto y mundo en la novela latinoamericana (Lichtblau) 999-1000. Mohr, Nicolasa, In Nueva York (Vásquez) 1005-07. Ponce, Mary Helen, The Wedding (Vásquez) 1005-07. Rodríguez, Teresita, La problemática de la identidad en «El señor presidente» de Miguel Ángel Asturias (Stabb) 995-96. Schon, Isabel, Books in Spanish for Children and Young Adults: An Annotated Guide (Woods) 1003. ___, A Hispanic Heritage: A Guide to Juvenile Books about Hispanic People and Culture (Woods) 1003. Sosnowski, Saul, La Orilla Inminente (Salgado Gordon) 998-99. Vallejo, Catharina V de, Teoría cuentística del siglo XX (Aproximaciones hispánicas) [Guerra McSpadden] 1000-01. Linguistics and Pedagogy Bjarkman, Peter C. and Robert M. Hammond, American Spanish Pronunciation: Theoretical and Applied Perspectives (Shreve) 1010-11. Brod, Evelyn F. and Carol J. Brady, Viajemos 2001 (Amell) 1008-09. Gass, Susan M. and Jacquelyn Schachter, eds., Linguistic Perspectives on Second Language Acquisition (Haynes) 1011-12. Haro, María-Paz, Maria del Carmen Sigler and Christine Bennett, Cada vez mejor Español para nivel intermedio (Rodríguez-Florido) 1008. Kittredge, Margaret A.,
Rumbo a Buenos Aires: Escenas Culturales
Argentinas
Nunan, David, The Learner-Centred Curriculum: A Study in Second Language Teaching (Greenia) 1009-10. Ur, Penny, Grammar Practice Activities (Wieczorek) 1007. Translations Baker, Edward, trans. of Roberto Fernández Retamar, Caliban and Other Essays (Stabb) 1013-14. Catz, Rebecca D., ed. and trans. of Fernão Mendes Pinto, The Travels of Mendes Pinto (Arrington, Jr.) 1012-13. Wilson, Jason, An A to Z of Modern Latin American Literature in English Translation (Pérez) 1014. Peninsular Literature
Boehne,
Patricia.
The Renaissance Catalan Novel. Boston:
Twayne Publishers, 1989. 154 pp.
The Catalan origins of the modern novel are often ignored even by our best Departments of Hispanic Studies and Comparative Literature. Yet several important steps have been made in recent years towards remedying this situation. An internationally famous novelist such as Mario Vargas Llosa has underlined several times the originality and high literary quality of Tirant lo Blanch (see his preface to the Alianza translation into Spanish, Madrid, 1969). The excellent translation of Tirant into English by David H. Rosenthal (New York: Schocken, 1984) has been a major contribution. Patricia Boehne's The Renaissance Catalan Novel is a solid scholarly contribution to the study of early Renaissance literature. It focuses on two novels, Curial e Güelfa and Tirant to Blanch, both recently translated into English. Chapters 1 and 2 describe accurately the main developments of Catalan literature during the late medieval and early Renaissance periods, as well as the development of fiction elsewhere, especially in France and Italy. Chapters 3 and 4 underline the modernity of Curial e Güelfa, a novel in which the use of current events and the psychological development of the main characters anticipate several of Cervantes's contributions to modem fiction. Boccaccio's youthful novel, Fiammetta, may have influenced the psychological-sentimental tone of Curial e Güelfa, while Tirant, with its many sensual, erotic, amoral love scenes may remind us of the Decameron. The appearance of these two novels at the close of the Catalan Renaissance (the end of the 15th century), seems to reflect and enhance the whole period. It was a time of real-life chivalry heroes whose lives seem more fictitious than the fiction that imitates them. The two Catalan novels analyzed in Patricia Boehne's book reflect an authentic social reality recorded without exaggeration. Boehne underlines the difference between Catalan and Castilian literatures at the end of the Middle Ages. Castilian literature enters its Renaissance phase later, close to 1500, in part because of political turmoil. Catalonia and Valencia had closer contacts with Italy, both through trade and because of the Catalan-Aragonese presence in Naples. The Renaissance phase begins in Catalan literature around 1388, the date of Bernat Metge's Valter e Griselda, and produces novels, such as Tirant, that introduce details of everyday life accurately observed and interpreted, making them the forerunners of Cervantes and the modern novel; while the Spanish novels such as El Caballero Cifar and Amadís de Gaula are more contrived, more artificial, and therefore less pivotal in the evolution of the novel in Western European literatures. Patricia Boehne's fine study accurately depicts the contribution of Catalan literature to modern fiction and gives a balanced overview of literary influences that should be useful to anyone interested in comparative literature and the birth of modern fiction. Manuel Durán Yale University Ackerlind, Sheila
R.
Patterns of Conflict: The Individual and
Society in Spanish Literature to 1700. New York: Peter Lang, 1989. 328
pp.
Patterns of Conflict examines the theme of the individual in conflict with society in the Spanish medieval and Golden Age literature. In Part I Ackerlind underscores the importance of rigid social structure and problems of social ascent in Spain of that period. Numerous examples from literature demonstrate how each individual was confined to his/her own social group and responsible for carrying out ascribed duties. Although the social structure restricted individuals to their places in society, many aspired to a higher social class to improve their reputations as well as their economic condition. Golden Age theater frequently portrays the commoner who succeeds in acquiring noble status by winning the love of one of high rank, while the picaresque novel depicts the rogue striving to improve his/her social status to no avail. Part 2 treats the destiny of the
morisco,
converso, prisoner, and
pícaro who were alienated from
established Christian society. Wealth and appearance, as pointed out in Part 3,
often took precedence over virtue and truth. The wealthy frequently used their
riches to buy titles of nobility,
In Part 4, Ackerlind shows that though many either strove to climb the social ladder or lived on the fringes of society, many others sought to disassociate themselves from established society, to five a peaceful fife in the countryside -a «positive solitude»- away from the corruption of courtly and urban life. The idea of freedom and self-realization often associated with the Beatus ille and the pastoral recurs in poetry, novels, and drama. For the undeceived individual, solitude and freedom from social ambition, as depicted in works by Fray Luis de León, Cervantes, and Lope de Vega, took on a spiritual dimension. Part 5 offers a lengthy exposition of the code of honor, the most important guide by which an individual determined his/her behavior in society, and which was a recurring theme in medieval and Golden Age literature. Although Ackerlind offers no new insight on the theme, those interested in the subject of women in society will find the section useful since it emphasizes how the honor code mostly governed female membership in society. The theme of the individual and society is fundamental since it concerns the human condition and forms the basis for many Spanish medieval and Golden Age works. Ackerlind provides generous plot summaries for the plays, novels, and short stories cited to support her thesis. While the specialist would yearn for a more analytical study, Patterns of Conflict remains valuable to those interested in Spanish social standards and attitudes during the Middle and Golden Ages and in how the individual in conflict with society served as the principal theme in numerous Spanish works. Christine D. Martínez William Paterson College of New Jersey Studies in Honor of
Elias Rivers. Edited by
B. M. Damiani and R. El Saffar. Potomac
(Maryland): Scripta Humanistica, 1989. 176 pp.
These essays, contributed by fifteen of Elias River's students, are a fitting tribute to a teacher capable of awakening interests and inspiring careers. The collection summarizes Elias's interest as a scholar; since it focuses principally on Golden Age poetry, mysticism, the comedia, and Don Quijote. The first essay touches, appropriately enough, on Garcilaso and the poetic voice. After a sensitive exposition of various points, I. Azar concludes that «the poems of Garcilaso reveal that the unspeakable is not love, but the "I" of the lover, that the impossible task is simply to utter our "selves", simply to find words that would spell out the singular idiosyncratic details that make every "I" different from all other "I"s.» J. Chorpenning's essay on the concept of the heart (i.e., the whole person) in Santa Teresa is well worth reading. A. M. Snell equates love and death in Quevedo's courtly love poetry with the same images in the «Llama de amor viva», showing us «how easy it is for the mystics to cross the boundary between mystic and courtly love... "En los claustros del alma" transcends the courtly code in a portrayal of the poetic subject which bears marks of a purgation experience.» B. Damiani's comparison of Sannazzaro's Arcadia and La Diana is well done and particularly suitable for students working on the pastoral tradition. Dealing with semiotics, E. Friedman expounds on the method proposed by Michael Riffaterre's Semiotics of Poetry, and applies it to two Golden Age sonnets. The essay is skillfully composed, offering a sound exposition of this methodology. D. Garrison reaffirms that Góngora's Píramo is a purposeful, comical attack both on the romantic concepts and the rhetoric of the Ovid Moralisé, and is intended to focus the reader's attention on Góngora's own culteranista style. N. Wardropper analyzes Góngora's misogynist sonnets in a very entertaining and informative manner. Robert Sloan examines Angela and Don Luis from the perspective that the intimate reality of Calderón's characters is that of actors and under scores the holiday atmosphere of the play. G. Sabat's sensitive interpretation of an intellectual amorous epistle written to Lope by a Peruvian lady reminds us that priority was given to hearing and that spiritual love came through the ears, not the eyes, the source of carnal lust. E. Bergmann presents a provocative article on the function of paintings, symbols, and codes in Peribáñez and La dama boba. Ruth El Saffar's study deals with don Quijote as «the man on the run» and then continues some what in the vein of C. Johnson's work on sexuality in Don Quijote. G. Shipley considers use of proverbs, relating them to the work of Kenneth Burke. His remarks on the first proverb Sancho uses, «váyase el muerto a la sepultura y el vivo a la hogaza;» are very astute and should be read by anyone teaching the Quijote. N. Orringer presents a convincing application of Laín Entralgo's ideas on the development of the scientific notions about the body in the Golden Age to poetic theory and the transition from Renais sance styles (Garcilaso) to Baroque ones (Góngora). A different period is considered by E. Gimbernat who dissertates on the Luba Viole and Tránquilo episode in Lezama Lima's Paraíso, equating it to the Hero and Leander myth and expanding on the multiple meanings which may be ascribed to the text. J. Muñoz Millanes's article on «Biographical
Patterns;» though sometimes too densely written,
Eric W. Naylor The University of the South Blue William R.
Comedia: Art and History. New York: Peter
Lang, 1989. 204 pp.
As the introduction indicates, this volume presents readings of various Golden Age plays united by the exploration of the dialectical tension between art and history in the texts. The work, divided into ten chapters, begins with a reexamination of the polemic between Reichenberger and Bentley. Although it might seem that the topic has been exhausted, Blue frames his remarks in such a way that the positions of these two critics dramatizes the current theoretical debate between «historical» criticism (among which the author includes Marxist and sociological criticism) and «ahistorical» approaches (e.g., reader-response, speech-act, and deconstruction). He then proceeds to deconstruct the apparent opposition between the two currents, demonstrating their interdependence. The ensuing theoretical discussion incorporates several significant insights, including the application of a communicative model to the comedia and the affirmation that any contemporary «historical» approach to Golden Age theatre will be, by nature, already «textualized» since our knowledge of the period depends upon our study of historical texts. He concludes his introductory remarks by inviting the reader to disagree, for «our endeavor is dialogue, not monologue...» (22). The chapter titles reveal the breadth of the issues addressed: «Comedy and Society in El lindo don Diego», «The Partial Victory: No hay mal que por bien no venga», «Punishment and Reward in La verdad sospechosa», «Disillusion and Dissolution in Los mal casados de Valencia», «Lope's House of Mirrors: El castigo del discreto», «Figures of Authority in Por el sótano y el torno», «Disguise and Improvisation in Don Gil de las calzas verdes», «Judging La adversa fortuna de Don Álvaro de Luna» and «Moral Allegory and Political Allegory: El mayor encanto amor». In general, the discussions prove provocative and well-argued. Chapter 8's examination of La adversa fortuna suggests the application of the narratological concept of «focalization» to dramatic texts, an intriguing possibility that merits further development. In addition, the compelling analysis of El mayor encanto amor as a polyphonic text that encodes, on one level, dangerous political criticism aimed at Philip IV and the Conde-Duque de Olivares supports Blue's assertion that «the myth plays» are much more «meaningful» than often believed and should be reconsidered. The potential impact of this study extends beyond the field of comedia scholarship in particular to the consideration of dramatic art itself; however, I would note three limitations. First, assuming that the presence of English translations of Spanish passages indicates that the text is intended for non-specialists as well as comediantes, an uninitiated audience might benefit from some background information on the plays and the dramatists (absent from many of the chapters), provided that this would not upset the delicate balance between art and history established in the work. Second, the translations themselves occasionally fail to capture the flavor of the original and might impede rather than enrich the appreciation of the works. For example, the rendition of Doña Constanza's reaction to Don Domingo's suggestion («No lo funda mal») as «It's not a bad idea» (49) rather than «He makes a good point» does not communicate her praise for Domingo in No hay mal. In this case, it seems especially important to maintain the active voice to convey Constanza's growing admiration for Domingo which is otherwise lost. Finally, one might question the reliance upon some outdated editions (the 1867 Imprenta Nacional edition of No hay mal) or modern school text editions (MacCurdy's La adversa fortuna) as primary sources when more reliable versions are available. The minor reservations expressed above do not diminish the work's significance. As Blue himself remarks in the conclusion, «[the reader] judges partially (again in both senses of the word), because there is no other way to judge» (174). To the best of my judgment, this text will prove an extremely valuable asset to specialists and non-specialists alike-not only for the astute readings of the plays considered, but also for the theoretical insights incorporated. Amy R. Williamsen University of Arizona Ebersole, Alva
V.
Sobre arquetipos, símbolos y metateatro.
Valencia: Albatros Ediciones Hispanófila, 1988. 64 pp.
In all fairness to the prospective reader one should begin by stating that the title given to this slim volume is misleading, suggesting as it does, perhaps, a possibility of new insights or an exploration of further implications hidden within those three inexhaustibly rich literary terms: archetypes, symbols and metatheater. The fact is that the study is a very narrowly-focused one. After setting forth quite specific and orthodox definitions of the three concepts, the author systematically traces their presence in a number of Golden Age plays. The plays chosen for analysis are all from the period
1615-1630, are mostly of the
capa y espada type, and are
selected exclusively from the works of Lope de Vega, Calderón and Tirso
de Molina. The author's definitions of «archetype» and
«symbol» are applied methodically to twenty-three comedias, while
the meaning given to «metatheater» is restricted to that of
«role-playing» encountered in
The analysis of each play follows a uniform plan throughout. Under a heading called «Estructura», the author gives the number of scene-changes occurring in each one. This is followed, in many cases, by a short plot-summary preceding the analytical commentary identifying the archetypes and symbols with their variations, upon which the play relies for communicating with its audience. Having demonstrated the frequency with which the tapada (the veiled lady) recurs as a constant archetype in these plays, the author finds a natural link to the more generalized concept of el papel fingido or dissimulation by the character under some guise or other, and thus to the idea of role playing as a dramatic device. This last theme is examined as it occurs in two plays by each of the three playwrights, again including La dama duende and Don Gil de las calzas verdes, and forms the second section of the study. From the plot-analysis of so many plays we de rive a compelling sense of the ingenuity and creativity needed to turn the few possible variations on the «boy meets girl/boy loses girl/boy gets girl» plot, as the author puts it, into exciting theatrical entertainment. Incidentally, no attempt is made to translate the formula, borrowed from Northrop Frye, into Spanish for this publication, presumably designed to reach a Spanish-reading public. Similarly, the author retains the English expression «blocking characters» when speaking of the roles of father or brothers whose function within the plot is to interpose themselves between the de signs of would-be lovers and the perceived honor of the family. This book performs a useful service in introducing some lesser-known Golden Age plays to its readers and in drawing our attention to the frequency with which dissimulation (in the forms of veiling, disguise or social pretense of one kind or another) lies at the heart of the Spanish baroque theater. Among the author's conclusions are brief statements comparing the techniques of the three great playwrights with one another, some observations about the characterization of female personages and an affirmation about the verisimilitude of this type of theater. The author considers the success of these plays to be due to the fact that they reflect la «realidad del momento a través del espejo que el dramaturgo pone a su público, que se ve reflejado, dentro de la exageración permitida al autor» (63). Such a sentence might well serve as a good starting point for a whole new discussion of the subject in the fight of the sheer artifice and escapism evident and amply demonstrated in the plots so carefully detailed in this study. Hazel Cazorla University of Dallas Gilman, Stephen.
The Novel According to Cervantes.
Berkeley: University of California Press, 1989. XVII, 204 pp.
This book, which is directed primarily to non-Hispanists, offers a fine scholarly view of the personal, social, historical, and literary circumstances of Cervantes's world. It also demonstrates how Don Quijote, with the narrative innovations found in Part I, becomes the prototype of the novel. The general reader will benefit from the lucid explanations of the masterpiece's narrative structure, its interpolations and interruptions. The specialist will appreciate the perceptive interpretations of specific episodes and sophisticated views on the novel as a genre. In his chapter on Definition, Gilman explores what novels do to readers and how they do it, skillfully incorporating Castro and Ortega's lucid readings of the Quijote, examples from Huckleberry Finn, and ideas of various novelists and theorists. He illustrates how, in the course of the first two sallies, Cervantes transforms the Quijote from romance to novel by infusing adventures with human experiences. He also elucidates how don Quijote and Sancho, temporalized caricatures, feel them selves existing, and how they communicate this feeling to the reader. The chapter on Birth studies the interruptive and anti-interruptive elements in the structure of the Quijote and analyzes how the configuration of the story and the techniques of narration are received in the process of reading. Not only do the interruptions of Cide Hamete, the translator, and the «second author» force the reader to maintain an ironical distance from the text, they also allow the protagonists to experience adventures as their own. Gilman's enlightening study of the episode of the Fulling Mills, one of the strong points in the book, explains how the unprecedented episode adventure is infiltrated by experience, and how the senses, postures, and situation bring together the lives of author, reader, and protagonists. Not only do don Quijote and Sancho become aware of their lives and roles as emergent from a past peculiar to both of them, they communicate how it felt to exist during that adventurous dark night. In the chapter on Invention, Gilman illustrates how
Cervantes's sense of his inventiveness is tied to his generally acerbic
estimation of contemporary literature. Cervantes juxtaposes, weaves, and re
combines motifs from the chivalresque, pastoral, and picaresque genres. In the
Second Sally the pastoral, which functions as a «shock absorber»,
allows for fictional space, erotic relationships, and permits Cervantes to
explore what Spitzer called «perspectivism.» In an ironical play on
autonomy,
The chapter on Discovery discusses the unprecedented contribution of literary criticism to the creation of the Quijote as well as the symbiosis of literature and life found in the work. In the Scrutiny of the Books, Cervantes combines aesthetic judgment of literary works and veiled satire of the Inquisition. Gilman's especially insightful analysis of what occurs in the Sierra Morena, another excellent part of the book, shows how Cervantes fuses lyric, tragic, and comic elements. The pastoral provides the backdrop, chivalric literature (Amadís and Orlando Furioso) a model for narration, and the comedia's honor code (traditional and fictional) an ironic reflection of society. Gilman deftly demonstrates how Cervantes adopted Ariosto's technique of varying episodic and plotted sequences, and explains how the chivalric romance provides Cervantes with a «straw genre» that allows him to criticize the Lopean comedia. The comedia embodied the same irrationality and heroic exaltation of the chivalric romance, the same lack of verisimilitude, and it had the same toxic effect on society. In answer to those who criticize the Quijote for its interpolations (Nabokov, Virginia Woolf), Gilman analyzes the tales of Cardenio and Dorotea, types of social fables that portray class stratification and Cervantes's sceptical view of the convention of honor. Cardenio's story, which ends happily, depicts a failed caballero and a caricaturesque case of honor. Dorotea, who lives between two social categories, fabricates her identity, arranges her story, and proceeds to live it. While her peasant honor, besmirched by Fernando, would have resulted in murder or execution in a comedic, here the matter is resolved peacefully. In sum, this book, which will appeal to a broad audience, succeeds in explicating Cervantes's world, his duplicitous use of irony, and his contributions to the novel as a genre. All of this is accomplished without unnecessary pedantry or jargon. Only a superfluous appendix, that includes readings from Camus and Sartre, detracts slightly from the work. With this outstanding book the late Stephen Gilman reaffirmed that the combination of solid scholarship, clear thinking, and cogent English is still a powerful tool of literary criticism. Robert L. Fiore Michigan State University John Crispin et
al. editors.
Los hallazgos de la lectura: Estudio dedicado
a Miguel Enguídanos. Madrid: Ediciones José Porrúa
Turanzas, S. A., 1989. 254 pp.
Difícil pero muy difícil es el comentario ecuánime de un libro cuyo contenido es lo suficientemente heterogéneo como para integrar una veintena de ensayos, catorce de los cuales, para mayor abrumación, provienen de la pluma de otros tantos críticos. Huelga decir, desde luego, que no me refiero precisamente a semejante multiplicidad sino a lo desigual y a lo dispar del enfoque y la calidad hallados. No obstante, razones tanto sentimentales -Miguel Enguídanos dirigió mi tesis doctoral, de la cual han nacido hasta la fecha cuatro libros; su maestro, el historiador Manuel Ballesteros Gaibrois, lo fue también mío- como puramente intelectuales -la curiosidad libresca de don Miguel correría siempre pareja con la diversidad de esta colección- existen para justificar mi empeño de una reseña. Basta una ojeada a la bibliografía del desaparecido historiador, crítico y profesor para poder comprobar lo proteico de su producción: libros sobre Borges por un lado y sobre finales del diecinueve en España por el otro, artículos sobre poetas, ensayistas, dramaturgos y narradores de ambos continentes, no sólo hispanos sino alemanes, americanos, ingleses y franceses. Su versatilidad en lecturas e investigaciones no deja lugar a dudas. El tomo Los hallazgos de la lectura: Estudio dedicado a Miguel Enguídanos comprende una retahíla de ensayos escritos por colegas y discípulos, nivelados estos y aquellos por la amistad o admiración que les había unido al homenajeado a razón de su paso por las universidades americanas en que ejerció su magisterio. En la de San Juan de Puerto Rico lo conoció Ricardo Gullón, en la de Indiana lo tratamos la mayoría de sus discípulos como Ann Wiltrout, y finalmente en la de Vanderbilt donde apenas si tuvo tiempo de hacer escuela disfrutó de la amistad de John Crispin y Enrique Pupo Walker. Ellos y otros más, entre muchos, colaboran en este tomo erigido en tributo póstumo. Notable excepción al ligamen fraternal que caracteriza los citados hasta aquí lo constituye el trabajo «Miguel de Unamuno, the Poet of lis Early Essays: 1897 1905», al provenir de Mervyn Coke, la viuda de nuestro don Miguel. Debido a un continuo y declarado entusiasmo por los noventayochistas, así como por los modernistas Rubén Darío y Juan Ramón Jiménez, y a lo que de historiador llevaba de inextinguible en sus venas, considero que la gran suma de los ensayos aquí reunidos reflejan intereses paralelos a los de Miguel Enguídanos. Todos, sin embargo, aun los más ajenos a semejantes temas le hubiesen plugido, desde la narrativa de viajes y Alvar Núñez Cabeza de Vaca (Enrique Pupo-Walker) hasta los orígenes de la ficción latinoamericana (Roberto González Echevarría). Una segunda parte, menor en
extensión (unas cincuenta páginas, o sea la quinta parte del
libro) pero sin duda de igual interés, la reservan los editores a la
publicación de cinco ensayos inéditos de don Miguel. Todos menos
uno, dedicado a Clarín crítico, versan sobre el período
literario español
Ricardo Landeira University of Colorado, Boulder Scanlon, Geraldine
M.
Pérez Galdós:
«Marianela.» Valencia: Grant & Cutler Ltd., 1988. 89
pp.
Acosta de Hess, Josefina.
Galdós y la novela de adulterio.
Madrid: Pliegos, 1988. 101 pp. In these latest additions to the still rapidly growing corpus of Galdosian scholarship we find two very distinct contributions. In the first one, by the well known Galdós critic Geraldine M. Scanlon, one is pleased to find a masterful synthesis of all that has been done on the important novel Marianela together with convincing new insights; in the second, by Josefina Acosta de Hess, treating the theme of adultery in general with special focus on Fortunata y Jacinta, there is little that is new and the form and style of presentation are troublesome. Scanlon's succinct study follows the usual format of the «Critical Guides to Spanish Texts» series with an impeccable scholarly apparatus, in a reader friendly fashion. It consists of an introduction, four chapters, and the most complete annotated bibliography on Marianela in print. In the brief introduction, the novel is placed in the historical and biographical context in which it was produced, with special emphasis on Krausism and the philosophical and social questions which in this novel replaced Galdós's earlier preoccupation with political and religious matters (15). Especially cogent are the discussions of the essential uselessness of attempts to trace «sources» for this work, and the false premise of many earlier critics «that the text has a single, coherently expressed meaning which is identifiable with authorial intention» (17). Chapter 2 treats the positivistic concept of «progress», as an approach to analyzing the novel's protagonists and themes. Scanlon points out intelligently that an «ambiguity of the images» (22) discourages easy interpretations, e.g., the relation ship of science and industry to the novel's symbolic elements. The social question is examined in Chapter 3, with little-known documentation concerning concepts of education in Spain in the 1870s (e.g., 37). Sofía is identified as an early embodiment of «self important charity» (41), a target of satire in many of the novelist's mature novels. Scanlon also elucidates better than previous critics the romantic framework and roots of this work (47). While her depiction of the Centeno family as a retrogressive enemy of society is unquestionably correct, (it is interesting to note that Pereda revealed a similar picture of rural life in De tal palo, tal astilla, without meaning to do so), the assertion that the «frame work of the novel is not pessimistic but optimistic» (48) based on the alleged future possibilities of Felipe Centeno would not seem to be sustainable in the light of what we learn of him in this novel, and less so in the context of what happens to him later in his own novel, El Doctor Centeno. Chapter 4, «Romantic Realism», explores the romantic origins of this work in the European and Spanish popular novel, as seen in aspects of structure, plot, and setting (61). Detailed realistic descriptions of the industrial world are manipulated by pace, the use of light and darkness, and techniques of contrast (e.g., with pastoral scenes) [66]. While Scanlon is certainly right in equating the stereotypical and polarized characters with models in earlier popular romantic literature, it is odd that she neglects to mention the connection of this literary phenomenon with the «thesis» novel of the 1870s, to which this novel is related (70). The brief but well-focused conclusion points out that Marianela, although romantic in conception in many ways, marks a turning point in Galdós's concept of the novel, anticipating the realism that will characterize his mature works (83). The carefully annotated bibliography includes bibliographies, historical and ideological studies, biographies, general critical works of the author, editions of Marianela, reviews of it by contemporary critics, modern studies of this novel, and even material on the theatrical adaptation by the Quintero brothers. This critical survey and analysis is a model of its genre. The second new book, which focuses mainly on works by Galdós, is a very different matter. The rambling, diffuse introduction is indicative of the problems of the entire text: it meanders through a series of well-known sources on the nature of matrimony and adultery in the Western world without adding anything essentially new and making statements like the following which can not stand on their own without discussion: «Es sabido que el matrimonio monógamo es una farsa...» (13). In Chapter 1, «El adulterio en la literatura», the
author wanders in a seemingly aimless trajectory from examples of adultery in
Cervantes, to Fernández de Moratín, to Lope and Calderón,
then back to Cervantes, thence to Flaubert and Tolstoy, Eça de Queiroz
and Machado de Assis, back to Fernán Caballero, and finally to
Clarín's
La Regenta. This tortuous journey across
the centuries is accomplished for the most part without adding anything
Chapter 2, «Contexto sociohistórico» presents details (none new within the Galdosian canon) of the historical world in which Pérez Galdós wrote his novels, followed by detailed information on the legal status of women in that era (39). The title of Chapter 3, «Galdós: Las novelas breves» is misleading, because the term «breve» is a relative one, with reference to a series of novels such as La de Bringas and La incógnita-Realidad, none of which is in any sense brief except in relation to the extremely lengthy work discussed in the following chapter, Fortunata y Jacinta. We find here a survey of characters and motifs related to the theme of adultery. Only in Chapter 4 on adultery in Fortunata y Jacinta and in the brief concluding chapter do we encounter an element of originality: the critic's point about how Galdós in his masterpiece presents models and results of adultery new in the history of this theme (89). The lengthy bibliography would be more useful if the entries were divided into categories, and if it were annotated. Theodore Alan Sackett University of Southern California Ellis, Robert
Richmond.
The Tragic Pursuit of Being, Unamuno and
Sartre. Tuscaloosa and London: The University of Alabama Press, 1989. 114
pp.
Although there was no direct contact between Unamuno and Sartre, and Sartre himself could not, according to the author, understand Unamuno's thought, Robert Richmond Ellis believes that Sartrean Existentialism is the appropriate method «to elucidate the unwritten philosophy of Unamuno» (11). In this concise and thoughtful essay, the more irrational and «literary» work of Unamuno is interpreted as representing the «pre-reflective, lived moment of the human condition while Sartre's ex presses the passage of that moment in reflexivity» (XI). The differences are everything. Whereas Sartre's thought is presented as being centered on ethics and freedom, Unamuno is recognized as an original existential ontologist. The result is less a comparison than a challenging study of the evolution of contemporary thought, through two of its most personal practitioners, united by their discovery of «tragedy at the core of the human experience» (XI). For Sartre this tragedy is rooted in man's essential but unfulfilled desire to be God, while for Unamuno «the tragic sense points... to man himself as an absence of God» (84). Yet they are joined no less in their struggle with the individual's relationships with words, things, ideas and the Other as unsatisfactory means out of the personal abyss, and especially in their devotion to writing as salvation. As a consequence, the way in which both thinkers refashioned conventional literary genres into precise tools for their philosophies acquires special interest; but the results were dissimilar. Despite his discovery of the generosity that, in his view, characterizes the relationship between the writer and the reader, and produces «aesthetic joy», Sartre could never share Unamuno's commitment to a belief in man's spiritual potential to transcend, and even prevail, through poetry. It is here that Ellis displays a slight deafness. Unamuno's poetry proved to be a formidable ontological instrument, yet Ellis maintains that theater in fact «is the genre most suited to the expression of his ontology» (69), a view that can be supported perhaps only by the work discussed here, El otro. Likewise, in the novel, Unamuno, more than Sartre, succeeded in exploiting the potential of the genre as an interrogative and self-reflective mode of expression, and turning it into a unique lesson in the relationship between consciousness and being. Because Ellis seems inclined to take the character Unamuno at his word, his reading of Niebla is flawed. His explicative treatment fails to capture the nature of both Unamuno's and Victor Goti's role as author of the book: it is not true that Victor tells Augusto that Unamuno is the «author of his fictional world» (65), nor is it clear that in Salamanca Unamuno is composing Niebla, even though the game may require that he attempt to persuade both Augusto and the reader that he is doing so (66). Ellis analyzes Unamuno on the basis of relatively few works, while showing great sensitivity to the painful evolution of Sartre's philosophy; but it is the thought of Unamuno that emerges as more daring, more intuitive, more imaginative, more aggressive and more liberating than the pinched bitterness turned up by Sartre's philosophy. In the end, it is clear that Unamuno was more nearly triumphant than Sartre's Existentialism would have allowed, precisely because he was able to find in the human spirit the capacity to leap over the moral impasses into which Sartre's thought repeatedly thrust him. Because such differences between him and Sartre are necessarily unbridgeable, they provoke important social questions, especially regarding the role of the individual within the collectivity, or the reasons that pushed Sartre to Marxism and drove Unamuno away from it. This last point, in fact, proves to be so fundamental that Ellis's entire thesis could have used it as its focusing concern. Victor Ouimette McGill University
Gray, Rockwell.
The Imperative of Modernity: An Intellectual
Biography of José Ortega y Gasset. Berkeley: The University of
California Press, 1989. 424 pp.
The last decade has seen a boom in Ortega scholarship, with ground-breaking studies in philosophical sources and method (Silver; Orringer, Cerezo), political thought and reformist goals (Ouimette, Elorza and others), bibliography (Donoso, Raley), and literary criticism (Basdekis, I. Fox). Rockwell Gray has synthesized admirably these themes in the first intellectual biography of the Spanish thinker. Lacking the necessary materials for the personal dimension of his subject's vital trajectory, the author has emphasized «his social role as defined by the public he sought and the purpose he espoused» (24). Gray sees Ortega as a gifted writer in a culturally underdeveloped setting, whose style and outlook he identifies more with the 18th-century philosophes and the Krausists than with the critical, but ineffective posture of the Generation of 1898. This book, a handsomely edited volume, is surely the most comprehensive and readable account to date of Ortegas achievements as well as shortcomings and failures in his life-long efforts to awaken among his countrymen an interest in philosophy, instill social awareness and political responsibility and bring Spain into the orbit of European culture. As if to emulate his subject's dictum of the in separability of self and circumstance, Gray provides appropriately the social and cultural context of every significant phase of the philosopher's intellectual development. He is especially successful at re-creating the concrete ambience of don José's varied activities. The evocation of Madrid in the 1920's is a notable stylistic achievement in its own right and the history of the Revista de Occidente as a cultural enterprise has never been told better in English. The author's wide knowledge of European intellectual history informs the explication and critical commentary of Ortegas major works. Gray's assessment of Ortega avoids the all-too-common extremes of hagiography and detraction and contains a balanced evaluation of his contribution to contemporary thought. For example, he is generally sympathetic to the philosopher's claims regarding the priority of his ideas to those of Heidegger, but he also detects in such famous phrases as «el nivel de los tiempos» a touch of parochialism and self promotion (215). There are some revealing observations on well known works. Thus, La deshumanización del arte is the only Orteguian text in which the «new» and the «authentic» coincide (129); the notion of creencia undergoes a semantic shift from its original, existential meaning in 1940, to become synonymous with the notion of opinion in La idea de principio en Liebniz (309). This last work receives here, I believe for the first time, a thorough critical treatment. There is a surprising error in this otherwise scrupulous and rigorous study. In formulating a theory of love, Ortega did not appropriate Stendhal's idea of «crystalization» as Gray avers (115); on the contrary, he challenged and ultimately discarded the theory. One could quibble over some of Gray's choices in his commentary of secondary works. Why does he totally ignore, for example, Ortega's Velázquez, a storehouse of modern themes, and one of his finest essays? But ultimately these choices reflect personal preference, and the author compensates generously for the omission with a keen analysis of Goethe desde dentro, which is as good a sample as any of Orteguian hermeneutics. One of the book's chief virtues is Gray's ability to convey the drama of Ortega's cultural mission. One becomes engrossed in the philosopher's at tempt to reconcile the role of the intellectual with political exigencies. We follow with unflagging interest the author's discussion of his subject's articles and lectures during the time of the Second Republic and follow Ortega as he defends the institution's historical validity, encourages further reforms, admonishes against extremism, censures, and finally falls silent, never to return to politics again. Rockwell Gray has given us a highly informed, engaging, and complete study of Ortega's career. The book does honor to its subject and to the English language. Thomas Mermall Brooklyn College and Graduate Center, CUNY
Brown, Frieda S., Malcolm Alan Compitello,
Victor M. Howard and Robert A. Martin, editors.
Rewriting The Good Fight: Critical Essays on
the Spanish Civil War. East Lansing: Michigan State University Press,
1989. 266 pp.
This collection of essays, growing out of a 1987 Michigan State University conference, International Literature of the Spanish Civil War, commemorates the fiftieth anniversary of that war (1936-39). Dealing primarily with fictional works about the war, Part I treats Spanish works, and Part II treats international responses. The book is opened and closed by two notable figures in contemporary Spanish life -first, the novelist Juan Benet, and last, Luis López Guerra, Justice of the Spanish Constitutional Court. Therein lies the rub. Possibly the very best essay in the whole collection, the one that could have served the essential role of orienting the reader about this important historical event, is left for last. The collection, which discusses a wide variety of genres and
authors, some well known and others neglected, is uneven. The basic problem
seems to be -for whom is the collection written? Most essays read as if they
were crafted for the scholar of the war, and, even on occasion, for the
diligent military theoretician. The best essays, in contrast,
Missing from the volume is an Information on Contributors section, which would have alerted the reader to potential biases or enhanced perspectives of some of the essayists. When treating a complex, controversial, and, for some, still highly emotional topic such as the Spanish Civil War, such orientation on contributors and even significant historical data can often be helpful. Despite the need for greater editorial guidance throughout the volume, the collection is worth reading. Though all of the essays are not of the same uniform quality, many are excellent, and the essay on Carlos Saura by Kathleen M. Vernon is outstanding. She communicates Saura's use of time and how it differs from other filmmakers, while encouraging the exploration of other areas of Saura's creation, such as his cinematic use of music, which has not been sufficiently examined. Part II presents an informative essay on Hemingway and the Spanish Civil War by Allen Josephs. In a coherent way, Josephs organizes many of the disparate facts about Hemingway's association with the Spanish strife. John Rohrkemper's superb essay on John Dos Passos enables the reader to appreciate an often very difficult writer on many different levels, including political and literary, in terms of diction and structure. Since most of the artists and intellectuals of the Spanish Civil War period opposed Franco, most of the essays in Rewriting The Good Fight focus on works by and about Republicans. Nevertheless, one of the more interesting articles in the volume examines the often dismissed fascist perspective. The author, Antonio Varela, seems to realize that in order to understand Spain and the long-standing power Franco enjoyed, one must look realistically at the fascination that fascism holds. While both modem-day Spaniards and others would like to shove fascism under the communal carpet, the fact remains that such blind allegiance to authority and control represents a yearning evident in many parts of the world today. This ability to see universal elements in the Spanish Civil War -even in something so degrading as man's fascination with violence and unbridled power- accounts for much of the enduring quality of works produced about the conflict. Further, the feelings of claustration, of alienation and of despair, so often documented in Spanish Civil War literature, are modem, yet also very ancient themes. The articles in Rewriting The Good Fight reflect a consensus that the war was in vain, a meaningless loss of life and values. In this regard, perhaps the essay by Justice López is well placed, after all, at the very last, for he realizes that the civil strife engraved on the Spanish psyche constitutes a brutal awareness of the terrible toll of war and of the need to resolve conflicts in better and more constructive ways. Consensus politics is emerging in Spain, according to López, notwithstanding crises that result when parties central to that decision-making are excluded. While artists of all kinds have attempted to rewrite the good fight of the Spanish Civil War, the task remains, López says, for the Spanish people themselves, despite their reluctance, to come to grips with the underlying and still essentially unresolved conflicts that erupted more than fifty years ago. These are the very conflicts that slash at the fabric of all societies. Ultimately then, Rewriting The Good Fight is more than a collection of literary and critical essays. It is a call to greater freedom and a more mature response to the differences and potential hostilities that characterize the human condition. Jeanne J. Smoot North Carolina State University Barrow, Geoffrey
R.
The Satiric Vision of Blas de Otero.
Columbia: University of Missouri Press, 1988. 160 pp.
The author proposes to re-evaluate the limiting categorization of Otero's poetry as testimonial, social, and political, labels he considers inappropriate because they do not address those qualities which adscribe enduring value to literary texts. Barrow places Otero's work in the larger context of satire, an approach which contributes to a more thorough understanding of the poet's artistic talent. How ever, the necessity of doing so in order to save Otero's poetry from the social-poetry stereotype can be questioned considering that there already exists a substantial body of criticism -dating from the seminal works by Emilio Alarcos Llorach and Carlos Buosoño in the 1960's- that treats the Basque poet's texts as art, not as sociopolitical testimonials. After recognizing the difficulties of defining a term as broad
as satire, the author provides (Chapter 1) a workable definition, underscoring
attack, variety, a sense of moral truth, and historical particularity. Chapter
2 describes the satirist as a literary persona. Here, as elsewhere in the
volume, Barrow makes a plea for focusing on the poems themselves, rather than
on Otero's personal political orientation. The satirist shows nobility of
character, a sense of duty to serve Spain, abhorrence of vice, and indignation,
and poses as a simple, honest man, a teller of plain truth. This mask is aimed
at gaining the trust of the reader and with it, the right to correct the world.
It is explained that the claim to historical truth is a topic of the satirist
and does not mean that Otero writes «historically true» verse. On
the contrary, selection and exaggeration play key roles in the presentation of
particulars. Careful analyses of specific poems exemplify the characteristics
of Otero's satiric
Extensive analyses of particular poems are again found in Chapters 3-7, which catalogue Otero's targets of attack: religious hypocrisy; woman, which Barrow interprets as playful, not vicious; the times, including city life; human mortality; and the tyranny of the Francoist regime. The readings of specific texts include descriptions of the range and success of poetic techniques employed. Barrow insists that the value of the satires does not stem from their being morally right or historically true, but from the literary pleasure of a well-constructed unity, of sound and rhythm, and from the power to convey moral rage with intensity. Chapter 8, «A Style of Dissent», the book's most important contribution to Otero scholarship, brings together the techniques described in a disperse fashion in previous chapters. The result is a clear, coherent presentation of Otero's forceful and convincing style. Barrow examines the poet's diction, syntax, and word-play, emphasizing the latter, which he interprets in a psychological context, as a literary means of finding freedom within an oppressive society. Chapter 9, «Satire and Renewal», adds an important dimension to the study, linking satire with Otero's vision of the future in which Spain would be united and peace, freedom, community and harmony of man and nature would reign. Satire does away with evil so that goodness may be born again, a cycle that reflects the myth of renewal. Barrow studies how the poet revises traditional Christian imagery to express the birth of a new Spain: trees, plants, sea, air and light. Here, as elsewhere, the author places Otero's ideas in a broad context, noting that they are not mere reflections of the popularity of Marxism at the time, but are well rooted in the Spanish liberal tradition of the nineteenth-century. The author shows objectivity in his analysis and convinces the reader that doctrine apart, the satiric wit and artistry of Otero's poetry give it lasting literary value. Sharon Keefe Ugalde Southwest Texas State University O'Connor, Patricia
W.
Dramaturgas españolas de hoy: una
introducción. Madrid: Fundamentos, 1988. 176 pp.
Specialists in 20th-century Spanish theater will be familiar with the important work done by this author in bringing into the spotlight the names, works, contributions and particular difficulties faced by contemporary Spanish women playwrights. As the title and the prologue of this book indicate, it is intended to be an introduction to the topic; O'Connor expresses her hopes that the material presented «sirva de estímulo a autoras, empresarios e investigadores» (7). In keeping with this intention, the book provides an overview of the historical, social and economic obstacles faced by women in the theater, introduces the major women play wrights of the Franco and post-Franco periods, offers -«a modo de aperitivo»- seven one-act plays by contemporary authors, and includes an extensive biobibliographic section on 20th-century women playwrights of Spain. The first chapter of O'Connor's book, «La difícil dramaturgia femenina española», explores the possible reasons for the relative absence of women dramatists on the Spanish stage. She begins by tracing, from a feminist perspective, the Western philosophical and cultural traditions that have relegated women to the private rather than the public sphere, then focuses on the evolution of these phenomena within the specific literary-historical context of Spain. Particular emphasis is given to the educational, cultural, bureaucratic, economic, psychological, and even architectural factors which have tended to «dissuade» women from attempting to establish themselves in this traditionally male dominated genre. O'Connor also touches on the role the theater critic and literary historian have played in the treatment of Spanish women play wrights, who in general have been excluded from the well-known theater reference books. While this chapter offers a cursory look at many of the obstacles confronting Spanish women authors, it is nonetheless a well-researched introduction that opens the door to various avenues of scholarly pursuit. In the second chapter, O'Connor summarizes the predominant thematic and stylistic tendencies of Spanish women playwrights during the Franco era, singling out Dora Sedano, Julia Maura, Ana Diosdado, Mercedes Ballesteros, María Isabel Suárez de Deza, Carmen Troitiño, and María Luisa Linares as being the most successful and representative of the dramaturgas of the period. O'Connor's sketchy analyses of their works supports her view that these play wrights followed the commercial «mold» established by their masculine predecessors. In Chapter 3, O'Connor zeroes in on her principal thesis: that
the democratic impulse of the post-Franco period (1975-89) has contributed to
the evolution of both feminine and feminist theater within Spain, and that
women have finally gained a promising foothold in the genre. Unfortunately, the
playwrights she singles out for a more detailed presentation -Carmen Resino,
Lidia Falcón, María Manuela Reina, Concha Romero, Paloma Pedrero,
Maribel Lázaro, Marisa Ares, Pilar Pombo and Yolanda García
Serrano- are treated rather unevenly.
The fourth chapter of the book is a mini-anthology of seven one-act plays by women playwrights of the 80s (Falcón, Resino, Reina, Pedrero, Lázaro, Ares and Pombo). The last section of the book, the biobibliographic index of almost a hundred 20th century Spanish women playwrights, is a convenient and useful reference for those wishing to pursue the topic further. In spite of the unevenness, this introductory book provides a great deal of information, pulling together much of the material that O'Connor has published on the subject in separate articles. At the very least, it gives the reader a sense of the innovative energy of contemporary Spanish women playwrights. Nancy Vosburg Stetson University Carazo, Jesús.
Los límites del paraíso.
Barcelona: Destino, 1989. 215 pp.
In the last two years Jesús Carazo has been awarded the Sésamo and Elena Fortún prizes, and his most recent novel was the finalist for the 1988 Premio Nadal. The narrator of Los límites del paraíso is a young Spaniard who, after finishing his studies at the University of Madrid, obtains a post at a lycée on the outskirts of Paris. The dazzling City of Light represents the epitome of the passion, literary glory, and cosmopolitanism that he has long dreamed of, and it forms a marked contrast to the boring provincial city where he grew up and that he has now managed to escape forever, or so he thinks. In the springtime he falls in love with a young French woman, Sophie, and the remainder of the novel traces the course of their affair from the first explosive passion to the final parting and the narrator's return to Spain and the prospect of teaching literature in an instituto for the rest of his days. The saving grace of this far from original tale is the irony with which it is told. From the vantage point of the present, the older and somewhat wiser narrator is able to poke fun at his former fatuousness, unbridled romanticism, and penchant for trite phrases and for confusing life with literature. His youthful visions of success focus on writing a whopping best seller that will bring him enduring fame and also enable him to buy a mansion on the Côte d'Azur where he will be surrounded by adoring, seductive women. Initially he plans a 500-page historical novel set in the Napoleonic era and filled with improbable adventures, but once he falls madly in love he decides to novelize Sophie's and his life together. The composition of their «living history» affords the opportunity for a number of metafictional winks at the reader and comments about narratees and point of view. Sophie remains something of a mystery to the narrator, and he alternates between portraying her as a delight and as a monster with a fondness for using people and a stinginess that would have done credit to Quevedo's Licenciado Cabra. On the one hand he is captivated by his lady love, on the other he is discomfited by the non-traditional nature of their relationship. His ambivalence is apparent in his description of his first reaction to her, wherein intense physical attraction is counterbalanced by the vague sense of menace provoked by her mannish gait and «aire donjuanesco» (11). As the months go by, conventional roles are reversed and he ends up doing the grocery shopping, cleaning their apartment, preparing their meals, and taking her clothes to the laundromat. When she comes home she does not inquire about his day or compliment him on his housekeeping but instead gives him a quick peck on the cheek and settles down to read the evening newspaper. He becomes increasingly passive and feminine, at one point even weeping so as to evoke her pity, while she takes up martial arts. (He is convinced that ballet would be a more appropriate activity for a female.) Los límites del paraíso exemplifies the renewed emphasis upon story and traditional narrative techniques of much contemporary Spanish fiction. Although it is certainly not a great novel, it is at times an amusing one and fine for light summer reading. Kathleen M. Glenn Wake Forest University Nichols, Geraldine
C.
Escribir espacio propio: Laforet, Matute,
Moix, Tusquets, Riera y Roig por sí mismas. Minneapolis: Institute
for the Study of Ideologies and Literature, 1989. 237 pp.
Women's language, as Carmen
Martín-Gaite reminds us in
El cuarto de atrás, is oral
language, and women's creative sphere is domestic space. Feminist criticism
argues that, traditionally excluded from written culture, women have created an
oral culture rooted in story telling and conversation. Despite its disarming
immediacy and seemingly transparent surface, female discourse encodes its own
rhetorical strategies and narrative stratagems. In
Escribir, espacio propio Geraldine
Nichols explores women's language both in her richly suggestive introductory
essay and in her interviews with six contemporary women authors. Building on
the oral tradition of female expression, the interview medium becomes a way to
let each author formulate herself and her writings in her own language. The
resulting conversations offer a rewarding revision of familiar authors like
Laforet
Reversing the devaluation and exclusion of women's writing that she documents in her introduction, Nichols moves this remarkable group of women writers from the margins of literary history to center stage. Her book draws tog ether authors that traditional studies first compartmentalize as either Castilian or Catalan writers and then categorize by generations, movements and themes. Shifting the center of gravity from male to female authors, Nichols radically reorients the study of contemporary narrative and posits a female literary tradition that is distinct from -rather than an inferior adjunct to- the male literary canon. She contends that even though these authors write in two different languages, they share a common culture, the culture of the prosperous, educated Catalan middle class. (As the interviews confirm, during the long decades of the Franco interregnum, Castilian and Catalan co-existed in fact if not in public.) The women are, to use Roig's phrase, «daughters» of Barcelona's Ensanche district. Nichols thus subordinates language to culture as the determinant of literary identity, arguing persuasively that the common contexts and themes of this fiction transcend the boundary between languages. The result is a recontextualization of these authors that erases formal differences between them and opens up a broader panorama of contemporary narrative by women. Implicit in Nichols's thesis is the rich heritage of female-authored literature in Catalan extending across the 19th and 20th centuries. A probing and flexible interviewer, Nichols raises fundamental questions about writing as a woman and about the relationship of writing to space, marriage, income and children. This agenda underscores the distance between the mythic autonomy of masculine creativity and the domestic context of women's writing. Nichols's articulation of her interviews weaves an implicit dialogue between writers. Seeking to identify affinities between individual authors and between texts, she traces the dynamics of literary friendship along the Matute-Tusquets-Moix axis. She also succeeds in turning the interview into a forum for literary criticism by engaging authors as their own readers in discussion of specific texts. These critical exchanges lead to insightful analyses of the patterning of female experience, especially in the works of Matute and Tusquets. To read Nichols's interviews is to become a privileged listener to lively and stimulating conversations with six very different women writers. The scope and depth of her inquiry and her impressive preparation provide significant and unexpected in sights into the authors and their fiction. By probing questions of gender and culture in her compelling introduction, she convincingly demonstrates the need to integrate both women's literature and contemporary Catalan literature into the codification of post-civil war fiction. This book is a landmark study that points the way to the rewriting of the literary history of contemporary Spain. Maryellen Bieder Indiana University Latin American Literature
Rodríguez, Teresita.
La problemática de la identidad en
«El señor presidente» de Miguel Ángel Asturias.
Amsterdam and Atlanta: Editions Rodopi, 1989. 207 pp.
The author's stated purpose is to study the question of Guatemalan identity in Asturias's celebrated novel with a view toward providing her readers with «una forma de acceso a la novela que se aparta de las interpretaciones dadas hasta la hora» (1). To accomplish her objectives, Rodríguez structures her study on the analysis of three «subtexts» that she finds coexisting in the work itself: the official view of society, the forces of resistance opposed to and struggling against this view, and finally, the novelist's vision of the future. Her claim that these three subtexts are related as «periodically decomposing helicoidal spirals» within the novel has a kind of geometric elegance which unfortunately is never illustrated in the body of the study. Rodríguez states on a number of occasions that her principal methodological mentor is Mikhail Bakhtin. This is a fortunate choice given the fact that Bakhtin's general emphasis upon the social roots and «referentiality» of language and literature is appropriate to the objective she is pursuing. Thus the key notion of «the carnavalesque» as a subversion of the fictive world of El señor presidente is quite convincing. However, Rodríguez's desire to incorporate Bakhtinian concepts and terminology into her study at times seems somewhat forced. For example, the very frequent -and often inaccurate- use of certain terms, such as the adjective dialógico, throughout the study is, at least to this reviewer, rather distracting. Rodríguez's study has, nonetheless, much to offer students of
this important novel. Her analysis, in the third chapter, of the very rich
word-play in
El señor presidente is well done
and helps us appreciate Asturias's technical arsenal of metaphors, verbal
displacements, malapropisms, deliberate ambiguities and other «linguistic
transgressions.» It is precisely in this area that the Guatemalan's
significance as a forerunner of the nueva narrativa becomes apparent. The
author's perceptive discussion,
Rodríguez's penultimate chapter focuses squarely on the problematic figure of the president as the summation of Guatemala's search for identity. Her analysis, somewhat Freudian at times, of the dictator's rejection of his humble origins, of his petit bourgeois ambitions, and of his dependency upon and fears of the yanquis hits the mark. Similarly, her examination of how Asturias's text subverts the values of the leader and those supporting him, constitutes an important contribution to our understanding of the Guatemalan novelist's achievement. In sum, La problemática de la identidad en «El señor presidente» is a study of considerable value, though it might have been better with the elimination of some critical jargon, with greater attention to organization, and with more careful proofing. I noted several bibliographic inconsistencies as well as a major typographic (or printing) flaw early in the book: this occurs on page 6 which seems completely out of place-it neither follows the text of page 5 nor is continued in the text of page 7. Finally, how successful Rodríguez has been in providing new critical perspectives would be difficult for me to assess: I suspect she has, but I would defer to those more familiar with the critical bibliography of Asturias's work to make this judgment. Martin S. Stabb Pennsylvania State University Fitz, Earl E.
Machado de Assis, Boston: Twayne
Publishers, 1989. 149 pp.
In the preface, Earl Fitz states the four goals of this book which are (1) «to show that Machado de Assis deserves recognition as a novelist and story writer of primary importance», (2) «to place him in a comparative context with other, better known contemporary masters», (3) «to provide in a single volume an overview of and critical commentary on all aspects of Machado's work» and (4) to «demonstrate a relationship between some of Machado's novels and recent literary theories.» In order to accomplish this monumental task Fitz orders his study into nine chapters. These chapters are devoted to a brief biography, the framing of Machado within Western tradition, a study of his themes and techniques, chapters on theory and criticism, and a chapter on translation and other non-fictional writing. Notes, references and a carefully chosen annotated bibliography complete this attempt to present Machado de Assis at-a-glance to a non-Portuguese reading public. Because of the nature of the enterprise, the first chapter encompasses too much material and is too vague. In his attempt to place Machado some where between Romanticism, Realism and Modernism, Fitz compares Machado to romantic, realist and modernist writers, among them Hardy, Melville, Stendhal, Flaubert, Henry James, Dostoyevsky, Chekov, Maupassant, Joyce and others. What makes this chapter frustrating is the absence of specific examples that would clearly illustrate claims of intertextuality. Chapters dealing with themes and techniques are far more satisfactory because of their limited focus. In the chapter on theme, Fitz elaborates Continho's thesis that «Machado's thematic concerns fall into the category of metaphysical speculation about life, death and the contradictory nature of human existence.» Fitz focuses especially on the Machadian theme of love and the presentation of conflict between love for self and love for other. In the chapter on technique, Fitz develops at length Machado's use of the metaphor and shows his innovative contribution to narrative technique, especially in his treatment of fallible narrators and point of view. He also comments on the comical and metafictional aspects of Machadian narrative. A thesis Fitz develops with great fondness in the chapters on the novel is that Machado's texts could function as prototypes of deconstructive texts ideally suited for analysis by today's critics. In treating poetry and drama, Fitz presents an overview of Machado's production, claiming simply that it is definitely secondary to his fictional prose. He reiterates the idea that his other writings, criticism, cronicas and theory require greater attention than they have received thus far. Throughout Earl Fitz's work two preoccupations are present constantly: an awareness of Machado's greatness within each context treated along with the simultaneous perception of the unfairness at the neglect of his work, and the desire to reconcile the contradictory and dichotomous view of Machado that emerges from his life and novels. Although inclined to believe that the view of «good» Machado is the correct one Fitz seems to entice the «real» author to identify himself. Considering the virtual impossibility of his undertaking Fitz
does perform an invaluable service. He opens a window to Machado's writings for
all literary aficionados by establishing the writer's position within the
context of Western canonical artists and by further whetting each aficionado's
appetite with suggestions for intertextual connections within each category.
For managing to encompass so much material, including an up-to-date overview of
Machadian scholarship, under such a small roof, Fitz deserves to be especially
congratulated. Thus
Joanna Courteau Iowa State University Feierstein,
Ricardo, ed. and preface.
Cuentos judíos latinoamericanos.
Buenos Aires: Milá, 1989. 236 pp.
AMILAT, ed.
Judaica Latinoamericana: estudios
sociohistóricos. Jerusalem: Magnes Press of the Hebrew University
of Jerusalem, 1988. 236 pp. These two edited volumes, one of creative writing and one of research, one originating in Buenos Aires and one in Jerusalem, have in common more than the targeting of topics Jewish and Latin American. Both are the product of the research and publication networks now developing and expanding in response to increased interest in Latin American Jewish issues. Cuentos judíos latinoamericanos appears in the series Raíces: Biblioteca de Cultura Judía, maintained by Ricardo Feierstein and others active in the cultural programs of the community organization AMIA (Asociación Mutual Israelita Argentina). The series is a popular research effort but unusually varied; it includes not only the expected Shalom Aleichem and Elie Wiesel but also such controversial choices as Rafael Cansinos Asséns, with his eccentric homages to Jewish tradition, and Jean-Paul Sartre's much-debated account of Jewish identity. AMILAT (Asociación de Investigadores de Judaísmo Latinoamericano; AMILAT is an acronym for its Hebrew name) is a group of Latinamericanist researchers, all of whom have strong ties to the Hebrew University's Institute of Contemporary Jewry. AMILAT worked to coordinate Latinamericanist sessions at the IX (1985) and X (1989) World Congresses of Jewish Studies; Judaica Latinoamericana presents papers from the 1985 conference. (Unfortunately, it is not really clear from this volume that LAJSA, Latin American Jewish Studies Association, had very substantial involvement in the 1985 meetings). Feierstein is the author of a series of thematically related novels and stories in which he examines Jewish identity in the light of the, to many, unexpected resilience of Diasporic life and culture following Israeli statehood. This same nucleus of concerns is what gives Cuentos judíos its distinctive purpose and cohesion. Rather than utilize his preface to justify his selection of stories or comment on individual texts, Feierstein proceeds to expound the line of thought that he has been developing in his own fiction. He asserts that it is possible to live Jewishly in highly diverse ways, and that the heterogeneity of Jewish life, worldwide as it continues to be, is a sign of vigor to be celebrated. The authors Feierstein includes to exemplify this thrivingly hybrid condition (he has come to use the term mestizo) range chronologically from Samuel Eichelbaum, who flourished in the Argentina of the thirties and forties, to such currently productive authors as Pedro Orgambide, Alicia Steimberg, Gerardo Mario Goloboff, and Mario Szichman of Argentina, Margo Glantz of Mexico, Moacyr Schar of Brazil, Isaac Goldemberg of Perú, and Isaac Chocrón and Elisa Lerner of Venezuela. I would have liked more of the twenty-five authors anthologized to speak from earlier eras. To cite three Argentine examples, there might well have been a place for Samuel Glusberg's stories of Jewish life in the 1920s, the humorous sketches of César Tiempo, or a chapter from Alberto Gerchunoff's famous novel of 1910, Los gauchos judíos, which is often excerpted in anthologies of short stories. But even if the selection is not as historical as might be desired (perhaps for reasons of force majeure), the individual texts are wisely chosen both to retain readers' interest and to support Feierstein's proposition that the intractably diverse and far-flung nature of Jewish life is a phenomenon to be accepted and appreciated. Even Feiersteins implicit guidelines for what counts as a short story are commodiously mestizos, allowing the inclusion of excerpts from novels, memoirs, and sui generis works. Cuentos deserves an enthusiastic recommendation as a possible course text or simply as an absorbing read. Virtually every proceedings volume suffers from some unevenness and lack of unity. In Judaica Latinoamericana, though, these inherent difficulties are compensated for by the contributors' vigorous exploration of a field now being increasingly recognized as interesting and important. The volume most comparable to this one is The Jewish Presence in LatinAmerica (Boston: Allen & Unwin, 1987), edited by LAJSA founder Judith Laikin Elkin and Gilbert W. Merkkx from that organization's meetings in Albuquerque. The LAJSA collection is presented so as to be of probably prime interest to Latinamericanists, although it should also claim a secondary readership among students of contemporary Jewish populations. The AMILAT volume is more directly targeted at those interested in surveying the present-day Jewish scene. Haim Avni's perceptive introduction is in great part a meditation on such a shift in perspective. The bulk of Judaica Latinoamericana is composed of worthy essays in the social sciences by such researchers as Günter Böhm of Chile, Alicia Gojman de Backal of Mexico, the trans-Atlantic Leonardo Senkman of Israel and Argentina, the British-based Ignacio Klich (who tackles the tangled issue of Perón, the Jews, and Nazism), and a number of less-established but clearly hard-working investigators. There is also a quite brief literary section notable for the U.S. scholar Nelson Vieiras correlation of Jewish allusions in recent Brazilian writing with implied propositions concerning that nation's politic realities, and a few pieces on such miscellaneous topics as the psychiatric problems of Latin American immigrants to Israel.
Cuentos is probably closer to the interests and concerns of a broad spectrum of Hispania readers than is Judaica Latinoamericana, but both volumes are clearly recommendable examples of current inquiries into Latin American Jewish topics. Naomi Lindstrom University of Texas at Austin Lindstrom,
Naomi.
Jewish Issues in Argentine Literature.
Columbia: University of Missouri Press, 1989, 168 pp. Sosnowski, Saul.
La Orilla Inminente. Buenos Aires:
Editorial Legasa, 1987. 171 pp.
It is rare that a reviewer is fortunate enough to evaluate two books which complement each other so well in content and format. While Lindstrom's book affords a vast chronological panorama of Jewish «issues» in Argentine literature, Sosnowski's focus is upon one aspect of those issues, that of the Jewish-Argentine writer's search for identity within the two cultures. Lindstrom begins her overview with an excellent if lengthy introduction in which she attempts to give the reader the historical and emotional back ground against which her eight representative authors lived and wrote. This comprehensive introduction includes biographical data, commentaries and other insights into the works of these, as well as other authors she considers germane to her subject material in point of time and outlook. While the main thrust of her research begins with Gerchunoff in Argentina of 1914 and ends with the work of Szichman in 1971, the author has added a «Post face» at the end of the book in which she highlights the issues appearing in the works of Jewish-Argentine writers in exile from Argentina during the military dictatorship from 1976-1985. Although it touches only briefly on these later writers, the author is to be commended for her zeal in assuring the currency and validity of her research. Lindstrom first examines the idealized version of the Jewish immigration and its harmonious adaptation to the Argentine «Promised Land» at the turn of the century in the work of Alberto Gerchunoff, Los gauchos judíos (1914) and César Tiempo in his «Sabbath» poems, where the Jewish immigrant peacefully interacts with his Gentile neighbors while observing the time-honored traditions in both rural and urban environments. She progresses to the next phase where in works like those of Bernardo Verbitsky, Es difícil empezar a vivir (1941), the Jew is encouraged to engage in a more critical discussion of Jewish issues, such as maintaining the Jewish culture in the secular Argentine society. This exhortation finds its realization in the work of David Viñas, whose Dar la cara underlines the cultural contradictions between the myth and reality of the Jew not integrated into society as a native Argentine solely because of a Judaic ethnic background. The author then turns her attention to the traditional Jewish themes expressed in the work of the poets, José Rabinovich and José Isaacson, and the novelist, Marco Ricardo Barnatán. An exhaustive analysis is given linguistically and structurally, as well as thematically to these works which reflect an exaltation of Sepharad and a humble, holistic attitude toward labor; an inquiry into the essence of Spinoza and his writings; and the eternal Jewish fascination with the Word as Creator as found in the Kabbalah. The author closes her cycle of Jewish issues with the demythification of the «rhapsodical» Gerchunoff vision (51, 157) of Jewish immigration as presented in Mario Szichman's, Los judíos del Mar Dulce (1971). Szich an's Jewish immigrants, the Family Petrof, are the antithesis of the dignified Jews of earlier works. They are opportunists, manipulators, confidence men, linguistically crude and awkward, with a self serving vision of truth which, like a chamelon, changes according to the necessities of their current situation in order to survive. The Jewish vision has come full circle. Given the Herculean task inherent in researching Jewish issues in the work of the highly prolific body of Jewish Argentine writers and condensing it into intelligent, manageable form, it is not surprising that some minor or missions might occur in the process. The seemingly eternal Gerchunoff rhapsody fails to note his later indictment of Argentine anti-semitism and the failure of the crisol de razas concept (Gerchunoff, El pino y la palmera, 66-81; 164-68). Additionally, although the author did not assign an order of importance in terms of the is sues, it would have been more illuminating had the discussion, especially on the work of Verbitsky, Viñas and Szichman, more deeply explored the issues of Jewish identity and survival. In light of the recent conference convened in Buenos Aires in August 1986 by the AMIA to examine Pluralismo e Identidad judía: en torno a lo judío en la literatura argentina y latinoamericana, attended by a majority of the contemporary writers cited by the author, it is odd that a stronger focus on this issue does not emerge from her generally thoughtful, lively discussions, as did from the conference. Finally, for those readers perhaps not as conversant with Jewish Argentine literature and its writers, it might have been more meaningful to have extracted the commentary on the specific authors researched from the introduction, and presented it as a preface to the pertinent chapter, putting the author's back ground and work in better perspective. Considering the careful and detailed work that has been done, and its well-documented yet animated presentation of a long period of Jewish-Argentine literary creation, these are minor deficiencies that in no way detract from this book as an excellent introduction to and extensive overview of this literature. From the other end of the spectrum, Sosnowski trains his
literary microscope upon the two issues, Jewish-Argentine identity and
survival, which are the theme of his book,
La Orilla Inminente: Escritores
Sosnowski examines the problem of Jewish Argentine identity through the work of three authors, German Rozenmacher, Gerardo Goloboff and Mario Szichman (also included in Lindstrom's analysis). In his examination of this issue in the work of Rozenmacher, Sosnowski underlines the desire of the protagonist, David, of Réquiem para un viernes a la noche, to be accepted by and to be come a part of Argentine society as a writer. In so doing, he deems it necessary that he abandon his Jewish origins through marriage to a Gentile, María. As Sosnowski concludes, David did not comprehend that to be considered Argentine or a writer, did not require the abandonment of the Judaic tradition; that María could be a valid object of love but was not an automatic «passport» to acceptance by the majority culture (50). But in the end, David opts for assimilation despite his father's prophecy that he will return, his Judaic origins making him forever a stranger in his own home. In the works of Goboloff, Sosnowski focuses especially on this problem in Caballos por el fondo de los ojos. Here, even incorporation into the life style of the main stream and its socialist politics, combined with a temporary indifference to the Jewish tradition, can not assure the desired psychological or ethnic assimilation. Faced with the death of his son, Roberto, killed simply as an Argentine in a student revolt, Herman returns to research his Judaic roots, to give some meaning and definition to a life which has lacked balance and direction without them. In the work of Szichman, in addition to the crude images and language already noted by Lindstrom in this unflattering picture of the Jewish immigrant, Sosnowski notes an element of self-hate, a desire to have been born other, by Natalio, who learns that even in politics, his ethnic origins are an impediment. Again, as in Goboloff's Caballos..., it is a death, that of Natalio during the Peronist rebellion, that sends his son Bernardo/Berele in search of his identity, with the varying versions of the truth already commented upon above. While the writers cited actively reflect both sides of Sosnowski's guión protector, some of their main protagonists elect to remain on one side. David of Rozemnacher's Réquiem... abandons his Jewish heritage for the goal of assimilation and acceptance. Herman of Los Caballos... is married to the Gentile, María. Leonardo Senkman in La identidad judía en la literatura, writes of the envy of the boy by Natalio in Mar Dulce. They dress, speak, act and eat in refined manner which contrasts with the rough images he retains of the Jewish family. He can even tolerate the frequent anti-semitic attacks, because the goim (Gentiles) hated Jews in a mild manner that never went beyond insults like «ruso de mierda» (La identidad judía... [273]). As an insider, himself a native «hyphenated» Jewish-Argentine (now American) writer, Sosnowski brings a depth of insight and intensity to his subject material, born undoubtedly of a personal desire to affirm his own identity within this body of writers. His detailed exposition of the many cross-currents underlying the form and content of these writers' works requires a careful reading and rereading to fully grasp the deeper significance inherent in seemingly obvious words and structures. His brilliant prose, dense with many postulates and their numerous ramifications, stimulates the reader to reflect upon the utility of the guión protector as a conciliatory bridge between the Jewish writer and his Argentine environment. Maggi Salgado Gordon St. Andrews Episcopal School Maturo,
Graciela.
Fenomenología, creación y
crítica: Sujeto y mundo en la novela latinoamericana. Buenos Aires:
Fernando García Cambeiro, 1989. 147 pp.
Enraizado en los principios y las fórmulas de la nueva crítica, este volumen propone esencialmente descubrir la íntima relación fenomenológica que existe entre todo novelista y su medio natural. Partiendo de esta base, Graciela Maturo nos ofrece la idea de que la novela hispanoamericana, amén de ser un instrumento de conocer la cultura y la psique del hombre, constituye un discurso de conocimiento, revelado fenomenológicamente mediante una hermenéutica. La profesora Maturo primero ensancha y justifica esta hipótesis por medio de un análisis de las ideas de algunos teóricos y luego la pone a prueba con el estudio de algunos textos de ficción, entre ellos, El túnel, El banquete de Severo Arcángelo, El recurso del método y Sombras nada más. En el primer capítulo, Maturo
discute la importancia del pensamiento de Husserl con respecto a la
relación entre la vida, la ética y la filosofía,
enfatizando su método fenomenológico derivado de la
intuición y la divergencia entre la descripción
fenomenológica y la empírica. El segundo capítulo, mucho
más válido que el anterior porque en él Maturo no
sólo sintetiza el pensamiento de otro sino que lo integra dentro del
marco de su propia problemática, versa sobre las ideas
filosóficas y
Pero lo más original y valioso del libro de Maturo no son estos antecedentes teóricos, por mucho que formen una parte fundamental de su obra. Lo más original son las secciones en que Maturo se vale de los preceptos semióticos y fenomenológicos para echar nueva luz sobre algunas novelas que han sido estudiadas antes de acuerdo con normas críticas más tradicionales. En el capítulo «El túnel de Ernesto Sábato como acceso a la nueva vida», Maturo nos hace ver, mediante una lúcida interpretación semántica de las palabras «Arte-Tiniebla-Mujer-Mar», la tremenda lucha existencial que sostiene Castel y su descenso a un mundo dantesco donde agoniza. Al contrario de la gran mayoría de los críticos, que reducen la significación de El túnel a la falta de comunicación o al desengaño, Maturo entiende todo el complejo simbólico de la novela como un «despertar de la conciencia a la vida interior, a la comprensión progresiva de la existencia que hace posible la religación trascendente» (54). De El banquete de Severo Arcángelo, de Leopoldo Marechal, Maturo proporciona un cuidadoso análisis hermenéutico que intenta afirmar la primacía del sujeto histórico de esta novela y negar la postulación de algunos críticos de que el texto tiene que considerarse como artefacto. De sostenido rigor lógico y de mucho discernimiento, este capítulo logra confirmar la tesis de Maturo de que El banquete de Severo Arcángelo va le precisamente por su historicidad y por el elemento personal y comprometido de Marechal. Uno de los aspectos más interesantes de este ensayo es la idea de que por su construcción esta novela es una forma de metanovela, una novela dentro de otra novela, un microcosmos del mundo real judeo-cristiano. En este respecto, acierta Maturo cuando sugiere la analogía entre la relación Marechal/Lisandro Farías y la relación Cervantes/Alonso Quijano el Bueno, es decir la relación intertextual entre el novelista y su creación. La lectura hermenéutica de El recurso del método se contrapone al nominalismo de Foucault, Barthes, y Derrida, basándose en una explicación de los muchos recursos auto-referenciales utilizados por Carpentier al urdir el argumento de la novela que procede de un mundo real-histórico a otro mundo real-ficticio. Entre los otros aspectos de El recurso del método que aborda Maturo con suma agudeza crítica son Europa/América como eje central, el tema de la doble referencialidad, y sobre todo la estructura concéntrica de la obra que queda abierta en forma espiral. En el capítulo dedicado a Sombras nada más de Antonio Di Benedetto, Maturo ve la novela como «una indagación de sentido» por parte del novelista, «una revisión fenomenológica que reviste el carácter de un acto confesional, a la vez libremente creativo e interpretativo» (95). Maturo postula una tesis novedosa para elucidar la conformación estructural de la novela: es la mitificación del espacio y del tiempo, o cierta movilidad temporal y espacial dentro de la narrativa de la obra. Interesante también en este capítulo es el estudio onomástico de los personajes, incluso nombres de lugares y nombres femeninos. La tercera parte del volumen consta de cuatro capítulos en que Maturo estudia otros textos y recurre a consideraciones teóricas sobre la novela moderna en general y en Latino América. Son discusiones de mucho interés que resumen los pensamientos de autores como Julia Kristeva, Lukács y Bajtín, pero que en efecto deberían estar colocadas en los primeros capítulos del volumen. Maturo ha escrito un libro excelente, de gran valor para una comprensión más profunda del proceso narrativo que tipifica en la novela contemporánea hispanoamericana. Recibe mi calurosa recomendación por las nuevas ideas que aporta y por lo certero de sus juicios críticos. Myron I. Lichtblau Syracuse University Vallejo, Catharina V.
de.
Teoría cuentística del siglo XX.
(Aproximaciones hispánicas.) Miami: Ediciones Universal, 1989. 278
pp.
Catharina V. de Vallejo reúne en este volumen una colección de ensayos sobre distintos aspectos de la teoría del cuento. Los autores de los ensayos, en su mayoría críticos hispanoamericanos, -Enrique Anderson-Imbert, Enrique Pupo-Walker, Julio Cortázar, Horacio Quiroga, Juan Bosch, Luis Leal, entre otros- son en algunos casos también cuentistas. Los artículos reproducidos en este libro ya han sido publicados en otras obras y datan, principalmente, de los años sesenta y setenta. En su introducción al libro la autora señala que «han faltado hasta ahora obras extensas dedicadas exclusivamente a la teoría del género literario que es el cuento» y con este volumen «intenta llenar este vacío, ofreciendo una colección de ensayos tanto de autores como de críticos del género, escritos o publicados en lengua castellana sobre el cuento hispánico...» (7). Una vez señalado el objetivo de la obra no explica su criterio de selección para incluir o excluir a ciertos autores. Tampoco identifica claramente a quién va dirigido el libro y resulta demasiado vaga la clasificación de «estudiante» (7) o «interesado» (13), supuestos beneficiarios de la obra. La compiladora del libro ha dividido el
material en cuatro secciones. La primera, titulada «Conceptos
preliminares», reúne cuatro artículos que abarcan la
trayectoria del cuento en España y en Hispanoamérica, el origen
etimológico de «cuento» y la descripción de la
función de narrar, y la teoría cuentística de Poe. La
segunda ofrece, bajo el título de «El cuentista y su
teoría», ensayos generales sobre las teorías
cuentísticas particulares de
La tercera sección, «Hacia una teoría del cuento», ofrece artículos que tratan de definir el cuento y exponer las diversas técnicas cuentísticas al alcance del autor. La cuarta y última sección, «Algunos tipos de cuentos», analiza el cuento oral, policial, epifánico y fantástico en Hispanoamérica. La autora incluye en su libro tres bibliografías: la primera, anotada, es sobre teoría cuentística en lengua castellana; la segunda, también anotada, sobre el cuento en lenguas extranjeras; y la tercera, sobre la teoría e historia del cuento anterior al siglo XIX. Estimamos estas dos últimas demasiado breves e incompletas para justificar su inclusión por separado en este volumen. Echamos en falta en la tercera bibliografía el nombre de Maxime Chevalier, esencial para cualquier estudio sobre el cuento del Siglo de Oro. Consideramos que las tres bibliografías se podrían haber combinado en una sola, bajo el título de bibliografía selecta sobre la teoría e historia del cuento, o haberse suprimido las dos últimas, ya que su aportación al valor total del libro no es indispensable. Hemos observado un gran número de errores tipográficos a lo largo del libro. En conjunto, la obra de Catharina V. de Vallejo puede resultar útil para los no iniciados en el estudio del cuento como género literario, y para los estudiantes de literatura que quieran ampliar sus conocimientos sobre este tema. Consideramos, sin embargo, que el crítico o investigador con experiencia en este género deberá acudir a otras fuentes más recientes, ya que, a excepción de dos ensayos fechados en 1982 y 1984, el resto de los artículos abarca desde 1842 hasta 1979. Estimamos también que el libro resulta desequilibrado a favor de críticos y ejemplos de la cuentística hispanoamericana, dándose la impresión, errónea, de que la cuentística peninsular -teórica y práctica- resulta casi inexistente. Reconocemos la labor de recopilación que la autora ha realizado para ofrecer en un volumen una serie de artículos dispersos sobre la teoría cuentística. Isabel Guerra McSpadden Texas Tech University Kanellos,
Nicolás y Jorge A. Huerta, editores.
Nuevos pasos: Chicano and Puerto Rican
Drama. Houston, Texas: Arte Público Press, 1989. 204 pp.
Esta colección de ocho piezas dramáticas chicanas y neorriqueñas, recopiladas por Nicolás Kanefos y Jorge Huerta, los dos críticos principales del teatro hispano en este país, no es tan nueva como el título sugiere. Nuevos pasos es una reimpresión del número que le dedicó la Revista Chicano-Riqueña a este teatro hace precisamente diez años (7:1 Invierno, 1979). En una reseña anterior (Latir American Theater Review, Fall, 1980), Juan Bruce Novoa articula algunas de las fallas básicas de la antología: entre ellas, la poca calidad dramática de las piezas representadas. Finaliza su reseña con la esperanza de que pronto surgiría otra antología de más alta calidad en cuanto a las piezas seleccionadas (110). A la luz de dichos comentarios, creemos que Nuevos pasos debió haber constituido una segunda edición en vez de una mera reimpresión del libro. Tomando en cuenta la pluralidad de técnicas y temas que los grupos teatrales de los latinos en los Estados Unidos han estado desarrollando durante la década de 1980, es verdaderamente deplorable que no se haya puesto al día la introducción general, que no se hayan corregido los errores tipográficos del original que se reproducen aquí, que no se hayan seleccionado nuevas piezas representativas de la última década, o bien eliminado algunas que no han mantenido el interés de los lectores. El ensayo introductorio, aunque
informativo, nos deja con dudas y omisiones sobre los desarrollos recientes del
teatro, género que históricamente ha sido marginado del canon
literario y que, debido a su realidad ejecutoria, no siempre es accesible a
aquellos lectores o públicos que viven en pequeñas ciudades o
pueblos universitarios. En cuanto a las piezas seleccionadas, ¿por
qué no se incluyó alguna de las representadas en el Festival
Tenaz de 1988 en San Antonio como
Migrants! Cantata a los Emigrantes de
Teatro Pregones? ¿O la obra
Teo's Final Spin del Teatro de la
Esperanza, la cual tuvo tanto éxito en California? ¿O la obra de
Pedro Pietri
The Masses are Asses o
Jesus is Leaving? ¿Por
qué no se mencionó la popularidad de un grupo como Culture Clash
que ilustra la veta política y satírica del teatro chicano
contemporáneo? ¿Por qué no aparece otra dramaturga mujer
además de Estela Portillo, cuya selección, «Sun
Images», dicho sea de paso, resulta ser una imitación
desafortunada de la comedia musical norteamericana más que una
representación adecuada de su obra dramática feminista?
Sería tautológico recalcar que toda antología peca de
omisiones, condición
A pesar de esto, hay que reconocer que la antología de 1979 cumplió un papel importante como texto a través del cual se vislumbran los puntos de convergencia y divergencia entre el teatro chicano y el neorriqueño. Tres años después de la antología de Roberto Garza, Contemporary Chicano Theater (1976), Nuevos pasos aportó una nueva dimensión al teatro mediante la síntesis de estos dos grupos. Del teatro chicano, Manolo de Rubén Sierra y Rancho Hollywood de Carlos Morton sobresalen como las piezas más dramáticas y efectivas. Mientras que Rancho Hollywood establece un anacronismo histórico como estrategia tanto para la crítica de la historia como para el humor, en Manolo encontramos una visión humana y realista de la drogadicción entre nuestros jóvenes veteranos. De las obras puertorriqueñas, The Sun Always Shines for the Cool, del fallecido Miguel Piñero, se destaca por su intensidad dramática y por el lenguaje codificado que enmascara el mundo del lumpen. Cabe mencionar también la obra Olú Clemente de Miguel Algarín y Tato Laviera por su estructura de ritual y como elegía que celebra el altruismo del atleta puertorriqueño Roberto Clemente a través del canto afro-caribeño y del testimonio histórico y personal. Aunque los temas son relativamente variados -la drogadicción en Manolo; las supersticiones irracionales en Brujerías; el burlador burlado en Sun Images; el estudiante universitario engañado en The Interview; la paranoia urbana en FM Safe; la violencia, el amor, y la vida como teatro en The Sun Always Shines for the Cool- las selecciones adolecen de tipos sociales homogéneos: supersticiosos, winos, drogadictos, criadas, prostitutas y criminales. Sólo en «FM Safe» de Jaime Carrero encontramos la interacción dinámica de una pareja, Marce y Vidal, quienes victimizados por el encierro, el miedo y la paranoia de la violencia en el Bronx, reproducen la violencia de afuera dentro de su propia interacción verbal. Afortunadamente, Marce es un personaje que va más allá de los estereotipos femeninos en la literatura. Habría que leer en Nuevos pasos no tanto lo novedoso como las comparaciones entre los temas, contextos y estrategias dramáticas del teatro chicano, los cuales encuentran su origen en el Teatro Campesino y en el teatro de carpa mexicano, y el teatro de los puertorriqueños en Nueva York, cuyo contexto urbano le otorga un lenguaje agudo, violento, de ritmos rápidos; Nueva York es un mundo jungla dentro del cual el individuo trata de sobrevivir de cualquier modo. A la vez, la música afro-caribeña y la Salsa distinguen este teatro del chicano, otorgándole un fondo cultural a la acción dramática del neorriqueño. De haberse publicado como segunda edición, con una introducción más completa, y acaso una selección dramática más diversa, Nuevos pasos habría contribuido enormemente a llenar un vacío en cuanto a antologías dramáticas se refiere. En lugar de ello, se ha conformado con ser mera repetición. Frances R. Aparicio University of Michigan Gómez-Martínez, José Luis, editor.
Anuario Bibliográfico de Historia del
Pensamiento Ibero e Iberoamericano, 1986. Athens: The Center for Latin
American Studies, The University of Georgia, 1989. 136 pp. Georgia Series on
Hispanic Thought.
In this age of ever-increasing publications, those whose fields include Spanish and Portuguese «thought» or «ideas» have long felt the need for an international bibliography. José Luis Gómez Martínez is to be congratulated for having conceived and executed, as editor, the Anuario Bibliográfico de Historia del Pensamiento Ibero e Iberoamericano. The Center for Latin American Studies of the University of Georgia is to be equally commended for having sponsored it as part of its Georgia Series on Hispanic Thought. The new publication soon should prove itself an indispensable tool in every research library worldwide, saving valuable time better spent on writing than searching. Given the problems of assembling an international bibliography, the time between the original publication date of the entries and the appearance of the bibliography has been reduced to less than three years. (The second number, with items published in 1987, is scheduled to appear in the spring of 1990. It will also include items published in 1986 that were inadvertently omitted in the first number, as well as items from various journals not consulted for the first number.) Publications have been recorded in fourteen chapters from sixteen countries fisted alphabetically (in Spanish, and retained below for consistency), as gathered by various collaborators: Alemania (RFA and RDA), Austria, Argentina, Bolivia, Brasil, Checoslovaquia, Chile, España, Estados Unidos, Francia, Hungría, México, Polonia, Portugal, and Venezuela. According to Gómez-Martinez's «Introducción», future is sues will include Central America, the Caribbean, Colombia, Perú, Ecuador, Uruguay, and Paraguay, as well as Canada, the United Kingdom, Italy, and the U.S.S.R. Each chapter consists of three parts: books and monographs,
articles, and a fist of the journals consulted. Within each part the items are
fisted alphabetically, with some briefly annotated, and the entries in the
bibliographical portion numbered consecutively, with a total of 827. Since
separate items by different contributors to anthologies and
Fully aware that the concept «pensamiento» is very ambiguous, Gómez-Martínez convincingly presents the rationale behind the choice to include and to exclude publications. First, only publications on Hispanic thinkers have been included, leaving out those by other thinkers (e.g., Wittgenstein) or those by Hispanic thinkers on topics that are not directly on the history of Hispanic thought. Second, only publications that are mainly devoted to «thought» and its history, in contrast to those on literary, sociological, political, historical and other criticism, have been included. Since, understandably, various wrinkles in a new publication must be ironed out, the following suggestions are made in the spirit of improving an already excellent research tool: (1) The addresses of the collaborators night be given in case any reader has a specific question concerning an entry or journal [or a specific suggestion]. (2) A general heading of «Otros Países» might list entries from those countries not regularly covered, entries perhaps sent to the editor by helpful readers. (3) Separate indices for authors and their «thinkers» might be given, as well as one of their themes. (4) The stated editorial policy might be that in case of doubt about inclusion or exclusion, the benefit will be for inclusion. Antón Donoso University of Detroit Schon,
Isabel.
A Hispanic Heritage: A Guide to Juvenile Books
about Hispanic People and Culture. Metuchen, NJ: Scarecrow Press, 1988.
150 pp. ___.
Books in Spanish for Children and Young
Adults: An Annotated Guide
. Metuchen, NJ: Scarecrow Press, 1989. 164pp. With these two titles, Schon now has nine which relate to books in Spanish for children and its cognate topic, juvenile books in English on Hispanic culture. The only monographic publication in recent years that even competes with her efforts is the Bilingual Books in Spanish and English for Children by Doris Cruger Dale (1985). As one of the few experts in this field, Schon has again done a service for a neglected public -children and young adults who should be informed about Latin America through books. In A Hispanic Heritage, Series III, she evaluates 230 titles in English for grades K through 12 on almost all topics relevant to this culture: people, history, art and political and social and economic problems of twenty countries including the U.S. between 1984 and 1987. The titles are assigned a grade level along with a frank appraisal suggesting that a work may be dull or re-enforcing of stereotypes. Her highest award, an asterisk, is assigned to the few books that «... contain recent information as well as being entertaining and possessing high potential for interesting or involving the reader.» Entries, alphabetical by author under country, can be retrieved through author, title and subject indices. It is refreshing to know that a young English monolingual audience has access to such authors as Jorge Luis Borges, Ernesto Cardenal, Miguel de Cervantes, Carlos Fuentes, Gabriel García Márquez, Juan Ramón Jiménez, Pablo Neruda, Octavio Paz and Elena Poniatowska. Chicanos, Rudolfo A. Anaya, Denise Chávez and Gary Soto, also enrich this list. Schon appeals to Spanish-speaking younger readers in Books in Spanish for Children and Young Adults. Formatted like its above companion volume, this latest guide leads to 400 titles published between 1986 and 1988 in the U.S. and in eleven Spanish-speaking countries. Organized by country, subject and then author with author-title indices to almost every topic on Latin America, each book is also assigned a grade level. Prescriptive evaluations are accompanied by one of four symbols: outstanding, marginal, not recommended and caveat emptor. Famous Spanish names appear in this bibliography: Fidel Castro, Ariel Dorfman, Andrés Iduarte, Carlos Pellicer, Horacio Quiroga, Agustín Yáñez, etc. However, one might wonder about the absence of more names given the abundance of Spanish American literature. Perhaps by way of compensation she includes translations into Spanish of significant foreigners: Isaac Asimov, Italo Calvino, Rudyard Kipling, Jack London, Maurice Sendak, and Isaac Singer. The task of locating these books, evaluating their contents and assigning them an age group must be formidable. Because of Schon, a young public, usually not the focus of academia, has the privilege of access to Latin America through books. Richard D. Woods Trinity University Kanellos,
Nicolás, ed.
Biographical Dictionary of Hispanic Literature
in the United States. The Literature of Puerto Ricans, Cuban Americans, and
Other Hispanic Writers. Westport, Connecticut: Greenwood Press, 1989. 357
pp.
Every entry in this
dictionary indicates the literary genres and themes together with the analyses
of the works by each author. A bibliography of works by and about the writer
concludes each entry. A general bibliography of Hispanic literature written in
the United States ends the dictionary to which thirty-six critics contributed.
Of the forty-eight authors whose works are analyzed, thirty-one are Puerto
Ricans or are of Puerto Rican descent. In numbers Cubans rank second with
thirteen. There are also two from Chile, one from Perú, and one from
Costa Rica. Many of the Puerto Rican and
Puerto Rican literature during the nineteenth century manifested opposition to Spanish control and in the twentieth resistance to United States dominance and Yankee customs. Both the lumpen and professional classes have sought to retain the national identity. Luis Lloréns Torres (1878-1944) composed poetry rich in popular tradition as well as academic in style. A sort of minstrel known as The Poet of Puerto Rico, he sought to interpret in verse the people's feelings. A strong ideal of independence is constant in his verse. He cultivated the black theme and treated rural themes with a nativist flavor. Lyricism permeates his verse which is unique in Hispanic literature. Luis Palés Matos (1898-1959), the first Puerto Rican to make a lasting impact on the evolution of Latin American literature, developed poetic style inspired by the rhythms and languages of Africa, and the black Caribbean. Most of the elements of his black poetry can be found in his long poem «Canción festiva para ser llorada» («Festive Song to Be Cried.») José Agustín Balseiro (1900- ), born in Barcelona, Puerto Rico, studied in universities in Puerto Rico, the United States and Spain, and is a corresponding member of the Royal Spanish Academy. He has written three novels, seven books of poetry, nine volumes of essays and many articles for journals. His novel La ruta eterna (The Eternal Route) makes the reader aware of changes on the island due to the Spanish American War, United States influence, and World War I. Jesús Colón (1901-1974) wrote in English. Many of his essays are in A Puerto Rico in New York and Other Sketches. He came as a stowaway to the United States at the age of sixteen. He wrote about the early life of the lower-class Puerto Rican workers in New York and complains of racial discrimination. For fifteen years he wrote for the communist Daily Worker later renamed the Daily World. Many of his articles, most of them unstudied, treat of the slums, violence, drugs, and racial discrimination in New York City. Puerto Rico's most productive novelist is Nicolasa Mohr (1935- ) who has won many awards. She pictures American society and creates characters who are not overly aware of identity crisis, displacement or cultural conflict. She shows that many Puerto Ricans who five in New York City are unskilled workers and hold menial jobs. Cuban literature in the United States began in the nineteenth century when the patriots started to plot their independence from Spain. Twentieth century Cubans have not been so obsessed in preserving the Spanish language and Hispanic culture as Puerto Ricans. The Cuban immigrants were professionals and intellectuals rather than menial workers as in the case of so many Puerto Ricans. Current Cuban literature attacks the Cuban Revolution and Marxism, and focuses on Cuban life and culture in the United States. The latest to immigrate are conscious of the fact that Cuba no longer belongs to them and their language is markedly influenced by English. Cuban assimilation is treated in Oscar Hijuelos's Our House Is the Lost World. Lydia Cabrera (1900-), Cuba's most famous female author, turned to Afro-Cuban folklore for her inspiration, integrating material collected from inter viewing practically every black in Havana. She is the pioneer of Afro-Cuban prose fiction. José Sánchez Boudy (1928- ) has published poetry, short stories, novels, plays and essays. His novels portray life in pre-Castro Cuba, the crisis of the Western World and Cuban life in the United States. His short stories are also portrayals of his Cuban past. Matías Montes Huidobro (1931- ), a Cuban American and prolific writer who won prominence as the author of plays, novels, short stories and poetry, is a pessimistic observer of contemporary society. In his dramas he employs choral elements, absurd situations and dialogues, depersonalization of the characters, allegories and open endings. Fernando Alegría (1918- ), born in Chile, a resident of the United States since 1940, enjoys deserved reputation as a researcher, and scholar. His first two literary works focus on Chile and the United States. His doctoral dissertation traces the history of Chilean poetry from the sixteenth to the nineteenth century. His poems deal with Chilean historical figures, including Salvador Allende, whom he knew personally. Several of his novels feature the popular hero. Marjorie Agosín (1955- ), was born in the United States but spent her childhood and adolescence in Chile. Critics stress the feminist quality of her works. Her poems expose the injustices that victimize women in Latin America. Rima de Valbona (1931- ), born in Costa Rica, is the author of novels, short stories and books of literary criticism. The major themes of her works are: women's demand for freedom, the search for religious faith, and the separation of fantasy from reality. Isaac Goldemberg (1945- ), born in Perú, the son of a Russian Jewish father and a Peruvian mother, has lived in New York since 1965. In a series of poems he stresses his search for personal identity. In his novels the themes are the Peruvian Jewish community. The dictionary presents a panorama of Hispanic literature
written in the United States during the past 100 years. It is a well documented
rendering of the thoughts and feelings of millions of people. It reveals the
problems they faced: the uprooting of populations, the disintegration of
families, unemployment, mastering a foreign language, adaptation to different
customs and religions. The bibliographies are comprehensive, the biographies
fairly detailed and the criticisms illuminating. The dictionary, the first of
its kind in the field, is attractive
Harvey L. Johnson, (Professor Emeritus) University of Houston Cuesta,
Barbara de la.
The Gold Mine. Pittsburgh: Latin American
Literary Review Press, 1988. 160 pp. Hernández, Irene Beltrán.
Across the Great River. Houston: Arte
Público Press, 1989. 136 pp. Mohr,
Nicolasa.
In Nueva York. Houston: Arte
Público Press, 1988. 193 pp. Ponce, Mary
Helen.
The Wedding. Houston: Arte Público
Press, 1989. 199 pp.
Three novels and a short-story collection, all by young Hispanic women writing in English, provide varying levels of achievement and interest, but add to the growing body of works available for Ethnic Studies, Women's Studies, and similar programs (Hispanic Studies, Chicano Studies, etc.). In The Gold Mine, appear an idiosyncratic Latin American man, part revolutionary, part philosopher, who teaches Spanish to the children of Firestone executives at the American school until dismissed for his very idiosyncrasy; a slender, blond, single American woman teacher at the school who longs for change and romance; a colorful cast of minor characters; and the deed to a producing gold mine. Are these the ingredients for a fast-paced tale of adventure and human psychology, or merely the rutted tracks of stereotype traveled once more? Unfortunately, de la Cuesta's novel falls far closer to the second possibility than to the first. The novel's action is set in northern South America, probably Venezuela. The rugged mountain land and the dusty, forsaken little towns are colorfully and convincingly evoked in the novel's second half, with a fine attention to detail. The secondary characters, primarily types, who people this isolated region are also skillfully drawn in several cases: Dr. Ruiz of remote Carambolos, possessed of a wry wit and a gentle manner; his wife doña Consuelita, for whom Carambolos is all one would ever want. Excellently wrought conversation around the table at their home provides the novel's most successful scene. The repeated turns of phrase and set attitudes, the link to place which fixes a type, are quite appropriate to and sufficient for the presentation of supporting characters. The two main protagonists, however, offer little more, with the result that they never come to life as full, convincing characters. The revolutionary, «Ordóñez», a widower with three young children, misses his wife greatly. Always short of money, he lives with his family in a humble dwelling, getting by through part-time teaching. After the first encounter between Ordóñez and the American teacher, Dorie West, at Carnival, she suggests that they go into his bedroom. An affair begins, and we read repeatedly of Dorie's overwhelming love for Ordóñez, yet the reader sees only an apparent interest in distraction and adventure. No depth of feeling for anything is portrayed in Dorie, a cardboard character moved about in an exotic landscape, to which her reactions seem contrived. On the way to the mine, she and Ordóñez stay with the beleaguered Jesusita in the still-more-isolated Las Cruces. Dorie and Jesusita quickly become «like sisters», and Dorie announces to Ordóñez her decision to live with Jesusita. The reader is shown no reason why any of this should be so, and the result seems arbitrary and unconvincing. In Ordóñez there is the seed of a complex and highly interesting character, with his revolutionary frustration, his solitude and struggles to raise his children. Yet these remain primarily untapped, and Ordóñez is portrayed mainly on the surface. The very real potential here for a fast-rate tale either of adventure or of emotional search, conflict, and development is not realized. Three of the books reviewed here belong to Arte Público's current fine series of narrative works by young Hispanic writers in the United States. Across the Great River, first novel by the highly promising Texas writer, Irene Beltrán Hernández, relates from the perspective of a young Mexican girl whose family crosses the border by night to begin a new life in the United States. Carlos is determined to seek opportunity for his family across the border; his wife, referred to as Mama, is reluctant to leave her roots and her humble home but copes courageously with the challenges she must face. The engaging, convincing narrator-protagonist Kata and her baby brother Pablito are joined by a well-drawn and memorable healer, Anita; and a substantial cast of secondary characters. The story is a familiar one. The mother and her children are separated from Carlos during the perilous crossing of the Río Bravo. Suffering from a serious gunshot wound, the mother is taken with her children to the remote home of Anita. At first gruff and resentful of the family's presence, this colorful, multi-dimensional character comes to love them deeply and plays a pivotal role in their lives. After the mother finds a job as a seamstress and moves her children to town, their lives are haunted for a time by the violent greed of the coyote on the Mexican side, who has come for a gold nugget he had seen in Carlos's pouch. Ultimately, the family returns to Mexico to stay and is reunited with Carlos there. Clearly, the potential danger of triteness and stereotypes is
great. Yet Irene Beltrán Hernández is able to avoid this pitfall
almost entirely. Her story is simply, unpretentiously told. The narrative
perspective
An attractive, almost totally error-free reprinting of Mohr's 1977 collection of seven intertwined short stories, In Nueva York, presents a compelling slice of Puerto Rican experience on New York's Lower East Side of twenty years ago. The characters, flawed yet endowed with the capacity for goodness and compassion, alternately triumph and fail, reach out to others and turn away. Mohr writes with clear love for these characters, who possess a remarkable resilience unbroken by their discouraging surroundings; their approach to daily life is usually inventive and courageous, and they do much more than simply hang on. «Old Mary», the book's opening story and one of the volume's finest, depicts a worn but still fighting woman who receives a letter from the forty year-old son whom she left behind on the island when he was still a baby. Her illusions about this blond son, child of a prosperous man in whose family home Mary served as a teenager, are as boundless as her disillusionment when his dwarf body emerges from the car in front of her apartment building. Yet this son, quickly nicknamed Chiquitín by the close-knit circle of neighbors around Rudi's Luncheonette, physical center of Mohr's book, proves to be the embodiment of the gentleness, sacrifice, and sense of common cause which characterize human interactions in the group at their best. Rudi, a hard-working, brusque yet caring man who has «made good», now considers New York his home. In returning to the island in search of a second wife, the widower asks for trouble. The young, family-centered Lali, deeply homesick in the alien New York winter, finds it as difficult to communicate with her middle-aged husband as does the kind-hearted, thoroughly decent Rudi to show Lali -more a daughter than a wife- the tenderness he feels. Their estrangement opens the way for the young woman's predictable ill-fated affair, recounted in the story «Lali», with another of Old Mary's sons. This song-writing drifter is the only truly negative character in Mohr's stories; significantly, he is an outsider, having come in from the L.A. area. Divisions between people, unabridged but not unbridgeable, characterize other Mohr stories in the collection as well. Another tale of division, in this writer's view the most finely wrought and affecting of the book, is «I Never Even Seen My Father.» Two young girls, former classmates who have taken divergent paths, meet at Rudi's Luncheonette. Yolanda, who has been on the streets and is trying for a better life, seeks counsel from her more fortunate friend, a student who is headed for a fine career, attempting the genuine communication which Lillian refuses. At story's end, Lillian's silent relief in the knowledge that Yolanda will not call again makes it clear that the struggling young Neoyorican girl has even more unfair odds to face than she knew. Mohr's beautifully written stories, singly or as a group, would be provocative texts in college classrooms. Young Chicana writer Mary Helen Ponce's novel is set in the dusty valley towns outside Los Angeles during the early fifties. The novel's focus is upon a group of young Chicanos and Pachucos and, most particularly, upon Blanca Muñoz as she dates, then marries Sammy The Cricket López. Ponce has a fine ear for dialogue, which she uses simply to portray the attitudes which help entrap the characters in their circle of low expectations. Ponce reproduces the grammatical patterns of period speech of her group and the influence of Spanish on the pronunciation of vowels and the -sh/-ch clusters. She deftly paints the setting against which her characters move: the dusty streets and modest homes, those furnishings which represent the results of characters' aspirations. The author also has a playful way with names; the feisty Lucy is surnamed Matacochis, «pigkiller» while the butcher is don Archuleta, with chuleta as a meat chop. For Blanca, daughter of a hard-working widow, school does not
offer the promise of opportunity. The schools' role in this perception, shared
by Blanca's friends, seems all too clear. Returning to her home town of Taconos
after the crop harvest, Blanca is told that she has been placed in the seventh
grade-again. Her alternative is a dead end job or no job at all: «The
problem is... you Mexicans have no skills»
(12). Rejecting the grueling field work, Blanca
lands a status job at the poultry processing plant in the next town. Working
long hours, on her feet gutting birds at «los turkeys», Blanca
helps her mother, saves money, and moves toward what she knows to be her
destiny: marriage, domination by a man who will do as he pleases, and lots of
kids. Blanca sets her expectations both too low and too high. The life awaiting
her with the particularly obnoxious Sammy, head of
Los Tacones gang and concerned only with
preservation of a properly macho image, holds no illusions for Blanca. Instead,
the wedding itself, not as symbol but as spectacle, becomes life's pinnacle;
It is regrettable that The Wedding received obviously careless editing. The book is riddled with typographical errors and still-more-frequent mistakes in spelling, and I do not refer here to the reproduction of speech variants but to patent errors: «shapley», «persistant», «naseous», «avacados», «chauffer», and so on. The reader also encounters numerous cases of poor syntax, dangling phrases, repetition. This is, then, a very flawed edition of a very fine novel. Mary S. Vásquez Michigan State University Linguistics and Pedagogy
Ur,
Penny.
Grammar Practice Activities. Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 1988. 288 pp.
This book, one of three by Penny Ur in the Cambridge Handbooks for Language Teachers Series, is divided into two parts. Part I, «Guidelines», contains forty-three pages, and outlines the author's thoughts on the role of grammar and grammatical practice. Part II, «Activities», with 238 pages of text, includes activities for alphabetically arranged grammatical points. In all, 177 activities are listed in thirty-four sections. Each major activity indicates what materials are needed, the procedures that will likely enhance success, and variations of the presentation. Fortunately for teachers, many of the activities and charts may be reproduced for classroom use without prior permission. Ur appears to have a solid background in methodology and classroom dynamics, and from this perspective the book accomplishes its pragmatic task. She stresses teacher planning and flexibility-especially prudent in the L2 setting, since a foreign-language class is often the only place where the medium of communication is that foreign language. Teachers are sure to find a plethora of resource material in this book because of the wide variety of activities. Some antiquated techniques appear, such as the reliance on translation and recombination of verb forms, but she does attempt to be innovative. Although Ur's work will certainly enliven the classroom, she decides not to deal with the larger and very relevant theoretical problem of interlanguage output from the students. That is, she sticks to the notion that the target language form is the only one «acceptable» to the teacher (13). Adherence to «production of well-formed examples in speech» (6) is to ignore the realities of L2 learning. Also missing is a discussion on how teachers may incorporate native speaker stimulus into listening strategies, equally important if learners are to use their language outside the classroom. Ur misleads the readers about the scope of the term grammar. She states (5) that «grammar may furnish the basis for a set of classroom activities during which it becomes temporarily the main learning objective.» I believe that what she means is that conscious control of the form precedes communicative use. What is especially confusing is that grammar is usually perceived as the set of rules that govern a second language, as opposed to language, which has a communicative function. The terms appear to be synonymous here, and so the practical aspect of the book is really to contextualize language by providing practice. It would be beneficial for potential readers if the intended audience of teachers were explained by the subtitle, «A practical guide for teachers.» Although the book was intended for EFL instructors, the activities may presumably be used by any L2 teacher. The book is befitting of teacher trainees or those teachers who find themselves shackled by stale methods and/or grammar-oriented textbooks. As such, I would have liked to see some reference to the interaction of class size and time limitations on some of the activities. The bibliography is sketchy and not very up-to date, while the index for activities and grammatical forms is quite extensive. Ur's switch in person (e.g., you, we, they, 19) is somewhat cumbersome at times. On page 62, she uses the singular reference «each», but changes to «they» in the following sentence. Otherwise, the reading is straightforward. Despite its weaknesses, however, Grammar Practice Activities is a welcome addition to language instructors' libraries. It is also helpful to those wishing to breathe life into language classrooms that focus entirely too much on grammar and not enough on communication. Joseph A. Wieczorek Loyola College in Maryland
Haro,
María-Paz, María del Carmen Sigler and Christine Bennett.
Cada vez mejor. Español para nivel
intermedio. New York: Macmillan Publishing Company, 1990. XXIV + 464
pp.
There are eighteen chapters plus eight reading selections from well-known (and not so well known) authors: Quiroga, Neruda, Rulfo, Anderson-Imbert, Matute, Ferré, Vizcaíno Casas and Ibargüengoitia. Each chapter contains an extensive grammar section that reviews and expands material previously covered in a first-year course. Grammar points are reinforced via real-to-life dialogues, open-ended questions and various exercises (among these, «Práctica», «A conocernos» and «Situación comunicativa»). Unfortunately none of the points introduced are boldfaced, a feature that would have highlighted the new material at hand. The grammar presentation is cumulative. For example, on page 8 the verb «estar» is used in four simple indicative tenses while on page 93 the «hace que» construction appears when the personal subject pronouns are explained. The introduction of new points is skillful: «resultar», «pasar», «suceder», «ocurrir» and «tener lugar» are alternatives for «ser» (4) while «encontrarse» «sentirse», «andar» and «ir» are the equivalents of «estar» (8). More examples: the preposition «a» has nine uses; «de», eight; «con» and «en» four each (212-16) while twenty-three different prepositional phrases are listed (211). By having a wide range of word usage in these and other examples the authors succeed in upgrading the linguistic level of the text. A useful number of idiomatic and other expressions enrich and expand the presentation of items such as «estar» (a dozen), «gustar» (seventeen), «lo» preceded by a preposition (eleven), etc. Finally, the grammar exercises tend to be lively and challenging. To emphasize proficiency/communication skills, consult the «Situación comunicativa» and «Actividades» sections of each chapter. For cultural enrichment, the «De todo un poco» section truly offers a bit of everything: jokes, twisters, proverbs, riddles, ads, newspaper clippings, rhymes, lyrics (including one in Catalan and other in Galician, another of which has a Spanish translation). I like the authors' decision to write the explanations of the grammatical sections in English and the instructions for the exercises in Spanish. By the way, the answers to the exercises are provided in an Answer Key at the end of the book -much to the chagrin, or pleasure, as the case may be, of the instructors. Readings are handled in an efficient manner. Each selection is preceded by hints, vocabulary lists, exercises and introduction, features missing in many comparable textbooks. Following each reading, there are factual and interpretive questions as well as grammar reviews, creative exercises and topics for conversation and/or composition. The variety provides for different teaching/learning options. In other words, instructors can tailor the activities to the particular needs of the class. The «funciones lingüísticas» fisted in the table of contents (or index) of each chapter are not directly implemented. Thank goodness, for it would have been senseless to try to emphasize linguistic functions at the expense of the more coherent, cognitively based approach. Hopefully, students will master linguistic functions by studying grammar explanations, doing exercises and performing various activities. The Appendix contains valuable information on division of words into syllables, word stress and the use of written accents, punctuation, capitalization and a complete synopsis of the Spanish verb system. The book is at least a notch better than most others in the market. It accomplishes what a second year language textbook is supposed to accomplish. I am refreshed by the honest regrouping and organization of materials and by the useful accompaniments to the reading selections. My only regret is that in trying to save some publication costs the editors and/or publishers did not use a variety of typefaces (exception must be made in the «Todo un poco» section and in the reproduction of some newspaper reports) and colors (I could only find black and green). I hope the savings are passed on to the book's purchasers. I did not find any typographical errors except an occasional wrong division of syllables. Jorge J. Rodríguez-Florido Chicago State University Brod, Evelyn F. and Carol J. Brady.
Viajemos 2001. New York: Macmillan
Publishing Company, 1990. 396 pp.
Viajemos 2001: repaso y progreso is a Spanish language textbook designed for the intermediate level. It is presented in the beautiful, tasteful, and elaborate format customary in all Macmillan publications. Even though the order in which the different grammar issues are discussed is not the most logical one, the book is well-organized and easy to use for both instructors and students. After a six-page introduction comes a preliminary chapter called «Preparación», followed by twelve chapters called «Destino.» The instructor's edition also has a thirty-one-page appendix with the «Answer Key.» Each chapter is organized as follows: «Datos»
provides geographical, historical, and other information of the country that
will be visited by the protagonists of the book, an American couple traveling
to and in several Latin-American countries and Spain. This is followed by
questions for comprehension, a dialogue, and questions about the dialogue. The
«Datos» sections are the most valuable part of the book, since they
offer good, concise, and updated information about countries and cities and
thus provide students of Spanish with a
The sections entitled «Simulación» and «Gramática» are the weakest. «Simulación» is a series of kindergarten activities, no better or worse than others of this kind that plague Spanish language textbooks. The grammar-explanations are at the same low level, and contain numerous errors, once again like too many other textbooks. The exercises frequently have silly introductions, presumably to make them more attractive, to foment partnership and group creativity. The grammar is presented and explained at an elementary school level, that makes learning both more boring and actually more complicated. For example, instead of explaining the stem-vowel change in certain verbs (e/i, o/u) as something that takes place whenever the following syllable does not contain a stressed, diphthongation as a phenomenon that occurs whenever the stress falls on the stem vowel of the verbs in question; and the rule that the consonant-sound in the infinitive has to be maintained throughout the conjugation, these aspects of otherwise-regular verbs are presented as obscure, whimsical irregularities that have to be memorized (trying to imagine a shoe for diphthongation, for instance). Otherwise, the grammar parts contain factual errors too often present in Spanish textbooks: the gerund is not a present participle, since it has a purely-verbal function and cannot be used as an adjective or noun (the present participle in Spanish ends in -nte!); ser is used to link the subject of a sentence to a noun (the book gives three explanations instead of this one on page 17: A.1, 3., and 4.); it is also used to form the passive voice and not to emphasize the «do-ers» of the action; etc. The grammar explanations are sometimes worse than those in other textbooks. While others have tried to oversimplify things for the students' sake, the authors of this book appear to have been the victims of this over simplified teaching system. By contrast, the «Lectura» sections are worthwhile fragments from literary sources, and provide students with great material for comprehension and acquisition of culture. The last section, «Para avanzar», again attempts to force conversation among students. In spite of the beautiful presentation and worth while «Datos» and «Lectura» sections, I cannot recommend this textbook for use by instructors unless they are willing and able to point out the errors, explain the grammar in their own way, and create more useful exercises and conversation/composition techniques. Alma Amell Josephinum College Kittredge,
Margaret A.
Rumba a Buenos Aires: Escenas Culturales
Argentinas. Lanham, MD: University Press of America, 1989. 267 pp.
This small format paperback text contains twenty chapters, each focusing on a different grammatical topic, ranging from the preterite, ser and estar, por and para, and the infinitive, to the use of voseo and voseo command forms (characteristic of Argentine Spanish). Chapters average twelve pages in length, with the same format (except Chapter 6, which includes an extra essay in Spanish on voseo). Each chapter opens with a black and white photograph illustrating the topic of the dialoge, which begins on the facing page. Dialogues range from two to three pages in length, usually with two to four characters speaking. This is followed by a half-page of cultural notes, a half-page of vocabulary (glossed in Spanish), one to two pages of vocabulary-related exercises, and up to six pages of grammar explanations in English, with accompanying application exercises in the target language. Unfortunately, neither the Table of Contents nor the Index fists items by page number. Nowhere in the text itself is the intended level stated, although a publisher's promotional flyer fists this as a text for advanced students. Certainly, the length of the dialogues is more appropriate for advanced students, but the simplicity of some of the grammar exercises belies that assumption. Also, although the text has the feel of a workbook rather than a reference textbook, it is unclear whether or not it is meant to be re-used. Some of the exercises are double-spaced with large blanks for the answers, as in a workbook, while others are single-spaced, leaving little or no room for written answers, as in a textbook. The author implies that this manual is intended for use as a secondary rather than primary text, and the brevity of the chapters would support that claim. Since the book does provide a clearly articulated portrait of one Spanish-speaking country's distinct language and culture, it could be used in either an advanced conversation/composition course to accompany a more complete grammar review or in a course on Hispanic civilization as a supplement to a more general text. Since the flaws are minor, this volume would be quite suitable as a supplement for the kinds of courses mentioned above, or for any other language/culture class beyond the third year at the college/university level. Teresa R. Arrington University of Mississippi Nunan, David.
The Learner-Centred Curriculum: A Study in
Second Language Teaching. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1988. 196
pp.
This vision of language teaching is extrapolated from the
author's experience working in ESL (English as a Second Language) with the
Australian Adult Migrant Education Program (AMEP), an ambitious government
program that each year serves over 120,000 (often illiterate) immigrants who
come from dozens of surrounding countries and who speak scores of distinct
languages. AMEP's
The principal insight is encapsulated in the title, namely that language students will have a greater investment in their progress, and teachers a more focused curriculum and satisfying results, when course design, goal setting and even methodology are chosen collaboratively. Curriculum designed for different learner types is the hero of this book; methodology and theory are assigned a service role, to be retooled or revised as goals are renegotiated. Although Nunan does not say it, teacher involvement in all stages of curriculum development and student involvement in all stages of curriculum realization is the methodology endorsed. Classroom activities per se are lower-order procedures that can be charted as the class goes along. For Nunan the curriculum content should be, in a sense, «recombinatory» drawing on the materials, methodologies and course design suggestions of team teachers and curricular consultants. These are seasoned language teachers who have an overview of the guidelines for the many course levels offered at any given time and the general goals of the national program. Interestingly in Nunan's surveys, the notion of standardized proficiency levels or competency tests was rejected by teachers and administrators alike (159ff) in favor of goal-setting on the local (class) level, goals whose success is measured by administrators conferring with teachers and their students. Given the self-creating nature of what might happen in individual classrooms, some discontinuities among courses across the larger program will be inevitable, but it is a small price to pay for the positive results. The larger price, and larger commitment on the part of the program, will be to train teachers to actually assume responsibility for designing their own classes, and freeing them to do so. Students, for their part, become aware of what realistic goals might be, how to measure their progress toward them, what are helpful behaviors for a learner and how to develop skills for learning how to learn. The principal empirical endorsement for all this is contained in the final chapter, a report on a national study on «The Teacher as Curriculum Developer.» Intervening units tease out the practical implications and intellectual constructs throughout program delivery. Many of the dominant influences in our professional world come in for stern rebukes along the way: the authority of theoretical linguistics is assigned a diminished voice in the classroom (1-2, 76-84), and a preoccupation with grammatical assessments over functional accomplishments (116-35) is spurned. There are frequent graphs (of unappealing visual quality) to show the experimental results of inquiries obtained by Nunan and others. The reader should note that a number of these studies are essentially opinion polls on various instructional options. It would be somewhat unnerving for many American «classroom practitioner[s]» of Spanish and Portuguese to become, in Nunan's vision, «the principal agent[s] of curriculum development» (171). That would mean assessing our learners at the outset of every course and designing it to their specifications and needs, not to mention redirecting it through frequent evaluations throughout the term. It sounds like a recipe for chaos, but the author, who is Director of the National Curriculum Resource Centre in Adelaide, insistently affirms the reliability of the intuitions of teachers with years of classroom experience when they are freed from artificial top-down directives and encouraged to take possession of methods and syllabi from which they have become alienated. Likewise Nunan's model for a national ESL system seems mostly at odds with our Spanish/Portuguese programs for homogeneous bodies of adolescents or young adults peering into relatively distant cultures. His emphasis on local curriculum design is well taken, however, as is his tenacity about finding out what students really want to learn. We may be put out that learning grammar and literature -our professional areas of expertise- are not on our students' goals-list at all (at least not at the outset), but focusing on the skills they do want to acquire and showing them how to acquire them may energize them as learners and give us more satisfaction as teachers. George D. Greenia College of William and Mary Bjarkman,
Peter C. and Robert M. Hammond.
American Spanish Pronunciation: Theoretical
and Applied Perspectives. Washington, DC: Georgetown University Press,
1989. 262 pp.
Not dialectological in the traditional sense, this text is organized not according to geographical dialect area but in terms of such theoretical models as American structuralism, standard generative phonology, Stampe's natural phonology, and CV phonology with its generative emphasis on the syllable, lexical phonology and autosegmental phonology. The volume bears testimony to an exciting «third stage» of radical revision in theoretical models after the acceptance of nonsegmental approaches to phonetic analysis in the wake of the conflict between the generative phonologists of the Chomsky era and the Labov variationists. The editors wished to assemble a textbook as well as a
research guidebook designed for a wide and divergent audience comprising not
only students of theoretical and applied Spanish linguistics
Nonetheless, not all necessary terminology (e.g., obstruent, spirant) is included in the charts and for the wider and more divergent audience that the editors aim for, a glossary would be helpful, as well as an index. The editors point out that the text has been disencumbered of superfluous bibliographical notation; but even so, the reduced-print bibliographies at the end of each chapter add up to nearly 8% of the total book. The first chapters are historical. Melvyn Resnick discusses American structuralism, which although no longer in vogue in the United States, survives elsewhere in other disciplines and even here has contributed to today's enhanced «unified field of linguistics/sociolinguistics, with theory, rules and data as equal partners» (25). Robert M. Hammond's second chapter explains the generative phonology based on Chomsky and Halle's The Sound Pattern of English (1968) and in the third chapter, William W. Cressey inventories Spanish pronunciation according to the feature system of Chomsky and Halle. As the 1970's saw a shift away from the derivational aspects of generative phonology toward the aspects of the structures of phonological representation themselves, Peter C. Bjarkman's next two chapters examine some approaches (phonemic theory and phonological chains) to Spanish pronunciation that were popular just before that shift. The next three chapters, among the most technical in the collection, advance nonsegmental approaches to phonological theory. James W. Harris in Chapter 7 evaluates the Spanish syllable as a linguistic construct, Rafael Núñez Cedeño defends CV phonology (so called from its use of the theoretical CV prosodic-template) and Jorge Guitart explains lexical phonology in chapters 8 and 9. The final three chapters are an attempt to bridge the gap between ivory-tower linguistic theory and actual classroom practice. In chapter 10 Tracy Terrell surveys the current pedagogical approaches. In the following chapter Marguerite MacDonald discusses the interference of English on the Spanish spoken by North American Hispanics, identifying some important inadequacies in the Stockwell and Bowen hierarchy of difficulty from The Sounds of English and Spanish (1965). Bjarkman's final chapter studies the pedagogical application of Stampe's natural phonology (1969) and maintains the necessity of exposing students to the radical dialects of Spanish alongside the conservative dialects already enshrined in the textbooks. Most material already available on approaches to Spanish phonology is spotty in presentation or consists of narrowly focused personal interpretations. There is no in-perspective synthesis of current developments, and it is this void that the present volume seeks to fill. Jack Shreve Allegany Community College Gass, Susan
M. and Jacquelyn Schachter, editors.
Linguistic Perspectives on Second Language
Acquisition. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1989. 296 pp.
This collection of papers dealing with second language acquisition from the linguistic perspective will be of special interest to researchers and scholars in both linguistics and second language acquisition. The articles demonstrate that the relationship between the two fields is reciprocal in that a linguistic theory may provide the source of the hypotheses for second language acquisition studies, while the results of these studies can contribute to the development and validation of theory. For the non-specialist in linguistics and second language acquisition, the book offers an excellent sampling of the recent thinking and research. Ample background and orientation are provided by the editors' introductions in order to follow the highly specialized language of many of the articles. In the Introduction, the editors clearly define the field of second language acquisition, distinguishing it from questions of pedagogy: «Second language research has developed into an independent non applied discipline» (4). Therefore, classroom teachers, teacher trainers and others primarily interested in language teaching methodology will find little of immediate applicability. The book is organized into five parts: Theories of Acquisition, Syntax, Semantics/Pragmatics, Lexicon and Phonology. The basic unifying element is provided by the linguistic perspective itself, since each author argues from a different linguistic model or theory, although the principles of Universal Grammar dominate. The first article, by Kevin R. Gregg, «Second Language Acquisition Theory: The Case for a Generative Perspective», establishes the foundations for a linguistic perspective. Appealing to Chomskyan linguistic theory, Gregg argues that, in order to formulate a theory of second language acquisition, we must first have a formal theory of language that will describe what, exactly, is being acquired. He proposes that generative grammar «can add both clarity and explanatory power to the research being carried out in SLA (Second Language Acquisition)» [34]. The second article, «What is the Logical Problem of
Foreign Language Learning?» by Robert
Both articles in Part 3, which deals with word order and how word order is learned in the second language, examine from several theoretical stances, the results of research showing native language influence either in the production (inter language) or in the reception (interpretation) of the second language. In the areas of lexicon and phonology (Parts 4 and 5), one is surprised by the lack of formal theories for either first or second language and the relatively small number of studies, considering the prominence that vocabulary and phonology are usually given in second language learning. The authors in these two sections at tempt to fill the void by suggesting theoretical models of how lexicon and phonological competence are acquired. The profusion of theories offered in this book can be either intellectually stimulating or disheartening. One can delight in the complexity of the field and the opportunities for further research, or despair at the lack of agreement and the work yet to be done. The book suffers slightly from an uneven style by including multiple authors, but the editors have succeeded in creating some cohesiveness through grouping the papers, through the cross references that authors make to other papers in the book, and through the introductions to each section. The detailed index makes the overall text a valuable research tool. Linguistic Perspectives on Second Language Acquisition is a welcome approach to second language acquisition literature because it is grounded in a research methodology that insists on testability and statistical validity. The reader will not find the unwelcome lists of assumptions, hypotheses and corollaries characterizing some of the recent literature, and, thanks to this volume, may still hope for a comprehensive theory of second language acquisition. Ellen S. Haynes University of Colorado Translation
Pinto,
Fernão Mendes.
The Travels of Mendes Pinto. Edited and
Translated by Rebecca D. Catz. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1989.
XLVI + 663 pp.
Portuguese merchant-adventurer Fernão Mendes Pinto (1510?-1583), in detailing his experiences in India, China, Japan, and various parts of South east Asia over a period of twenty-one years (1537 1558), filled 226 chapters with tales of piracy, shipwrecks, cannibalism, battlers, palace intrigue, murder, and revenge. Although he wrote this episodic account, which he called Peregrinaçam sometime between 1569 and 1578, the book was not published until 1614. The volume was well-known in the seventeenth-century, and its popularity even rivaled that of Don Quixote. However, it was enjoyed basically for its stories of high adventure in exotic locales rather than for what editor and translator Catz sees as its principal thrust -Pinto's satirical attack on Portuguese religious and political institutions. Pinto's story is a Renaissance Odyssey, a monumental prose epic of Portuguese exploits in the Far East. His avowed purpose was to write a guide to human conduct, using himself as a model of the righteous, long-suffering individual who, with God's help, overcomes life's misfortunes. Catz maintains, however, that his real aim was to criticize religious hypocrisy and intolerance and to condemn the ideology that fostered Portuguese overseas conquests. Unlike the Lusíadas (1572) of Camōes, the Travels portrays his countrymen in negative rather than laudatory terms. Consumed by greed, the Portuguese often seem more barbaric than the «pagans» and «infidels» they encounter. This applies especially to the Chinese, who appear as paragons of virtue and morality living in a utopian society. Pinto camouflaged these subversive notions in the guise of autobiography. Hiding under this cloak, he deliberately sprinkled his text with inaccuracies, contradictions, and ambiguities, a ruse which entailed considerable risk on his part. Despite these obvious fictional impulses, Pinto's
Travels continues to be discussed in
terms of the veracity, or lack thereof, of its descriptions of
sixteenth-century Asia. Catz, on the other hand, makes the issue of historicity
secondary to her principal contention, that the work should be judged not as
history but rather as literature, specifically as satire. In addition to the
stated links between Pinto's book and the picaresque, one can also detect
resonances of the chivalric romance, the Byzantine novel, and hagiographic
writings in the
Travels. Pinto employs such time-honored
techniques as epic exaggeration and enumeration, narrative digressions, and
intercalated stories. Similarly,
In an excellent introductory study Catz reveals in-depth knowledge of the historical context of Pinto's work, addressing topics ranging from the political and intellectual climate of sixteenth-century Europe to Pinto's life, the influences on his book, its publication history, and the author's use of satire. Catz bases her unabridged translation on a 1973 facsimile edition of the 1614 Portuguese princeps. Her free-flowing translation is, by her own admission, «more literary than literal» (XLV), thereby sparing the reader an encounter with the stylistic eccentricities of Pinto's torturous prose. Supplementing the text is a series of scholarly appendices covering nearly 140 pages and consisting of an exhaustive section of notes, copious illustrations, maps, glossaries, a gazetteer, and bibliography. Here, one can find a wealth of historical and geographical data as well as explanations of obscure lexical items such as weights, measures, units of currency, nautical vocabulary, and untranslated foreign terms. Missing, however, is an onomastic index, the only noticeable omission from this prodigious display of scholarship and erudition. The scope of Catz's critical, annotated translation of The Travels of Mendes Pinto embraces broad expanses of scholarly territory as far-reaching as the voyages themselves. An outstanding contribution to the field of historical research, translation, and literary analysis, this volume will likely serve as the modern embarcation point for all future studies of Pinto and his work. Melvin S. Arrington, Jr. University of Mississippi Fernández Retamar, Roberto.
Caliban and Other Essays. Translated by
Edward Baker. Foreword by Frederic Jameson. Minneapolis: The University of
Minnesota Press, 1989. 139 pp.
This is an important book for a number of reasons. For one, the title essay, written some twenty years ago, has become a classical statement of revolutionary Cuba's cultural politics. Second, the complementary texts provide a rich sampling of Fernández Retamar's thinking on a wide range of fascinating topics. Third, the collection includes some quite recent essays, not the least of which is the «Fore word» by Frederic Jameson, one of today's leading Marxist critics. Finally, coming as it does when the communist world is in a genuine state of crisis, interest in this volume cannot fail to be heightened by the historical moment. For example, the frequent and effusive references to the «new Nicaragua» -to which the book is dedicated- strike a rather strange chord in the light of recent events in that country. «Caliban» itself is, in my view, a crucial text in any survey of the contemporary Spanish American essay. First published in Retamar's journal Casa de la Américas in the fall of 1971, the essay takes as its point of departure the notion that culturally mestizo Latin America has traditionally been ignored, misunderstood and denigrated by «Euro North Americans» as «an apprenticeship, a rough draft or copy of European bourgeois culture» (5). Unfortunately, Spanish Americans have often reinforced this view, the most notable example being that of Rodó, whose symbology, as set forth in his classic of 1900, Ariel, is roundly refuted by the Cuban essayist. As Retamar puts it, «Our symbol then is not Ariel, as Rodó thought, but rather Caliban. This is something that we, the mestizo inhabitants of these same isles where Caliban lived, see with particular clarity: Próspero invaded the island s, killed our ancestors, enslaved Caliban...» (14). He goes on to explain, «There is no real Ariel-Caliban polarity: both are slaves in the hands of Próspero, the foreign magician. But Caliban is the rude and unconquerable master of the island, while Ariel, a creature of the air,... is the intellectual» (16). The foregoing gives only a rough idea of Retamar's erudite and often polemical essay. His etymological and literary pursuit of Caliban through texts ranging from Shakespeare and Montaigne to Renan and contemporary third world writers provides material for much lively discussion. Many, however, will find this volume marred by the author's occasional recourse to heavy-handed political rhetoric. While we should not expect a militant castrista intellectual to deal kindly with the United States or others critical of the Cuban regime, when Retamar suggests that North American racism offers «a coherent model that its Nazi disciples attempted to apply even to other European conglomerates» ( 4), even the most sympathetic Yankee reader would, I think, take umbrage. Similarly, his gratuitous citations of Castro's speeches seem rather forced; and his reference to the «Mexican mafia» (especially to Carlos Fuentes) whom, he states, used «the wild vociferation occasioned by a Cuban writer's month in jail» (30) for an «obvious pretext» for breaking with Cuba, will strike many as a blind whitewash of the issues raised by the Padilla affair. These formulaic expressions of the castrista position notwithstanding, «Caliban» is an important text that students of Latin American culture would do well to consider. Four other pieces round out the volume: «Caliban Revisited», «Against the Black Legend», «Some Theoretical Problems of Spanish-American Literature» and «Prologue to Ernesto Cardenal.» All are of interest, but the third stands out as an especially well-articulated statement of several crucial issues faced by students of contemporary Hispanic American letters: periodization, genre theory and relationships to the European canon. Baker's translations read very smoothly and in
Martin S. Stabb Pennsylvania State University Wilson,
Jason.
An A to Z of Modern Latin American Literature
in English Translation. London: Institute of Latin American Studies, 1989.
95 pp.
Those Hispanists who have taught courses of literature in translation or comparative literature are aware of the amount of leg-work required to determine what is available from Latin America in translation. Thanks to Professor Wilson's contribution, this task has been reduced considerably. His compilation consists of an alphabetical checklist and guide to fiction, poetry and theater, with references to some essays and memoirs as well, of Spanish and Portuguese in the Americas since Independence. In all, the fist comprises some 650 published translations of works by 256 authors, from Agosín to Zurita, plus an appendix of 118 Anthologies and a Bibliography of sources. Wilson's work makes available a significant important bibliographical tool, not only for scholars and librarians, but for anyone interested in Latin American literature. Each entry notes the author's country of birth and relevant dates, the English title, genre, translator, publisher, place and date of translation and ends with the title in the original language and date of first publication. When an author has had more than one work translated, the English titles are listed chronologically, disregarding the order of the original. In some instances, not all the information is available and a partial entry is included in the hope (as indicated in the introduction) that some readers will provide the author with the missing information. The checklist does not give details regarding whether the book is in print, hardback or paper back, nor the page numbers. Neither does it pass judgment on the quality of the translations, as originally intended. The annotation of entries with excerpts from reviewers was discarded because of critical divergence in assessments of the same works. Minor shortcomings notwithstanding, Wilson has helped significantly to promote the study and awareness of Latin American literature with this invaluable bibliographical tool. Genaro J. Pérez University of Texas
Books Received
Abad, Mercedes. Felicidades conyugales. Barcelona: Tusquets Editores, 1989. 198 pp. Alabau, Magalí. Hermana. Madrid: Betania, 1989. 38 pp. Bejel, Emilio and Ramiro Fernández. La subversión de la semiótica. Gaithersburg, Maryland: Hispamérica, 1988. 265 pp. Boletín Cultural y Bibliográfico. Volumen XXVI, Nº. 21. Bogotá: Banco de la República, 1989. 132 pp. Briggs, Charles L. and Julián Josué Vigil. The Lost Gold Mine of Juan Mondragón. A Legend from New Mexico Performed by Melaquias Romero. Tucson: University of Arizona Press, 1990. 270 pp. Calderón de la Barca, Pedro. Dos autos sacramentales. Edición de Carmen Iranzo. Valencia: Albatros/Hispanófila, 1988. 183 pp. Dauster, Frank and Leon Lyday. En un acto: Diez piezas hispanoamericanas. 3 ed. Boston: Heinle & Heinle, 1990. 190 pp. Esteves, Sandra María. Bluestown Mockingbird Mambo. Houston: Arte Público Press, 1990. 87 pp. Fraga, Rebeca. Nuestra vida que es ajena. Barcelona: Tusquets Editores, 1990. 211 pp. Golpe de dados (Revista de poesía), Vol. XVII, Nº. CII. Bogotá, 1989. González Berry, Erlinda, editor. Pasó por aquí. Critical Essays on the New Mexico Literary Tradition 1542-1988. Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 1989. 319 pp. González Pérez, Rosario and Ana M. Rodríguez Fernández. Bibliografía de sintaxis española (1960-1984). Santiago de Compostela: Universidade, 1984. (Verba: Anuario Galego de Filoloxia. Anexo 31). 245 pp. Guillén, Nicolás. The Daily Daily. Trans., with an Introduction by Vera M. Kutzinski. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1989. 139 pp. Gutiérrez Revuelta, Pedro.
Complejas perspectivas. Madrid: Editorial
Orígenes, 1988.
Hahn, Oscar. The Art of Dying. Translations by James Haggard. Pittsburgh: Latin American Literary Review Press, 1987. 95 pp. Hernández, Leopoldo M. Piezas cortas. Honolulu: Editorial Persona, 1990. 114 pp. ——. Siempre tuvimos miedo. Honolulu: Editorial Persona, 1988. 58 pp. Herrera Sobek, María. The Mexican Corrido. A Feminist Analysis. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1990. 151 pp. Islas, Maya. Altazora acompañando a Vicente. Madrid: Betania, 1989. 45 pp. Jarest, Jackie and Marsha Robinson. Ahora, leamos. Boston: Heinle & Heinle, 1990.171 pp. ——. Charlemos un poco. 2 ed. Boston: Heinle & Heinle, 1990. 371 pp. Jarvis, Ana C., Raquel Lebredo and Francisco Mena. ¿Cómo se dice? Instructor's Annotated Edition. 4th ed. Lexington, Massachusetts: D. C. Health & Co., 1990. 504 pp. Landero, Luis. Juegos de la edad tardía. Barcelona: Tusquets Editores, 1989. 369 pp. Laviera, Tito. Mainstream Ethics (ética corriente). Houston: Arte Público Press, 1988. 52 pp. Lebsanft Franz. Spanien und seine Sprachen in den Cartas al Director von El País (1967-1987). Tübingen: Gunter Narr Verlag, 1990. 133 pp. Limón, Gabriela. María de Belén: The Autobiography. New York and Los Angeles: Vantage Press, 1990. 315 pp. López Santos, Pascual. Hora ascendente. Madrid: Editorial Playor, 1989. 79 pp. Medina, Dante. Cosas de cualquier familia. Barcelona: Tusquets Editores, 1990. 208 pp. Meregalli, Franco. La literatura desde el punto de vista del receptor. Amsterdam and Atlanta: Rodopi, 1989. 178 pp. Meyerson, Julia. Tambo. Life in an Andean Village. Austin: University of Texas Press, 1990. 304 pp. Mira de Amescua, Antonio. The Devil's Slave (El esclavo del demonio). Trans. Michael D. McGaha. Intro. by José M. Ruano. Ottawa: Dovehouse Editions, Inc. 1989. 114 pp. Muñoz, Elías Miguel. No fue posible el sol. Madrid: Betania, 1989. 56 pp. Ortiz Cofer, Judith. Silent Dancing: A Remembrance of Puerto Rican Childhood. Houston: Arte Público Press, 1990. 158 pp. Paulson, Michael G. and Tamara Álvarez-Detrell. A Critical Edition of Juan Bautista Diamante's «La reina María Estuarda.». Potomac, Maryland: Scripta Humanistica, 1989. 223 pp. Pedraza, Pilar. La pequeña pasión. Barcelona: Tusquets Editores, 1990. 177 pp. Rizo Morgan, Félix. De mujeres y perros. Miami: Ediciones Universal, 1989. 101 pp. Rodríguez Chaves, José. Poeta peregrino. Barcelona: Amarantos, 1989. 100 pp. ——. Vencedora del tiempo. Barcelona: Amarantos, 1987. 105 pp. Seklaoui, Diana. Change and Compensation. Parallel Weakening of [s] in Italian, French and Spanish. New York: Peter Lang Publishing, Inc., 1989. 258 pp. Sturderus, Lenard. Temas gramaticales. Lanham, Maryland: University Press of America, Inc., 1990. 233 pp. Thomas, Jean-Jacques and Daniel Delas. Poética generativa. Trans. from the French Poétique Generative by Maria Luisa Freyre and Enrique Pezzoni. Buenos Aires: Librería Hachette, 1989. 170 pp. Tramoya. Cuaderno de teatro, 22. Xalapa: Universidad Veracruzana, 1989. 136 pp. Trejo, Ernesto. Entering a Life. Houston: Arte Público Press, 1990. 78 pp. Trisán, José Luis. Narciso y otras formas del cristal. Madrid: Playor, 1989. 85 pp. Van Stichel, Elaine. A Generative Approach to the Phonological Comparison of Dutch and Spanish. New York: Senda Nueva de Ediciones, 1990. 152 pp. Villa, Andrés Javier. Las Bregarias. Madrid: Devenir, 1987. 53 pp. ——. Elviremas. Madrid: Devenir, 1989. 57 pp. ——. Tras el umbral. Madrid: Devenir, 1986. 58 pp. Villanueva, Tino. Crónica de mis años peores. La Jolla, California: Lalo Press, 1987. 47 pp. Zeitschrift für Katalanistik. Revista d'Estudis Catalans. Vol. 2, ed. Tilbert Dídac Stegmann, et al. Frankfurt am Main: Deutsch-Katalanische Gesellschaft, 1989. 157 pp. 
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
