REVIEWS
n Prepared by Domnita Dumitrescu EDITORIAL POLICY: Hispania publishes reviews of selected books and electronic media in the following categories: Pan-Hispanic/Luso-Brazilian Literary and Cultural Studies; Linguistics, Language, and Media; and Fiction and Film. Publishers and authors should submit their materials for possible selection to the Book/Media Review Editor, Domnita Dumitrescu, Department of Modern Languages and Literatures, California State University, Los Angeles, 5151 State University Dr., Los Angeles, CA 90032. Members of the AATSP who wish to be considered as reviewers should upload their information at mc.manuscriptcentral.com/hispan and send their CV to the Book/Media Review Editor at
[email protected]. Hispania will not accept unsolicited reviews and does not publish journal numbers, book notices, or reviews of works more than two years old. Due to the number of works that correspond to Hispania’s broad scope, not all requests to review specific items can be granted. We especially encourage, however, requests to review film and other media resources. An invitation to review does not guarantee publication. All reviews are evaluated by anonymous readers and publication decisions are based upon their comments and the discretion of the editors.
Pan-Hispanic/Luso-Brazilian Literary and Cultural Studies Antebi, Susan. Carnal Inscriptions: Spanish American Narratives of Corporeal Difference and Disability. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2009. Pp. 239. ISBN 978-0-230-61389-8. In the acknowledgments preceding her unique and valuable study, Susan Antebi rather candidly notes: “When I began this work I thought I was writing about freaks and monsters in Spanish American narrative. At some point, I began to understand that the book was, in fact, about disability in these contexts” (ix). The academic honesty of this statement is significant: Carnal Inscriptions is, in essence, a welcoming invitation to scholars who may already be working on topics relevant to Disability Studies to conceive of their work from an emerging paradigm that, with very few exceptions, Hispanists have yet to engage meaningfully. The book directly dialogues with work by disability scholars outside of Hispanism (notably mentioning—among others—Lennard Davis, author of Enforcing Normalcy and editor of The Disability Studies Reader; David T. Mitchell, Executive Director of Temple University’s Institute on Disabilities; and Sharon Snyder, a distinguished disability scholar who is, with Mitchell, coeditor of the University of Michigan Press book series Corporealities), seeking to analyze both work by canonical Spanish American authors (e.g. José Martí, Mario Vargas Llosa) and also more recent cultural products that break with traditional notions of narrative. The latter list includes performance art by Guillermo Gómez Peña and Coco Fusco, work by New York-based Mexican writer Naief Yahya, a photo-narrative by Mexican writer Bellatín, collaborative testimonial work by Gabriela Brimmer and Elena Poniatowska, and more still. Overall, even if the focus of the work leans toward the geopolitical implications of corporeal difference instead of the political discourses surrounding disability (the emphasis on the “freak show” and Antebi’s notion of “disability as performance” [9] are key in this regard), there is still more than adequate cause to see this book as the first of its kind. Chapter 1 interrogates the presence of freak-show performers in newspaper chronicles penned by Martí and by José Juan Tablada as a way of meditating on US–Latin American geopolitical relationships. Chapter 2 illuminates the treatment of female, conjoined twins in a short story by Ecuadorian Pablo Palacio and the subsequent subversion of that tale by Jorge Velasco Mackenzie in a story of his own. Chapter 3 looks at El hablador by Vargas Llosa and David Toscana’s novel Santa María del Circo, using “an approach to corporeal difference in Spanish American narrative that is both specific to regional, historical contexts and AATSP Copyright © 2011.
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unhinged from the grid of metaphors that would align bodies with predetermined meanings” (11). Chapter 4 looks at works by Yahya and Gómez Peña/Fusco highlighting the problematic representation of marked or flawed bodies. Throughout, whether taking on chronicles, short stories, novels, or performances, Antebi’s analysis is insightful, her engagement with history and theory impressive, and her perspective fresh. Chapter 5 launches a detailed reading of Bellatín’s Shiki Nagoaka, una nariz de ficción (2001), a novel in which a series of accompanying photographs form a “parallel, pictorial version” (142) of the fictional Nagoaka’s story. Bellatín—whose other works include Flores (2001), a novel about children with birth defects, and another about a man who affirms that “una cosa es ser un hombre inmóvil y otra un retardado mental” (qtd. in Antebi [143])—has created a complex text that Antebi convincingly contextualizes with recourse to the topic of West–East relations. The author’s appropriately complex discussion allows her to stray from the familiar territory of the “freak show,” while continuing to focus on corporeal difference (here, Nagoaka’s large nose) as disability—although the discussion of Flores beginning on page 152 is particularly lucid, and might have been pursued further. Chapter 6 is by far the most intriguing chapter in the book, as it focuses on Gabriela Brimmer, “a Mexican woman who had cerebral palsy and who communicated . . . primarily through the use of an alphabet chart or a typewriter, using only her left big toe” (173). Together, Brimmer and the famed Poniatowska penned the 1979 testimonial text Gaby Brimmer, and the reader may be interested to learn that “after Brimmer’s death in 2000, Mexican President Ernesto Zedillo presented an award in her memory and created a national scholarship for disabled writers or artists in her name” (179). Here, Antebi is at her best as she masterfully elucidates the juncture between disability and the political in testimonial literature, exploring Gaby’s role as a political activist amidst the larger context of a de-radicalized, post-1968 Mexican society. Carnal Inscriptions is clearly unique, and perhaps even ahead of its time. By this, I mean that there has for many years been a widespread interest among Hispanic Studies scholars in the themes of alterity, corporeality, and marginality—and yet, there has been very little in the way of a ‘first wave’ of Hispanic Disability Studies scholarship. Here, it is important to make an instructive if provisional distinction—one that some may deem contentious—between what are two necessarily entangled sets of problems. On the one hand, there is the general set of questions pertaining to bodies and social marginalization, which may unfold differentially in a given case. These questions are addressed, for example, by a veritable wealth of critics who write on difference and community (my favorites being Iris M. Young, David Harvey, and Roberto Esposito to name just a few). On the other hand, there is the set of questions specific to disabled populations themselves (in addition to the aforementioned Davis, Mitchell, and Snyder, I would add such critics as Licia Carlson, Mark Rapley, and Charles Riley). Make no mistake, Antebi does well in balancing a study of the theme of marginality in the work of canonical authors with a more concerted “Disability Studies approach”; and this is particularly true in chapter 6. Her book is best appreciated as the “Hispanic Studies version” of work by what I would call “second-wave” theorists who have directly tried to bridge disability studies with other theoretical debates, such as feminist and queer studies (to my mind, Robert McRuer and Eve K. Sedgwick stand out in this regard; on the latter, see Antebi [114]). And yet, apart from being a magnificent literary study in its own right, her book also points implicitly to the current lack of (and the need for) “first-wave” disability scholarship in our field—that is, work in Hispanic Studies that approaches disability not as a point of departure for discussing questions of geopolitical or theoretical marginality, but instead disability as a sociocultural and expressly political issue in its own right. Ultimately, this lack of/need for such “first-wave” literature only serves to make what Carnal Inscriptions achieves even more significant. Understood in the context of the broader field of Hispanic Studies, both the power and the potential of Antebi’s text come from its pioneering intent to integrate the perspective and critical literature pertaining to Disability Studies. Just as writing the book helped its author to “sort
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out the crucial differences between disability and the notion of freakishness,” I share Antebi’s hope (expressed explicitly on page ix) that it will do the same for its readers. In the end, this is undoubtedly a landmark text that will attract both literary-minded critics and scholars intrigued by Disability Studies alike. Benjamin Fraser The College of Charleston, USA Arkinstall, Christine. Histories, Cultures, and National Identities: Women Writing Spain, 1877–1984. Lewisburg: Bucknell UP, 2009. Pp. 250. ISBN 978-0-8387-5728-4. In Histories, Cultures, and National Identities: Women Writing Spain, 1877–1984, Christine Arkinstall examines the literary contributions to cultural thought and nation-building of three women authors from Spain: Rosario de Acuña (1850–1923), Ángela Figuera (1902–84), and Rosa Chacel (1898–1984). This analysis aims to show how these writers, whose work has not figured as prominently as that of their male counterparts in critical studies of Spanish literature, played a role in the shaping of liberal thought and the concept of nation in Spain. Her study shows how these writers both advocated for and critiqued the liberal project. Arkinstall begins by detailing the historical, political, and literary contexts for each author, clearly outlining the trajectory of liberal thought in Spain since the mid-nineteenth century, and positioning each author’s work within this framework, providing a thorough understanding of how sociopolitical and cultural factors informed their texts. The authors considered in this book represent various literary styles, genres, and periods, offering a more complete understanding of the contributions of women writers to contemporary Spanish literature. Part 1, entitled “Representing the Nation in Nineteenth-Century Spain: Rosario de Acuña and the Liberal Debate,” analyzes three plays written by Acuña, namely Amor á la patria (1877), Tribunales de venganza (1880), and El Padre Juan (1891). Arkinstall looks at how each play addresses the idea of the Spanish nation, advocating for certain aspects of the liberal agenda and critiquing others. This section delves into the characters and their motivations, as representative of the elements of liberal thought essential to Acuña’s envisioning of Spain as nation. Although Arkinstall demonstrates how Acuña’s plays affirmed many of the liberal ideals of the time, this examination also finds that Acuña was highly critical of liberalism’s continued gender bias, the role of the clergy in some liberal factions, and the negative effects of a new economic individualism. In part 2, “The Spanish Civil War and Franco Dictatorship: History as Trauma and Wound in Ángela Figuera’s Poetic Work,” Arkinstall considers the connection between Figuera’s poetry and liberal thought in Spain, during the years of the Franco dictatorship. This section looks at several of Figuera’s poems, mainly from the collections Belleza cruel (1958) and Toco la tierra: Letanías (1962). Basing much of her analysis in trauma theory, Arkinstall shows how the poet subverts the official discourse that portrayed Spanish history as a continuum of conservative ideals that erased a liberal history. Figuera imbues Catholic iconography and motifs with new meanings, exposing the hypocrisy and cruelty of the dictatorship and the difficult conditions imposed on its people. Arkinstall reads Figuera’s work as an expression of trauma, searching for protection from further suffering and hoping to find resolution to psychic damage. This analysis highlights the role of memory, as these poems remind the reader of past wounds and keep the exiled and dead alive in the collective memory. Additionally, Arkinstall shows how the poems challenge the masculine articulation of religious and political discourse of the dictatorship. In this section of her study, Arkinstall shows how Figuera contributed an alternate vision of Spanish identity, disrupting hegemonic discourses and offering new meanings to established conceptualizations. Part 3, “Recovering Cultural History in Post-Franco Spain: Rosa Chacel’s Novels of Memory,” looks at the first two novels of Chacel’s trilogy, Barrio de Maravillas (1976) and
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Acrópolis (1984). Arkinstall reads Chacel’s novels as a recuperation of the Spanish modernist movements of the past, beginning a new history of the artistic project that was abruptly interrupted by civil war and dictatorship. This section highlights Chacel’s importance to the creation of a new identity in post-Franco Spain. Applying Pierre Nora’s concept of lieu de mémoire, or a place of memory, Arkinstall explores the novels’ recuperation and establishment of a generation, in which history and memory combine to reveal the significance of the modernist movements to Spanish identity, and at the same time to critique elements of modernism in order to propose a new generation for democratic Spain. Arkinstall’s analysis demonstrates how Chacel stresses the importance of culture and education for all, an engaged and socially committed artistic generation, and the continuation of liberal, progressive ideals. Quite significant is Arkinstall’s finding that Chacel’s novels challenge the traditionally held conceptions of modernist art as devoid of sociopolitical content, as well as the gender and class discrimination present in the art of these generations. With Histories, Cultures, and National Identities: Women Writing Spain, 1877–1984, Christine Arkinstall has successfully brought to the fore significant contributions of three Spanish women writers who have not previously received this deserved attention. Basing her arguments in current theories of culture, memory, and trauma, Arkinstall offers a comprehensive analysis of works by each author and their proposal of elements essential to their conceptualization of the Spanish nation. A solid historical, political, and cultural context explains each writer’s literary vision. In further study, it would also be interesting to learn more about the effect of their works on the shaping of the nation, in literary, cultural, or political circles. Finally, Arkinstall’s analysis offers valuable insight into the engendering of the liberal debate present in the writing of each author considered in this book, presenting evidence of the importance of women in the liberal and literary debates of contemporary Spain. Julia Riordan-Gonçalves Monmouth University, USA Barriuso, Carlos. Los discursos de la modernidad: Nación, imperio y estética en el fin de siglo español (1895–1924). Madrid: Biblioteca Nueva, 2009. Pp. 188. ISBN 978-84-9742-019-1. Lo primero que llama la atención del lector del libro de Carlos Barriuso sobre los discursos de la modernidad española es, sin duda, la intrigante estructura lógica interna que ha supuesto concebirlo sobre un triple andamiaje astutamente entrelazado en planos y enfoques: el temporal, el autorial y el temático que, como cordón umbilical, concluye atándolo todo. Veámoslo. En el plano temporal el libro versa sobre las tres décadas que van de 1895 a 1924, época que coincide con el surgimiento, apogeo y ocaso de la llamada generación del ’98. En un segundo nivel, el de los autores, el libro se centra en esas tres grandes figuras literarias dominantes de la época: Unamuno, Ganivet y Valle-Inclán. En el terreno ideológico, Barriuso intenta llegar hasta el fondo de las situaciones que se propone esclarecer, de una vez por todas, mediante su libro. Barriuso se entrega a la tarea de explicar la manera como, bien arropado en una bibliografía copiosa, diversa y actualizada, él entiende los “discursos de la modernidad ” encarnados en las obras de estos tres grandes creadores, ahora puestos bajo su microscopio. Para Barriuso, cada uno es un pilar que sustenta la trilogía del libro, asumiendo un papel definitorio frente a estas tres amplias concepciones socio-políticas y literarias de la España que les tocó vivir: la idea particular como se concibe el concepto de nación en Unamuno, la de imperio en la visión cosmopolita, aunque carente de validez en la realidad circundante de Ganivet, y en los recurrentes modelos estéticos que empleara Valle-Inclán a lo largo de su evolución—casi metamorfosis literaria—que iría recorriendo desde sus incursiones por las Sonatas, hasta las tragedias y comedias sui generis, pasando por obras consideradas hitos en su carrera como Luces de bohemia y La lámpara maravillosa, que reconfirmarían la idea de Valle-Inclán renovador indiscutible, aunque inconstante y cambiante.
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Esta triple armadura se sostiene en los tres capítulos que conforman el libro: a Unamuno, vinculado con el concepto de España en cuanto a nación y todo lo que conllevan las atribuciones a la denominada “inconsciencia social intrahistórica” y a la primacía del “discurso irracionalista” en sus escritos. A través del Idearium y otros libros de Ganivet, tomado en sentido amplísimo, se redondean sus ideas en torno a España como imperio finisecular, vislumbrado más como sueño utópico, dadas las deplorables encrucijadas en que se debatía la España finisecular. El mismo subtítulo del capítulo 2 no da lugar a ambigüedades: “La conquista del Reino de Maya” solo lograría la conquista de un imperio ficcional y mítico, articulado, pero desprovisto de la indispensable realidad histórica que lo avalara. Así visto, no pasaría de ser un “imperio espectral” o un “imperialismo espiritual” que la “subjetividad de la sociedad capitalista” contradice, dada su imposibilidad de formular una reforma política con miras al futuro y no anclada en “modelos arcaicos e irreales” (102). Las conclusiones del autor sobre el enfoque unamuniano son en verdad esclarecedoras. Por un lado, el Rector de Salamanca, que cabalga en una utopía vasco-castellana arcaica, no logra superar la ambigüedad que supone un “discurso que fomenta la autoridad como modelo de convivencia” (64), mientras que por otro, su “melancólica intrahistoria” implicaría una cuestionable “sumisión a la cultura y la lengua” que con el tiempo derivaría en lo que Barriuso denomina propagación de la “inestabilidad propia de la modernidad” (64). Las conclusiones sobre las “proteicas estéticas” de Valle-Inclán son para Barriuso regresos a la “edad idílica y rural” (149) como formas de escapismo de la realidad que en nada solucionarían el avance del detestado “capitalismo deshumanizante” ni del liberalismo económico imperante ya en la Europa finisecular. El libro de Barriuso está escrito en lenguaje riguroso, académico, y en cierto modo, codificado por la jerga propia de la modernidad. En este sentido, es un libro para especialistas, que no tiene nada de genérico y que está pensado para los ya iniciados, no solo en el canon modernista, sino para aquellos que ya poseen buen conocimiento de la trilogía propuesta. Es también el resultado de un largo proceso de estudios previos, ponencias, e incluso publicaciones parciales sobre temas afines a los expuestos en dos de los tres escritores: Unamuno y los dilemas de la nacionalidad (2004) y Mimesis y modernidad en la estética de Valle-Inclán (2007). Barriuso ha tenido no solo el sosiego y la fortuna de haber sido patrocinado por instituciones prestantes que reconocieron los méritos de su proyecto, sino también por el consejo, la lectura y la asesoría de grandes conocedores del campo. Esto amerita aún más su trabajo y lo convierte en un aporte valioso para el estudio de una época sobre la que faltaba una investigación a fondo de las implicaciones de la modernidad con los parámetros con que lo ha logrado el autor aquí. Es, en resumen, una contribución de altos quilates y méritos. Germán Carrillo Marquette University, USA Academia Norteamericana de la Lengua Española, USA Brown, Joan L. Confronting Our Canons: Spanish and Latin American Studies in the 21st Century. Lewisburg: Bucknell UP, 2010. Pp. 247. ISBN 978-0-83875-767-3. Confronting Our Canons: Spanish and Latin American Studies in the 21st Century urges us to examine our assumptions about literary canons, understand the important pedagogical functions that they perform, and take responsibility for the construction of a Hispanic studies consensus canon. In this illuminating work, Joan L. Brown disproves the myth of the Canon, or single list of greatest works, demystifies the process of modern canon formation, and proposes an inclusive and flexible model that can serve as a blueprint for other disciplines. The balance of theory and data analysis provides a comprehensive view of the topic and, although examples are gleaned from Spanish and Latin American literature, Brown’s observations and recommendations are accessible, and pertinent, to other fields.
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The first chapter reviews the history of Western literary canons, demonstrating the indebtedness of modern canons to those of the past. Brown argues that, in performing the necessary function of sorting and selecting a smaller set of items from a much larger one, “the primary sociocultural function of a canon is to delimit and unite a community,” since “[t]he choice of a reduced set is based on discrimination, which elucidates shared values” (40). She also emphasizes the relationship between canons, pedagogy, and disciplinary definition, asserting that “transmission of a discipline involves training the next generation of experts . . . [therefore] a canon shapes teachers (experts) and students (cultural consumers) alike” (41). Seeking to disprove the myth of the Canon, the second chapter shows that modern canons are multiple and coexistent, ranging from an individual’s internal list of personal preferences, to those requiring consensus such as literary histories, anthologies, and reading lists. Brown calls attention to the problematic lack of explicit criteria that characterizes the process of consensus canon formation, urging educators to move towards a clearer definition of the variables that determine canonicity in their field. The statistical analysis of the “Hispanic graduate reading list canon” is the focus of the third chapter, which examines fifty-six reading lists, in use at the end of the 1990s, from American PhD granting programs. This examination yields the contents of “the universal canon” (works and/or authors on 100 percent of the lists), “the core canon” (90 to 99), “the nearly core canon” (76 to 89), and “the marginal canon” (50 to 75). While the dissection of each of these subsets, supported by material included in the appendix, is at times difficult to follow, it is informative and demonstrates that there is little agreement on what is deemed required reading in the field. This is most evident in the fact that the only universal items found were Don Quijote de la Mancha, Lazarillo de Tormes, and Benito Pérez Galdós. According to Brown, a non-exhaustive survey of current graduate reading lists shows no major changes since the late 1990s. The data analysis also reveals alarming omissions in the Hispanic reading list canon that convey the urgent need for its revision. Gender and geographical gaps in the core were readily evident: only one of thirty authors was a woman, and only seven were from Latin America. Also noted was the core canon absence of any work that deals with homosexual experience (124) as well as that of Afro-Hispanic literature (114).These omissions, Brown contends, are the result of deliberate selection, not of scarcity. In the fifth chapter, the elucidation of extrinsic and intrinsic variables that contribute to canonicity helps demystify the process of canon formation, but fails to fully explain exclusions. It does demonstrate, however, that the first step towards content revision must be identifying the factors and values that have shaped canons in the past, and those that should do so in the future. Brown offers a model for a “dynamic [and] inclusive” Hispanic studies canon (178) consisting of a “central core” shared by all graduate programs, whose contents are determined according to explicit but flexible criteria, and clear pedagogical goals. The core would be “ringed by ever-expanding circles of choices” (178) that can be moved toward or away from it. She recommends that MLA divisions be in charge of brokering the consensus needed to develop the model. To maximize participation, they should solicit input from their members and from delegates from relevant discussion groups. The proposed model is viable, and leaves room for flexibility while providing a stable core, but it requires a shift in disciplinary practices unlikely to be unanimously endorsed. At a time when, as Brown acknowledges, “The tide of opinion in Hispanic literary studies ebbs away from, not toward, the shore of collective standards” (171), the call for the “harmonization” of graduate studies, seen as a threat to intellectual autonomy, will undoubtedly meet resistance. Anticipating it, Brown stresses that a shared canon would make literary studies less vulnerable to external imposition of curricula and assessment procedures. Nevertheless, a move toward the centralization that she advocates would certainly be the subject of heated debate. One of the important contributions of Confronting our Canons is drawing attention to the interpenetration of canon formation, disciplinary definition, and pedagogy. Brown compellingly
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argues that neglecting our pedagogical canon negatively impacts more than just reading requirements; it affects our profession at all levels. Adding support to the book’s sound arguments, the data analysis demonstrates the urgency of a reform that not only should ensure greater consensus but also remedy omissions that are unjustifiable. María Márquez California State University–Los Angeles, USA Castillo, Moisés R. Indios en escena: La representación del amerindio en el teatro del Siglo de Oro. West Lafayette: Purdue UP, 2009. Pp. 365. ISBN 978-1-55753-539-9. Esta obra es un estudio minucioso y esmerado acerca de cómo se ha visto y tratado el tema del amerindio en la “comedia nueva” del siglo XVII español. La visión del amerindio es difícil de captar y no se define de una manera única, ya que depende de valores e intereses que cambian con cada realidad circundante y con los sujetos protagónicos. Muchas de estas comedias, que cubren un período histórico de 1492 a 1563, son casi desconocidas. Es frecuente no contar con ediciones modernas de estas obras, que tradicionalmente han sido desdeñadas por ser consideradas de menor calidad, no muy bien escritas, o por contener a veces muchos hechos inverosímiles. En total, Castillo da cuenta de trece “comedias de indio” que han llegado hasta nuestros días. En la introducción, el autor presenta un panorama general del propósito de su estudio y hace referencia a las obras que serán tratadas, algunas de las cuales (como ya se ha mencionado) no son tan conocidas o leídas, como por ejemplo El gobernador prudente de Gaspar de Ávila. El primer capítulo analiza un drama de honor: El Nuevo Mundo descubierto por Cristóbal Colón de Lope de Vega. El capítulo 2 comprende siete obras bajo el título general “La conquista de Chile y la reconquista de Brasil”. El capítulo 3, “La conquista del Perú”, analiza tres obras de Tirso de Molina y una de Luis Vélez de Guevara. El capítulo 4 se titula “La conquista de México” y analiza la obra homónima de Fernando de Zárate y Castronovo. El quinto y último capítulo se dedica a una comedia hagiográfica de Calderón de la Barca, La aurora en Copacabana, que es la última comedia de indio de que se tiene noticia. El libro se cierra con una conclusión seguida de un apéndice con traducciones al español de las citas en inglés, notas, obras citadas y un índice alfabético. Además de abordar la visión del indio, Castillo también se interna en la problemática del proceso de conquista y colonización y las relaciones interpersonales entre indios y misioneros, conquistadores y colonizadores. La identidad del indio sufre un proceso continuo de redefinición. El indio pasa de ser considerado bueno a bárbaro, a través de toda una gama de matices psicológicos y emociones, desde el amor hasta el odio. La visión del conquistador y del colonizador español también varía de acuerdo a las circunstancias y momentos históricos. Muchas veces se refleja la codicia y la crueldad de los españoles, y a veces también la crueldad de los indios que llega al canibalismo. El teatro barroco de la España imperial ve al otro en el indio de una manera estética. Como expresa Castillo en sus conclusiones, “las comedias del indio son soluciones estéticas a problemas histórico-políticos generados por la propuesta de expansión colonial” (249). Indudablemente, estas comedias barrocas de la conquista legitiman la actitud española del conquistador y tratan de justificar las acciones de los peninsulares. Paralelos al tema del indio están el del honor, la religión y la pureza de la sangre, temas comunes en el teatro barroco español. Es interesante descubrir que muchas de estas obras fueron escritas por encargo, como en el caso de Arauco domado de Lope de Vega, compuesta en honor del gobernador Hurtado de Mendoza. Se sabe que Lope también quería congraciarse con los Marqueses de Cañete, a cuya familia pertenecía Hurtado de Mendoza y que eran sus protectores. En esta obra, Lope usa muchos términos mapuches y araucanos, lo que le da verosimilitud. El indio se muestra como un ser honorable y honrado, pero a veces Lope va más allá y muestra al indio como conocedor
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del continente euroasiático, lo que es ficticio. El indio es al mismo tiempo honorable y bárbaro como una fiera salvaje. Lope legitima la conquista, pero también critica a los conquistadores por su codicia y ambición. También destaca el valor y el heroísmo del pueblo araucano. Al leer Indios en escena se percibe la pasión y el entusiasmo de un serio investigador del tema. Es una obra excelente para los amantes del teatro del Siglo de Oro español y su problemática, que se dirige tanto a los especialistas como a los alumnos avanzados en literatura española. Constituye un buen manual de consulta para un estudio en profundidad de las comedias barrocas de tema amerindio. No es de ninguna manera un libro para entretener a una persona que no conozca las obras de cerca, ya que el autor hace análisis de temas y recursos estilísticos mediante citas de textos. En conclusión, recomiendo a Indios en escena como un libro de consulta apropiado para leer a posteriori de las obras originales. Beatrice Giannandrea Ohio University–Zanesville, USA Davidson, Robert A. Jazz Age Barcelona. Toronto: U of Toronto P, 2009. Pp. 214. ISBN 978-14426-1043-9. Jazz Age Barcelona introduces vital aspects of the Catalan capital during a period marked by the after effects of the First World War until the beginning of the Spanish Second Republic. Written with a captivating style, the reader becomes the inquisitive visitor of spaces that, though no longer in existence, significantly impacted the social fabric of the city. Davidson demonstrates the importance and aesthetic influence of jazz as an international phenomenon in Barcelona—the most cosmopolitan city of the Iberian Peninsula. In this vivacious cultural hub, diverse aggregates of displaced Europeans affected by the war intermingled with the locals and sought freedom, flamboyance, and solace; speculators also made easy money. Drawing on detailed analyses of newspaper articles, critical essays, novels, and photographs, the author claims that jazz played an important role in defining urban spaces: jazz music was revered by a variety of social classes—especially the bourgeoisie—and jazz cultural critique served as a way to provide intellectual and political commentary specific to the Catalan milieu. Davidson divides his analysis into six compelling chapters, which transport us through the “spatial practice” of the Jazz Age. Central to his work are scenes from nightclubs, cocktail hours in hotels, the revue of the music halls, cabarets, brothels, and drug use, which help to illustrate the interplay between writing and images of a forgotten era. Surprisingly, such revelry occurred during Primo de Rivera’s dictatorship under which the modernization of the country, the oppression of regional cultures, and state censorship were implemented. The first chapter, “Barcelona Boom Town,” describes the city in its international context, comparable to Paris or Berlin. While the major European centers fought the war, Barcelona took advantage of its neutrality and experienced a rapid growth and expansion in the “Roaring Twenties” period that culminated with the International Exhibition in 1929. The second chapter focuses on a bold, eclectic paper, El Escándalo, which pierces “where others cannot or dare not tread,” and also on a novel, Sangre en Atarazanas, by Francesc Madrid, one of El Escándalo’s editors. Sangre is a collection of chronicles that depict the unrestrained nightlife in the red-light district. Both publications scandalously report on the most sordid streets and immoral places at a time of great censorship and repression—a time when everyone was at risk for what they did or said. “The Spatial Aesthetics of Jazz Rhythm,” the third chapter, connects the frenzied, syncopated beat of the American-born music to the rapid transformation of urban locales and activities as seen by the Catalan art critic and cultural commentator, Sebastià Gasch. New urban spheres of musical and visual artistic expression synchronously enmeshed to become part of the cosmopolitan metropolis. Novel innovation included the following: the advent of the cinema industry; symmetrical choreography from the revues; ad-lib jazz music; the physical transformation of the city—magnificent skyscrapers, telephones, subway, and street advertising; and the perva-
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siveness of cubism and surrealism. The fourth chapter, “Vantage Point: Barcelona’s Mirador,” is devoted to the study of a literary and artistic weekly paper informed both by Barcelona’s international projection after the Exhibition of 1929 and its nationalistic impulse with the end of the dictatorship. Interestingly, Mirador is not defined only as a “European” cultural journal, but also as a paper with a political agenda of a Catalan nationhood that would not receive the expected support during the Spanish Second Republic. “An Age in Pictures: Imatges (1930)” constitutes the fifth chapter, and includes many original photographs. Imatges was a graphic journal that delved into a culturally innovative age, when the visual perception of the city had been enhanced by the international exposition, technological advances, and the intensity of daily life. The final chapter, “The Colour of a Cocktail: J. M. de Sagarra’s Aperitiu and Vida Privada,” studies the culmination of the Age. This chapter analyzes a series of articles around the aperitif hour as the embodiment of modernity, and a recognized Catalan novel by the same author. The city is recreated in its different spaces, from the lewd conduct of the Raval to the frivolous, corrupt bourgeois neighborhood of the Eixample. As a metaphoric hangover, the moral degradation of the upper classes is revealed in their vices, and in their support of the authoritarian regime. Jazz Age Barcelona reflects on the transformation of the cosmopolitan center, combining the international engagement of the Jazz Age to the local context of Barcelona. It is a revivifying study of the energy of the “Roaring Twenties,” that is, the Americanism of modernity within the specific reality of Catalonia under the oppression of their own nationalistic impulses. Davidson’s study is a clear and entertaining book for any reader familiar with the historical context, who is interested in the cultural, social, and technological transformation of Barcelona during the 1920s and early 30s. Pilar M. Asensio-Manrique Yale University, USA Giles, Ryan D. The Laughter of the Saints: Parodies of Holiness in Late Medieval and Renaissance Spain. Toronto: U of Toronto P, 2009. Pp. 197. ISBN 978-0-8020-9952-5. Ryan Giles’s The Laughter of the Saints is a gem of a book. His topic is “Saturnalian religiosity” (4), carnivalesque transgression that seemingly break the rules in order to return to them and to order. The introduction, “Saints and Anti-Saints,” shows how the medieval penchant for depicting the duality of saints and anti-saints, of piety and impiety, of levity and seriousness, is a pattern that continues well into the early modern period. Giles acknowledges the work of Bakhtin, but insists that in the tests and traditions he studies there is no conflict or contradiction between the official and popular. Instead, the mixture of sacred and profane, high and low registers, oral and written culture, provides a context in which moral discernment is required of all. The cultural landscape he describes reflects “not only the worldliness or permissive mentality of the [Spanish] frontier clergy, but also the broader tradition of clerical writers frequenting taverns, gambling halls, and brothels—familiarizing themselves with the back alleys as well as the cloisters of medieval Europe” (12). Chapter 1, “Christ and His Cross,” discusses the troba caçurra of the Libro de buen amor. Giles brings together strands of popular songs and traditions, learned texts and exegesis, all suggesting the common practice of treating the cross as a female person embraced by Christ. The Archpriest’s “loss” of Cruz parallels the way crusaders “lost” the True Cross in the Holy Land. The troba caçurra thus evokes not only transgressive laughter, but a whole range of cultural practices and information, leaving to the discernment of the readers the task of “forging their own path” (24). The chapter continues with a study of the sixteenth-century Carajicomedia in which “graphic sex scenes are restaged as sacred devotion” (25), parodying the typical “contemplative technique” (26) used for meditating on the Passion. Readers must “visualize obscene imagery” (27) the way devotional texts “urge Christians to meditate on scenes from the Gospel” (27).
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Chapter 2, “Holy Men in the Wilderness,” sees wilderness as a space that is potentially both sacred and evil. In the Libro de buen amor, the archpriest starts out on his journey through the mountains on the day of San Meder, who had walked a “martyr’s pilgrimage” (36), a parallel to the via crucis, and Christ’s journey in the desert. The festive contrast is that Christ is cared for by angels whereas the archpriest is “manhandled” (38) by the mountain women. The chapter also deals with the legend of St. Hilarion as transformed in the Carajicomedia “into a wildman lurking in the cemetery, waking the dead with his staff” (51). Chapter 3, “Virgins and Harlots,” reminds us that the stories of female saints allowed for taking pleasure in sexual language and images while at the same time providing religious imagery. Giles discusses the cult of St. Quiteria and the carnivalesque use Juan Ruiz makes of it in the Libro de buen amor when Don Amor curses the saint in a rage against the Lenten season. Quiteria also appears in the Carajicomedia in anti-saint role of seductress. In Celestina, Rojas makes use of the cult of the Magdalene by portraying the old whore as an anti-saint. This combination of the sacred and profane Giles aptly calls “whoredom and Marinaisn” (71), an “intermingling of spiritual exaltation and worldly debasement” that “sets the stage for the humorous performance of saints in the early Spanish novel” (72). Chapter 4, “Picaresque Saints,” develops further the “official” and “unofficial” use of the cult of saints. St. Martha, the holy hostess, became characterized as the go-between of Christ and the Magdalene, and the Martha cult became the organizing principle for Delicado’s narrative in the Lozana andaluza, making Lozana’s life “a satirical reconfiguration of hagiographic material” (83). In turn, the Lazarillo satirizes the life of St. John the Baptist, taking the “medieval tradition of parodic sanctity” and developing it “to take an increasingly self-conscious, metafictional approach to life-telling” (92). In the final chapter, “Rivalries and Reconciliations,” Giles studies Alemán’s Guzmán de Alfarache and Cervantes’s Quijote showing how Alemán uses the cult of St. Anthony of Padua— a “saint [who] was famously robbed of a book, and, accordingly invoked by those seeking to recover lost or stolen property” (96)—and Cervantes that of St. Martin of Tours to deal with the spurious work of the rivals who had written false continuations of their masterpieces. The book ends with a short conclusion, “Sanctity and Humanity.” The text is accompanied by 12 illustrations, 37 pages of notes (almost one third the length of the text), and 27 pages of bibliography. Giles’s research and reading is vast, and his commentary in the notes on bibliography, literary history and criticism, anthropology, history, and language is fascinating. Giles’s book will appeal to all who enjoy close reading. It is an example of the very best our scholarship has to offer. Thomas Spaccarelli Sewanee: The University of the South, USA Herrmann, Gina. Written in Red: The Communist Memoir in Spain. Urbana: U of Illinois P, 2010. Pp. 246. ISBN 978-252-03469-5. Written in Red is a study of Communist autobiographical writing in Spain. What distinguishes Gina Herrmann’s work from the existing scholarship on the subject is its broad, international perspective and a way of examining key issues such as Communism, the self, and literature, that brings to the fore tensions and “relations of contingency,” not of “substitution” (7). Herrmann takes six Spanish writers—Dolores Ibárruri, Jorge Semprún, Rafael Alberti, María Teresa León, Tomás Pàmies, and Teresa Pàmies—and studies their autobiographical work within the frame of larger practices of self-representation, especially the ones emerging in the Soviet Union during Stalin’s time. One underlying assumption of the book, used as a guiding principle in the organization of the study, is that Communist subjects do not become who they are by keeping the public and private spheres of their lives apart, or simply by opposing political power. In line with Foucault
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and Judith Butler’s work on power and subjection, Herrmann argues that subjects constitute themselves through a process of internalization of power. In the case of Communist cultures, Herrmann points out, voluntary and mandated self-reflection lay at the core of the process of identity formation. To the extent that people were living in a new society, the state endorsed introspection. But as the act of looking into oneself turned into an object of state scrutiny, autobiography often became confession. Herrmann uses state-generated life narratives as a point of reference and claims that these institutionalized stories function as a “template,” a “blueprint” for other Communist literary autobiographies. The introduction actually reproduces a questionnaire given to party members in the Soviet Union and Western Europe. The document reveals the paradigm of class and religious oppositions and the story of conversion, which, Herrmann argues, transfers to the structure of the Spanish Communist memoirs. What Herrmann finds surprising is that certain traits of the institutionalized autobiography surface in the Spanish Communist memoirs written in the postStalinist years and, in some cases, from a dissident perspective, thus indicating that memoirists drew a line between party affiliation and the belief in Communism as a social model. The persistence of the Communist ideal even in the life stories of dissidents, such as Semprún and Teresa Pàmies, leads Herrmann, following François Furet’s work, to underscore the importance of “ideology as sentiment” (6). The idea generates new interpretations, Herrmann notes, and rightfully so, because it guides Communist studies toward matters of subjectivity and language expression. In this sense, the inclusion of life stories of Soviet and western Communists next to the questionnaires would have opened a productive dialogue, a crossfire between personal and collective forms of verbal expression. In fact, Herrmann’s approach to Written in Red is intersectional. The five chapters are organized according to how writers “work through, resist, or comply with party-initiated practices of self-representation” (x). The first chapter concerns the “organic Communist memoir.” Herrmann identifies a complete overlapping of Dolores Ibárruri’s autobiography with the aesthetic of Socialist Realism. Although published in Moscow in 1962, after Khrushchev’s secret report, the memoir leaves out all polemical aspects of Stalinism and controversies inside the Spanish Communist Party. An important argument in this chapter is that Ibárruri strategically employs public manifestations of maternal sacrifice and widowhood to shape her political identity. The second chapter considers how each writer constructs a story of conversion vis-à-vis traditional conversion tales and Stalinist self-writing. Chapter 3 follows chronologically to the moment of the Spanish Civil War. Besides the fact that the war sets aside Spanish memoirs from other Communist autobiographies, Herrmann focuses on the “codification of wartime gender roles” (87) and the importance of “public happiness,” a concept taken from Hannah Arendt, to emphasize the emotional value of war experience in women’s self-narratives. The fourth chapter studies “memoirs of disavowal.” Central to the analysis here is the split position of Rafael Alberti and his wife, María Teresa León, toward Stalinism. Starting from a discussion on exile, loss, and melancholy, Herrmann argues that the absence of any reference to a strong Stalinist connection in Alberti’s memoir is deliberate, as is León’s choice to write about events suppressed by her husband. Herrmann interprets absence and presence as mechanisms to work through a persistent sentiment of loss and the “anxieties produced by the divide between the criminality of the Soviet state and the utopian ideals of Marxism-Leninism” (139). The final chapter is dedicated to “dissolutive Communist memoirs.” It examines the circumstances under which certain Communists renounced their party affiliation. Herrmann concludes that even though Jorge Semprún and Teresa Pàmies confront their past while writing about political defection, their autobiographies preserve the internalized guidelines of Communist identity. Written in Red will be of interest to those in the fields of Spanish literature, Communist studies, autobiographical writing, as well as comparative studies. Herrmann is an accomplished
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writer who brings together scholars from many disciplines and leaves us with engaging questions about the relationship between literature and politics. Elena Capraroiu University of La Verne, USA Irizarry, Estelle. El ADN de los escritos de Cristóbal Colón. San Juan, PR: Puerto, 2009. Pp. 296. ISBN 978-1-934461-77-8. / Christopher Columbus: The DNA of His Writings. San Juan, Puerto Rico: Puerto, 2009. Pp. 252. ISBN 978-1-934461-71-6. A raíz del quinto centenario del fallecimiento de Cristóbal Colón en 2006, un equipo de investigadores de la Universidad de Granada (España) emprendió la tarea de confirmar, mediante un análisis del ADN, que los restos depositados en la catedral de Sevilla pertenecen al Descubridor. Este evento científico parece haberle servido a Estelle Irizarry como estímulo para el trabajo y el título de la obra que ahora reseño, publicada primero en español y luego traducida por la autora al inglés, al agotarse la edición española. En aras de una mayor sistematicidad, manejaré la edición castellana como base para la reseña. La analogía radica en el hecho de que la autora realiza un análisis filológico, es decir, de la genética de los textos colombinos—sin depender de las transcripciones, con los problemas que arrastran, de las ediciones modernas—que nos han llegado directamente o de la mano de distintos transmisores, para descubrir elementos congénitos, pistas inconscientemente dejadas y difícilmente controlables por quien las produce, como todo lo que tenemos de innato. Obra de fácil lectura, asequible para los profanos en la materia y estructurada en cinco capítulos, todos ellos tienen como fin último la adscripción de Colón a un determinado ámbito geocultural, ya que no nacional, debido a la infinidad de problemas sobre su origen a que se han tenido que enfrentar los colombistas a lo largo de la historia; pero también el conocimiento de varios aspectos de su enigmática personalidad. La descripción de los capítulos en el “Contenido” (13–16) sirve de excelente síntesis, desde fuera de ellos, para introducirnos en los aspectos considerados, a los que me referiré a continuación. Y, desde dentro, el encabezamiento de cada capítulo mediante un sencillo pareado de cuño de la investigadora—un mecanismo original, que casa a la perfección con el espíritu de la obra, aunque confieso no haberlo visto antes en trabajos académicos—hace las veces de pórtico a lo que ahí vamos a descubrir, que a decir verdad es fascinante, no solo en relación con la figura y la producción del Descubridor, sino también con la historia cultural y su transmisión. En cuanto a la determinación del espacio geocultural en que se mueve Cristóbal Colón, la autora incide en su vinculación a la tradición judía y su procedencia catalanoparlante, más concretamente balear, en los territorios del antiguo Reino de Aragón. Desde el primer capítulo (“Colón, escritor”, 17–50) se distingue, en la reproducción del diario del primer viaje a cargo de Bartolomé de las Casas, lo que es propiamente lascasiano y colombino y, en este último caso, ya se adscribe la filiación del Almirante al ámbito hispánico. Será en el tercer capítulo (“Colón, escriba”, 73–198) cuando ofrezca datos más concretos acerca de la ascendencia judía, al menos en lo cultural, del Descubridor, gracias al análisis del especial cuidado—inusual en los escritores de la época—que guardaba en la puntuación de sus textos: el uso de la vírgula es un claro ejemplo. Y lo mismo en el cuarto capítulo (“La lengua secreta de Cristóbal Colón”, 199–244), ahora para conocer su dominio del ladino o judeoespañol y su oriundez dentro de la geografía del catalán. Es así como Estelle Irizarry viene a apoyar, con argumentos textuales, las tesis defendidas por cierta línea de investigadores, encabezada por Nito Verdera. Al hilo del posible solar y naturaleza conversa del Almirante, conviene recordar el reciente reconocimiento de los chuetas mallorquines como comunidad judía. Por otro lado, en lo que concierne a la psique de nuestro personaje, conocemos, especialmente gracias a los capítulos segundo (“Colón, poeta”, 51–71) y quinto (“Colón lúdico”, 245–96), la vena y sensibilidad poéticas colombinas, así como su
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amarga socarronería, respectivamente. Para lo primero, Irizarry analiza los recursos de la prosa colombina y los poemas incluidos en el Libro de las profecías (1501–03). Y, para lo segundo, nada más y nada menos que su presencia en el testamento del Almirante (1506), entre otros textos. Todo ello no es óbice para apoyar también en estos capítulos, y con más argumentos si cabe, la tradición judaica y catalanoparlante de los estudios colombistas que ha expuesto en el resto del libro. Siguiendo con el juego de palabras manejado por Estelle Irizarry (290), con su estudio se nos hace más nítida la figura del Colón encubridor (celoso de su fuero interno, criptojudío, decepcionado por el aparente fracaso de su empresa) complementaria a la más conocida de Descubridor. La investigadora demuestra conocer las referencias bibliográficas pertinentes para los asuntos tratados que emanan de ambas orillas—a menudo, y por desgracia, tan ignoradas entre sí—del hispanismo, la europea y la americana. Es de agradecer la originalidad de su método de trabajo, con el uso de la informática, de los algoritmos matemáticos o de los patrones propios de la N-grafía que dejan traslucir lo más genuino, lo incontrolable, de la escritura colombina. Se descubre entonces, como en 1492, a través de la filología, un mundo más allá de los conocimientos manidos, que abre nuevas vías de diálogo con los textos y sirve de puente de acceso a otros hechos culturales que, en la brevedad de una recensión, es imposible comentar con el esmero que se merecen. Francisco Carriscondo Universidad de Málaga, Spain Laguna, Ana María G. Cervantes and the Pictorial Imagination: A Study on the Power of Images and Images of Power in Works by Cervantes. Lewisburg: Bucknell UP, 2009. Pp. 175. ISBN 978-0-8387-5727-7. The complex relationship between visual arts and literature in the time (and works) of Cervantes is a topos of Cervantine criticism. Some critics have studied the interaction between specific paintings and literary passages, others were interested in underlying issues of representation, yet others have focused on the aesthetic debates surrounding the expressive scope of painting in relation to writing. Ana María Laguna contends that her book, Cervantes and the Pictorial Imagination, “differentiates itself from these preceding efforts by exploring Cervantes’s pictorial imagination within the context in which it was forged. [Exploring] the author’s relationship to his surrounding visual culture” (14). Thus, the main thrust of this book is to supersede the pervasive scholarly approach to Cervantes as an exclusive result of High Italian Renaissance, exploring the ways in which his writing connects to the singular world of sixteenth- and seventeenth-century Spain as influenced by both Flemish and Italian art. To be sure, Laguna explores this unique combination of Flemish “realist” and Italian “idealist” influences that constituted the artistic horizon of Cervantes, in the hopes of articulating a more nuanced understanding of three aesthetic and iconographic anxieties of the period: the construction of Dulcinea’s beauty in connection with Cinquecento aesthetics, the dismantling of the Neoplatonic pairing of virtue with beauty as found in El coloquio de los perros, and the overlapping of history with fiction in Don Quijote as a parody of the artistic and historical ambitions of the Habsburgs. The extent to which Laguna’s investigation is, in fact, a fundamental departure from over three centuries of multitudinous scholarship could be a point worth arguing. What is more interesting, however, is to assess whether Laguna manages to formulate meaningful questions as a result of this interdisciplinary approach that brings together aesthetic, historical, and literary investigations. As it relates to the first “anxiety,” Laguna explores the dyad Dulcinea/Aldonza in the context of the aesthetic debates of the sixteenth century surrounding the concept and “practice”
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of beauty. Although the conflict between conventions and reality may very well be one of the backgrounds against which Dulcinea and Aldonza play their complicated metaphorical roles, I think the paradox relates to a broader issue of baroque aesthetics that is not quite developed in this book: the most consistent and far-reaching deconstruction operated by the novel in its double thrust to dismantle any illusions of transparency in language and to construct a grammar of the ineffable. Laguna makes a similar point in regards to the second “anxiety,” the “deconstruction” of the Neoplatonic episteme. Even though Cervantes’s approach to “beauty” has been traditionally linked to the idealized archetypes of Italian, Neoplatonic sources, Laguna reads El coloquio and El casamiento engañoso from a perspective that reveals the grotesque undercurrent connected to Northern aesthetics and its “distrust of the outward idealization of beauty” (68). In contrast to these previous studies on the power of images, the last chapter of the book (chapter 4) is clearly a study on images of power, since Laguna reads Don Quijote not only as a parody of a genre but also of the very representational apparatus of the Spanish empire. Here, Laguna tries to decipher a comparison, allegedly coded in Cervantes’s novel, between the self-glorifying Emperor Carlos V and the pseudo knight Don Quixote. This comparison, however, although deftly articulated, can be seen more as an accumulation of poetic licenses and coincidental echoes than a scientific record of historical or literary lineage. Yet, if we suspend academic disbelief, Cervantes’s novel does emerge through these associations, as “a multifaceted critique of imperial ideals and representational paradigms that ‘telescope together nearly 150 years of Spanish history’” (102). Indeed, the interdisciplinary perspective of this book offers, in the final analysis, a wider and deeper perspective on two fundamental works by Cervantes. At the same time, the threads of Laguna’s own tapestry often get lost in the midst of overly detailed, erudite digressions. However, these free plays of scholarly associations benefit the book as they make reading it a surprising and didactic experience. Due to this tendency towards excessive information, Laguna offers a highly detailed account of the artistic environment in which Cervantes grew and created; and, in fact, this book cleverly frames the aesthetic tensions presiding over Cervantes’s own evolution and clearly formulates meaningful questions related to the unique relationship of the visual and the literary in his works. I would have hoped, however, that its culturally integrative perspective had taken an even longer and more encompassing view. Because, yes, there is a heart-wrenching tension underlying Cervantes’s worldview and no critical approach has missed that. Some critics have seen it as a result of a torn, contradictory Counterreformation subject; others, as the defining feature of baroque aesthetics; yet others, as a manifestation of an unstable world, deeply involved with its own social, personal, and even philosophical crises. In the case of Laguna, however, this tension is articulated almost exclusively in terms of the singular, paradoxical stance that, in Cervantes’s Spain, pitted the “lofty ideals” of Italian art against the “everyday life” of Flemish aesthetics. But from whatever perspective we decide to see this paradoxical tension, the fact remains that it defines Cervantes’s modernity beyond the restricted scope of the aesthetic debate between North and South and extends to a fascinating, vaster, and more nuanced juncture in the history of our ideas and sensibilities; for it is only after Cervantes that we realized the extent to which we are pinned down, like butterflies from a quaint collection, between the possibility and the impossibility of meaning, between sanity and insanity, between fiction and reality. It is only after Cervantes that we have realized (in both senses) our humble epistemological destiny. Pablo Fabián Baler California State University–Los Angeles, USA
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Sánchez-Prado, Ignacio M. Naciones intelectuales: Las fundaciones de la modernidad literaria mexicana (1917–1959). West Lafayette: Purdue UP, 2009. Pp. 321. ISBN 978-1-55753-538-2. La tarea que acomete Ignacio Sánchez-Prado no es fácil: la elaboración de una historia intelectual de México desde la Revolución hasta finales del siglo XX. Para dotar a esta de un hilo conductor, el autor parte del análisis sociológico de los campos literarios de Pierre Bourdieu, un reto del que Sánchez-Prado sale bien parado. Se trata de analizar la constitución misma de los campos literarios, para después estudiar sus relaciones con los campos de poder y analizar las prácticas de los intelectuales en el contexto de realidades más amplias, como la estructura de clases. En último término, se exploran las relaciones entre capital cultural y capital económico. Pero Sánchez-Prado, como Bourdieu, no ve una armonía perfecta entre estas dos instancias; es decir, el campo literario goza de cierta autonomía en la capacidad de crear su propia legitimidad, de producir ideas de nación alternativas a las generadas por el propio Estado (por el PRI). Durante las fundaciones, momentos clave constitutivos de la literatura mexicana, se forman las naciones intelectuales, esos proyectos alternativos de nación presentados por escritores y artistas. Al autor le interesan, sobre todo, dos periodos fundamentales en la elaboración intelectual de la mexicanidad: la emergencia misma del campo literario (1917 y 1939) y la formación de instituciones culturales dominantes (1940 y 1960). La peculiaridad de la historia mexicana y la posición privilegiada del PRI como formador de discursos de identidad contribuyen a una historia cultural muy compleja en el occidente moderno. El capítulo primero (“De la nación a la literatura nacional”) parte de una de estas especificidades: que en México la literatura ha formado a la nación más que la nación a su literatura. El país ha contado con intelectuales de primerísima línea, cuyos intentos de “explicar” lo mexicano han tenido, a veces, un impacto mayor en el resto de Latinoamérica que en su propio país (Vasconcelos, A. Reyes, o el dominicano Henríquez-Ureña, serían algunos ejemplos de esto). A ellos habría que añadir filósofos españoles como José Gaos, absolutamente comprometidos con lo mexicano, o autores como Paz, de enorme proyección mediática. En los años posteriores a la Revolución, en los que el muralismo demuestra una enorme capacidad de generar épica y sentido de misión popular, asistimos a la aparición de ideologías muy encontradas: los colonialistas (defensores del papel civilizador del hispanismo), los estridentistas (radicales pro-soviéticos), los humanistas de El Ateneo y las vanguardias minoritarias. En 1925 aparecen los debates sobre la literatura “viril”, en torno a la posibilidad de una literatura genuinamente nacional de la revolución frente a una literatura inmersa en corrientes internacionales. Esta polémica es la primera fase en la formación de campos literarios autónomos, donde se da un paso cualitativo en la definición ontológica de la mexicanidad. Echamos de menos aquí alguna comparación de estos debates con los enfrentamientos del siglo XVIII español entre “afrancesados” (ilustrados) y castizos (defensores del Antiguo Régimen). El capítulo 2 (“El alquimista liberal”) está dedicado, en su mayor parte, al poeta y ensayista Jorge Cuesta, a quien la crítica no reconoció hasta finales de los setenta. Cuesta, excelente ejemplo de escritor generador de “campo literario”, fue autor de solo cuarenta poemas, pero tuvo un gran impacto como editor de una antología de la lírica mexicana en la que aplicó nuevos criterios de selección, excluyendo al mismísimo Gutiérrez Nájera. En sus ensayos criticó lo que él consideraba conformismo pro-revolucionario sin caer en posturas reaccionarias. Su interés por el presente era radical, y en base a ello cuestionaba la tradición, ya sea revolucionaria o hispánica, lamentando que fuera el Estado mismo el constructor de la nación, y no al revés. El capítulo 3 (“La fundación de las instituciones”) analiza la consolidación del campo literario. Es un momento en que las instituciones culturales se enriquecen de obras y debates a varias bandas. Cumpliéndose el análisis de Bourdieu, la autonomía de los campos culturales es posible por la financiación de un Estado que, a menudo, se ve atacado por esas mismas instituciones. Es el momento del humanismo de Alfonso Reyes y del filósofo existencialista
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español José Gaos. Ambos—junto con Cuesta—fueron partidarios de la resistencia crítica, muy interesados en la formación del imaginario colectivo mexicano. El cuarto capítulo (“El ‘ser nacional’ en el diván de la filosofía”) describe el periodo 1940–60 como momento álgido en la formación de la cultura nacional. Una vez más, ni la literatura ni la filosofía fueron los campos más decisivos en la formación de ese “ser nacional”: fue el cine el principal contribuyente a los mitos y narraciones de la identidad mexicana, en una época históricamente delicada de ascensión de un proletariado urbano que convive con nuevas clases medias. Pero ambos campos, el literario y el filosófico, se implicaron directamente en la creación de mitos y narraciones de la identidad nacional. Para 1950, el “virilismo” del héroe revolucionario impregnaba la novelística nacional, mientras el género ensayístico seguía dominado por Alfonso Reyes, que acabaría perdiendo el trono de la fama literaria a manos de Octavio Paz. Por su parte, el campo filosófico era dominado por la escuela del orteguiano español José Gaos y su grupo Hiperión. Su existencialismo indagaba en ideas como la autoconciencia nacional, en el aquí-y-ahora del país, algo que trascendiera la existencia “inauténtica” de un país obsesionado por la historia o torturado por estériles complejos de inferioridad. Se buscaba la realidad radical de lo dado, del ser-ahí, lo que constituye la verdadera mexicanidad, entroncando también con un liberador sentido de universalidad. Otro autor que, según Sánchez-Prado, merece ser más estudiado es Luis Villoro, por su novedoso cuestionamiento de la relevancia de los temas liberales y por haber inspirado avantla-lettre posiciones políticas de lo que muchos años después sería el movimiento zapatista. Villoro denuncia la recurrente necesidad de los intelectuales de teorizar sobre el silencio del indígena, recordándonos que mestizo e indígena eran ya una misma cosa. El autor concluye que “el ciclo de las naciones intelectuales . . . radicalizará la idea de la Revolución y . . . permitirá entenderla como la base de una emergencia de conciencia nacional” (237). Su análisis sobre los escritores más destacados del siglo XX es, en general positivo, mostrando un conocimiento exhaustivo de su obra y de su ideología. Para él, Reyes, Cuesta, Gaos, Villoro, cada uno a su manera, intentó imaginar una nación más libre, más culturalmente genuina y progresista. La gran excepción será Octavio Paz, autor que representa el fin de un proceso político de búsqueda de emancipación histórica. Con la obra de Paz “saliéndose” de la historia, acaba el sueño mexicano de emancipación intelectual: “[L]a noción del mexicano de Paz es sólo posible con el borramiento de los conflictos de clase, de raza, de género, que componen a una sociedad” (236). A pesar de alguna inconsistencia—probablemente inevitable—en la aplicación de las teorías de Pierre Bourdieu y de algún párrafo de prosa espesa, Las naciones intelectuales constituye una seria contribución al conocimiento de la reciente historia cultural mexicana. Me atrevo a decir que cualquier estudioso de la literatura y la cultura mexicanas necesitará, a partir de ahora, utilizar la erudición de este libro. Pedro M. Muñoz Winthrop University, USA Williams, Mark R. The Story of Spain: The Dramatic History of Europe’s Most Fascinating Country. San Mateo, CA: Golden Era, 2009. Pp. 333. ISBN 978-0-9706969-3-9. Mark R. Williams examines the development and formation of Spain throughout its history from its origins to present day. Additionally, the author introduces this country’s cultural background along with writers, painters, and musicians who have shaped it. The text contains the following: a preface, an introduction, twelve chapters, followed by a list of rulers, a suggested reading section, and an index. It also includes several maps, drawings, and photographs. Each chapter ends with a list and descriptions of sights and sites related to the topics covered. After setting the Spanish stage in a preamble and a brief introduction, “In the Beginning Was Iberia” takes the reader into a journey of discovery of the peninsula. The Celts and the
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Iberians mark the starting point of this voyage, which continues with such ancient colonizers as the Phoenicians, the Greeks, and the Carthaginians. Chapter 2, “The Romans Were Here,” explains the crucial role that Romans played in shaping Spain and its people from the initial conquest until Hispania became a full member of the Roman empire: “Hispania was the pride of the empire, the most Roman of all its provinces” (33). The Romanization of the peninsula is described in great detail with references to such Roman legacies as language, laws, architectural and engineering structures, urban life, religion, and structure of society. The next two chapters, entitled “Medieval Spain” and “Moros y Cristianos,” explore the influences of the Goths who replaced the Romans in the control of the peninsula and moved their capital to the city of Toledo. This section also describes the arrival of the Moors to the peninsula in the year 711, which marked the beginning of a new era that changed the country forever: “Thus commenced the Moorish chapter of Spanish history, several centuries during which most of the peninsula developed quite differently from the rest of Europe” (58). This part explores the reconquest initiated in Covadonga with Don Pelayo, the formation of Christian kingdoms, and concludes with the marriage of Isabella of Castile and Ferdinand of Aragón. The author analyzes the role of the Inquisition, the final campaign of the Reconquest in Granada in 1492, the expulsion of the Jews, and the voyages of Columbus to the New World in “Birth of the Spanish World” and “Ecstasy and Agony.” Furthermore, Williams explores the reigns of Isabella and Ferdinand, Charles I, and Philip II, with their accomplishments and failures. This era is considered the peak of the Spanish empire in contrast with the political decline of the seventeenth century: “The coming century would be one of political and economic disasters, overseen by a parade of feeble and debauched kings” (147). In chapters 7 and 8, “The French Century” and “Liberal Spain,” Williams discusses the Bourbon dynasty, the independence war against Napoleon and the depiction of such conflict by Francisco de Goya. In addition, the author describes the independence of the Spanish colonies in Latin American in the nineteenth century. In “The Best of Times, Worst of Times” and “The Spanish War,” the author underscores the artistic and cultural richness of Spain in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. He also describes the historic events of the loss of the last colonies in 1898 and the Spanish Civil War from 1936 to 1939. The reader is exposed to this era through a variety of perspectives. As a result, one enjoys a very comprehensive and lively portrait of Spain. Artistic and historical figures such as Pablo Picasso, Salvador Dalí, Manuel de Falla, and Francisco Franco come alive, providing a better understanding of the events and people who shaped this nation. The concluding chapters, “The Age of Franco” and “Contemporary Spain,” examine Franco’s regime until his death in 1975 and the transition from his dictatorship to the democratic system that Spain enjoys today. The Story of Spain: The Dramatic History of Europe’s Most Fascinating Country is a well-written text that provides a cultural and historical view of the country. Mark R. Williams transports the reader on a journey of discovery from prehistoric times to the present. The author’s work includes detailed and accurate information, presented in a superb style that makes for informative and enjoyable reading. William’s study is a useful resource for graduate students as well as for a general public interested in an in-depth approach to the history and culture of Spain. Beatriz Macione Emory & Henry College, USA
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Linguistics, Language, and Media Real Academia Española y Asociación de Academias de la Lengua Española. Ortografía de la lengua española. Madrid: Espasa, 2010. Pp. 743. ISBN 978-84-670-3426-4. Razonada, moderna, didáctica y panhispánica—estos son algunos de los adjetivos con los que la Comisión Interacadémica que preparó la Ortografía de la lengua española define esta nueva edición de 2010, y basta repasarla para advertir que no exageran. Siguiendo el criterio de las publicaciones recientes de la Real Academia Española (RAE): el Diccionario panhispánico de dudas (2005), la Nueva gramática de la lengua española (2009), el Manual de la nueva gramática y el Diccionario de americanismos (2010), la Ortografía es un paso definitivo en la consolidación del panhispanismo—observado con seducción y recelo desde ambas orillas de la hispanidad—que es ya una condición intrínseca de nuestra lengua; y que el secretario de la Asociación de Academias de la Lengua Española (ASALE), Humberto López Morales, retrata en La andadura del español por el mundo (Taurus, 2010): la metamorfosis iberoamericana que ha convertido a “un modesto dialecto de Castilla en la segunda lengua de mayor alcance internacional”. La Ortografía de la lengua española consta de una introducción enciclopédica—que no peca de tecnicismos innecesarios—sobre la representación gráfica del lenguaje, los criterios utilizados para la configuración del sistema ortográfico del español y su origen y evolución hasta la fecha. A continuación viene una primera parte dividida en cinco capítulos, dedicada a las reglas ortográficas, explicadas minuciosamente. Entre las novedades de esta edición están las recomendaciones ortotipográficas—muy útiles en la era de las redes sociales y la autoedición digital—, así como las frecuentes notas orientadoras, destacadas en azul, dedicadas a problemas confusos, como por ejemplo el uso de las letras s y x para hablante que sesean o cecean, o el uso de la letra y con valor consonántico en un contexto en el que la pronunciación de los fonemas /y/ y /ll/ se ha reducido al fonema /y/, dando lugar al yeísmo La segunda parte se concentra en expresiones ortográficas complejas, como los préstamos lingüísticos, los latinismos—que serán considerados extranjerismos crudos y como tal deberán escribirse en cursiva—, los extranjerismos y las voces procedentes de idiomas que no utilizan el alfabeto latino, así como la ortografía de antropónimos y topónimos. Concluye con varios apéndices de abreviaturas, símbolos alfabetizables y no alfabetizables, y una lista de países y capitales con sus gentilicios, muy útil para consultar cambios como Catar e Irak, que antes podían escribirse Qatar e Iraq. Al consultar esta edición es imposible soslayar su análisis evolucionista y su anticipación. Estamos frente a una obra que intenta adelantarse a las tendencias del idioma, en un escenario en el que la mayoría de los hablantes viven al oeste del Atlántico, y al mismo tiempo resolver con urgencia incoherencias históricas, estandarizando la ortografía. Por eso algunas revisiones pueden parecer precipitadas o mostrar insuficiencias operativas; tal es el caso de convertir en monosílabos palabras como truhán y guión, que para muchos contienen hiatos fonológicos que las hacen polisílabas. Habría que aclarar que no se trata de una cuestión trivial. En la página 225, los autores de la obra discuten las variantes posibles según las secuencias vocálicas y apuestan por esta solución que resuelve la ambigüedad ortográfica, aun a riesgo de crear otra fonética. De todos modos, a partir de ahora, de acuerdo a la regla de acentuación de monosílabos, truhan y guion no se acentúan. Otra novedad es la ratificación de la eliminación de la tilde en solo (cuando puede sustituirse por “únicamente” y “solamente”) y en los pronombres demostrativos (este, ese, aquel) que se consideraban susceptibles a ambigüedad. El acápite dedicado a ese aspecto vale para convencernos de que esas “ambigüedades no son superiores en número ni más graves que las que se producen en los numerosísimos casos de homonimia y polisemia léxica que hay en la lengua” (269). Asimismo, se elimina la tilde en la conjunción disyuntiva o entre dos cifras,
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que es acertada aun cuando la excusa de la claridad tipográfica de los ordenadores modernos parezca superficial. También ha sido atinado fijar el carácter de los dígrafos, sobre todo en el caso de la ch y la ll, que durante casi doscientos años fueran consideradas letras—cuando en realidad son combinaciones de signos simples—alterando sin sentido el alfabeto español; y simplificar y unificar los nombres de las letras polinominales: be, uve, uve doble y ye—aquí se sigue la lógica de que la llamada i griega (o ípsilon) no es una vocal como la i sino que tiene en español un uso consonántico. La nueva Ortografía es moderna, porque explica en detalle las normas aplicadas, su evolución histórica, las razones fonéticas, etimológicas y gráficas de la convención, pero sobre todo por su abordaje contemporáneo. Así es el caso del tratamiento que propone para los extranjerismos crudos, resistentes a la adaptación por su condición de términos de difusión internacional, como puede ser la palabra performance, que no está aceptada en el DRAE, pero que identifica un género de las artes visuales. Por esa razón, deben escribirse en cursiva si el texto base está escrito en redonda, y viceversa, o entrecomillado en textos donde no es posible establecer la oposición tipográfica. Hasta se llega al punto de aceptar que hay ocasiones en las que puede resultar menos violento modificar la pronunciación de un extranjerismo que su grafía, a la hora de su adaptación. Un ejemplo es la palabra gay (homosexual), que se recomienda se mantenga con su grafía original y se pronuncie como si se tratara de una palabra en español (gái) antes de modificar la grafía escribiendo guey. Es imposible resumir la vastedad de una obra de referencia como esta en pocas cuartillas, pero, salvo los cambios mencionados, la revisión ortográfica no alterará demasiado la vida del hablante promedio. Huelga decir que es un libro imprescindible para los estudiosos del idioma y que incluso su versión razonada es de fácil comprensión para estudiantes y lectores interesados en descubrir la lógica sobre la que se codifica un idioma. Joaquín Badajoz Academia Norteamericana de la Lengua Española, USA Roby, David Brian. Aspect and the Categorization of States. The Case of Ser and Estar in Spanish. Philadelphia: John Benjamins, 2009. Pp. 191. ISBN 978-90-272-0581-0. David Brian Roby’s Aspect and the Categorization of States. The Case of Ser and Estar in Spanish is a compelling original analysis of Spanish copular sentences with ser or estar. The use of one or the other copula depends on the type of state that is referred to in a Spanish sentence, which is why those semantic properties of states that truly determine their relevant distinctions must be clearly defined—just what the author accomplishes. While most theoretical accounts thus far agree that predication with estar in always somehow temporarily limited and ser-predication is not, Roby effectively argues that the opposition of estar-predicates vs. ser-predicates represents a [1perfective]/[2perfective] distinction, the same one that is overtly expressed and marked elsewhere in the Spanish verbal paradigm (i.e., in the two Spanish past tense forms—the preterite and the imperfect). Roby’s analysis follows Luján’s (1981) treatment of ser and estar as aspectual morphemes that have temporal reference: ser is [2perfective], and predicates with ser normally refer to periods of time that are unlimited, meaning that their beginning and end points are indefinite and are not implied. Ser-predication holds continually, and it may denote habitual states or states that hold on an on-and-off basis, because its reference may include stretches of time comprised of an indefinite number of time periods delimited in their duration (122). Thus, in Ricardo es feliz, the state of happiness refers to a stretch of time without any implication of when it began or when it may end (note the difference from the implication that Ricardo is always, inherently or permanently happy). Estar-predication, on the other hand, is [1perfective], and must thus be “interpreted as inherently referring to a delimited period of time” (121); that is, the speaker
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assumes that the predicated state has a beginning, an end, or both. The same sentence exemplified above—this time with estar: Ricardo está feliz—refers to a perfective, delimited state: Ricardo’s happiness at the current stage in time (i.e., a good mood), whose beginning and/or end is clearly implied. It is important to observe that the core meaning of all adjectives in Roby’s analysis remains constant (122). Crucially, if a speaker comments on something perceived (by one of the senses) for the first time, such as tasting paella or chilaquiles or feeling a sofa’s hard surface, estar is used by default because a “usual state” logically cannot be assumed. The two aspectual copulas are then partially synonymous: ser 1 predicate implies estar 1 predicate, but not vice versa. They may therefore be considered allomorphs whose use depends on the kind of temporal reference expressed. The author provides several credible and neatly argued justifications for his analysis: the aspectual distinction (perfective/imperfective) is part of universal grammar, and it represents simple and basic linguistic information—a grammatical feature that is “effortlessly cognitively internalized by all language speakers at a very young age” (120). Roby’s theoretical solution is especially attractive in view of the fact that it successfully reflects a distinction that a nativespeaker child is required and capable of acquiring with little effort. This makes the theory much more elegant and leaner, less “costly,” as Roby says, than positing ad hoc explanations with imaginarily useful language concepts not encountered elsewhere in the system. The theoretical sophistication (and simplicity) of Roby’s theory is based on the fact that it does not invoke a “nebulous cognitive division of the world” (136) and does not try to convince us, as most other theories almost exclusively presented in textbooks within the past decades, that Spanishspeakers (adults and children) have to and can decide whether a predication is temporary or permanent, or which type of implied comparison (with states holding for the same or different entity) it involves. I highly recommend chapter 2 to the attention of all Spanish language teachers and textbook authors and publishers: here Roby reviews different “traditional” approaches widely accepted in the past decades, and clearly, convincingly, and systematically shows why they all fail to predict a significant number of common uses. The chapter will delight and vindicate all those who have ever recognized with embarrassment the inadequacy of their own, textbook-based explanations of when to use ser or estar. The most traditional account (the supposed Spanish speaker’s conscious division of the world into states that are not temporarily bound and apply for a relatively long period of time, for which students are taught to use ser, and those that are temporarily bound and that apply for a relatively short period of time expressed by estar) deserves the following appraisal from Roby: “[T]he number of exceptions that this analysis yields renders them only marginally better than randomly guessing” (3). Aside from the fact that very few elements in the universe are empirically unchangeable, Roby appropriately states that this and other traditional accounts are so unsatisfactory because they are logically inconsistent and theoretically unsound (27). Regarding Bull’s (1965) resilient, soon-to-be-halfa-century-old “estar as an indicator of change” distinction, Roby deftly points out that if the speaker is perceiving a described state for the first time, there is “no preconceived prior normal or inherent state with which to semantically interface” (30). Chapters 3, 4, and 5 summarize in detail and test other, more recent theoretical approaches that are not reflected in textbooks: Carlson (1977) and Kratzer’s (1995) individual-level vs. stage-level distinction; Maienborn’s (2005) discourse-based interpretation which introduces the notion of topic situation contrast for estar; and Schmitt’s (2005) compositionally based analysis of ser and estar in Portuguese extended to the cognate Spanish verbs. The Spanish data that Roby analyzes include, predictably, those structures in which both copulas are acceptable, namely adjectival phrases (including those with past participles), prepositional phrases (e.g., physical location), and Wh-phrases (i.e., interrogative), as well as copular sentences with nominal predicates. The author also dedicates a significant amount of attention to sentences with adjectival predicates that state evidence of the ways things taste or
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describe the way something looks. Data from non-standard Spanish, translations of relevant Portuguese data, and be-type verbs in African-American English and Modern Irish enrich the analysis insofar as they reinforce the author’s proposed aspectual analysis. Overall, I found Roby’s Aspect and the Categorization of States. The Case of Ser and Estar in Spanish to be very thorough, logical, persuasively written, and accessible. One should be prepared for a concentrated reading—this is serious morphosyntactic discourse, but it does not require the self-punishing fondness of conundrums and ingenuity of so much exclusivist brain-teasing syntactic literature. The only presumably typographic mistakes in the text I found were the translation of Ricardo hacía ejercicio todos los días as ‘Ricardo does exercise every day’ (123), and lavoratorio ‘lavatory’ (12). The book—carefully structured, thoughtfully corroborated and convincing—is an indispensable resource for students of Spanish syntax, language teachers, and methodology seminars. It is my sincere hope that it will find its way to the desks of Spanish-textbook authors and publishers who may finally decide to correct the long-standing and perplexing misconceptions about how ser and estar work that they have been providing to Spanish language learners for over fifty years. Elena Retzer California State University–Los Angeles, USA United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. Website in Spanish and Portuguese. http://www.ushmm.org/museum/exhibit/focus/spanish/ http://www.ushmm.org/museum/exhibit/focus/portuguese/ The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum (USHMM) website in Spanish and in Portuguese makes available profoundly important materials—dating from January 30, 1933 to June 1942 and beyond to 1952—for the Hispanic and Portuguese peoples of the world. It offers an invaluable collection of photographs, audio and video clips, and bibliographic and historical documentation, which are continuously updated as new materials are made available. The Spanish site, translated from the site in English, “Holocaust Learning Center,” leads to the following sections: the Holocaust: Purpose of the Site; the Rescue Mission by the Hungarian Jew George Mandel-Mantello; a Learning Site for Students and Teachers; Anti-Semitism: A Continuing Threat; the Propaganda of the Nazis; the Nazi Olympics: Berlin 1936; Encyclopedia of the Holocaust: An Alphabetical Index of the Articles; Voices about Anti-Semitism; and Auschwitz through the Lens of the SS: Photos of the Nazi Leaders of the Camp. There are links to rich resources for teaching: maps on the Holocaust and World War II; an annotated bibliography of books in Spanish and Portuguese on the Holocaust; a list of frequently asked questions with precise answers on the Holocaust, the camps, the victims, the resistance and rescue; on Ann Frank; on the judgment for the crimes (Nuremburg Trials); and on the USHMM. Keywords and subjects are indicated in color so that the reader can go directly to the topic; in turn, each subject is linked to additional references. The scope of the Spanish website encompasses the full sweep of the Nazi hatred: the systematic persecution and assassinations inflicted by the Nazis on homosexuals; ideological, political, religious dissidents; Romany and the incapacitated, all considered enemies of the Third Reich and inferior to the Master Race. The site in Portuguese is not as extensive as the one in Spanish but it is nonetheless important and includes most of the themes in the Spanish site. It also presents the personal photos and commentaries of 421 children. The 145 “Personal Histories of Survivors and Victims” in the Spanish site, with both Jews and a few Gentiles, include for each individual a photo, the nationality, the date of birth, and a brief background of the victim. While the information is necessarily limited due to the expansive scope of this section, there are noteworthy details and historical facts embedded in the messages. In the section “Voices about Anti-Semitism,” those interviewed represent different professions: academics, film makers, religious leaders, lawyers, politicians, an ex-neo-Nazi,
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entertainers, and athletes. Focusing mainly on the consequences of Anti-Semitism, they remark on present-day hate crimes and on post-Holocaust Genocide, as in Rwanda and Cambodia. They yearn for more interfaith discussions and for a recognition by the media of the harm caused through the dissemination of hateful and inaccurate representations, such as those disseminated by the Third Reich and RTLM, the Radio Station in Rwanda. Those interviewed plea for humankind to overcome indifference to the suffering of others and to search for truth, to seek compassion, to fight intolerance, and to pass on what they have learned to others. Ironically for this portion of the website, dedicated in part to disseminating information to the Hispanic world, there is an absence of material on the Sephardim, save for a brief reference to Salonika, under the theme, “The System of the Nazi Camps.” The Sephardim suffered through the destruction of their communities, the excruciating and lengthy transport to the death camps, and the sad and brutal deaths of so many. Yet, here in the site for Spanish and Portuguese their voices are absent. (Those desiring more information on the Sephardim and the Holocaust will need to consult the English language website of the USHMM.) Through their testimonials, the readers of the USHMM website in Spanish and Portuguese share their thoughts and reactions. An Argentinean writes: “Es muy difícil realmente poner en palabras lo que uno como persona puede sentir al saber de esta Guerra. Creo que impotencia, dolor, tristeza son algunas de las que encuentro. No entra en la cabeza de ningún ser humano lo que sucedió aquí.” A woman from Spain expresses her grief by saying: “Luego de leer los testimonios y ver las fotos sobre la eutanasia que realizaron durante la guerra, siento una gran angustia por la injusticia, el asesinato de miles de seres humanos que han sido exterminados por ser diferentes en raza, religión, por tener una discapacidad.” She is saddened that “habiendo pasado tantos años, se sigue discriminando a quienes por su diversidad funcional, credo, raza, se les considera no válidos. . . . Hay mucho que luchar por erradicar la violencia, lograr el cambio de mentalidad para la aceptación del ser humano tal y como es, y que todos tenemos los mismos derechos y deberes para vivir en una sociedad de igualdad, respeto hacia el prójimo.” These comments (whose spelling was slighlty edited in this review) show that the USHMM website has achieved its goal of reaching the hearts and minds of many as shown in the following statement: “Nos corresponde a los jóvenes mantener viva la historia y el recuerdo para que las generaciones actuales y futuras no olviden nunca aquel terrible capítulo de la historia humana. Por nuestros hijos y por la memoria de los que ya no están, no debemos permitir que esta barbarie vuelva a ocurrir.” Isaac Lévy University of South Carolina, USA Wiedemann, Lyris, and Matilde V. R. Scaramucci, eds. Português para falantes de espanhol—Ensino e aquisição / Portuguese for Spanish Speakers—Teaching and Acquisition. São Paulo: Pontes, 2008. ISBN 978-85-7113-279-5. It is a pleasure to present this collection of articles, issued, for the most part, from a selection of papers presented at the second Symposium on the Teaching of Portuguese for Spanish Speakers, which took place at Stanford University in 2006. This book reflects the steady development of this area of studies in the last decades. The roots of Portuguese for Spanish speakers can be dated back to the 50s, but its widespread reach in the United States started probably in the 1990s. I was very lucky to have been given the opportunity to participate in this process, in the 80s as a teacher of Portuguese precisely for Spanish speakers at the University of Texas at Austin, and in the 90s with my book Com licença, produced under the auspices of the 1989 ALCANCE, a FIPSE supported project granted by the US Department of Education, led by David Jackson and Fred Ellison, at UT Austin. The project benefited from the administrative support of the Institute of Latin American Studies at UT, under Richard Adams and Michael Conroy, and the participation of Dale Koike, Elizabeth Jackson, the late Karin Van den Dool for the OPI
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training, and myself. (I bring up the project ALCANCE and colleagues directly involved with its creation, but I would not take the risk of mentioning other individuals, because there have been so many people directly or indirectly involved in strengthening the teaching of Portuguese for Spanish speakers, that I fear leaving out some important names.) The book is prefaced by one of the renowned names behind successful developments in Portuguese as a second language, Francisco Gomes de Matos. His preface and the presentation of the book by Lyris Wiedemann and Matilde V. R. Scaramucci give a good idea of how far this enterprise has reached. Together, their presentations are an enjoyable tour of studies on Portuguese as a second language and for Spanish speakers. It can be easily seen that these symposia are here to stay. The third one happened in Campinas, Brazil (2008), and the fourth one took place March 10–12, 2011, at Georgetown University, in Washington, DC. It is motivating to see former participants of the first symposium back on stage, expanding their previous investigations, and new scholars enriching and bringing more vitality with their new views. Among former participants, Maria Antonia Cowles opens the volume with an overall view of current policies and practice in Portuguese studies; she also coauthored a second article with Alessandra Pires on the voices of the learner, a topic also explored by Denise Santos and Gláucia Silva. Dale Koike coauthors with Ricardo Gualda a study on noticing and transfer. Marianne Ackerberg discusses one of the most important differences in Portuguese and Spanish, outside phonology and phonetics: the teaching of the preterite and present perfect. John Jensen investigates rhythmic features of Spanish and English on learners of Portuguese. Ana Carvalho investigates the attitudes of native speakers towards portunhol. Matilde Scaramucci discusses the new focus on the Exam Celpe-Bras in a context of Spanish speakers, and Margo Milleret shares with us her experience with the evaluation of Portuguese programs and the needs of Spanish speakers who are learning Portuguese. Among the newcomers, the book has four new names. Marisela Colín Rodea explores the reaches of the culture component in the context of Spanish speakers of Portuguese, and Antonio José Barcelar da Silva argues in favor of teaching pragmatics, based on his analysis of the rituals in greetings and leave takings. The two others look into the acquisition of Spanish by Portuguese speakers. Kelly A. Lowther discusses native language use by Portuguese speakers taking Spanish (and also English) classes, while Fernanda Rangel Pestana Allegro and Sandra Madureira analyze the acquisition of Spanish by Portuguese speakers. Actually, the two last ones fit rather well in the current context of Brazil. On January 2, 2010, the newly elected Brazilian President, Dilma Roussef, gave an interview to the Spanish newspaper El País in which she renewed the even greater interest of the Brazilian government in increasing the studies of Spanish in Brazil, by setting the goal of making Spanish the second language of Brazil. Given my specialization in phonology and phonetics, the article by Allegro and Madureira caught my attention more than the other articles. Their study brings into play existing studies and models in Second Language Acquisition (SLA) in terms of phonology and phonetics. Pronunciation is perhaps the main area of bilingual studies of Spanish and Portuguese, and their research deals very well with it, taking into account both production and perception in terms of SLA. Most, if not all, of their conclusions should be expected to be shared by teachers of Spanish for Portuguese, but in their analysis they make our expectations and intuitions explainable in systematic terms. I was happy to see that their study corroborates a study that I presented and published in 1992, at the Spoken Language Processing Meeting, in Philadelphia, which points out the different nature of post-stressed vowels in Portuguese and Spanish discourse. Their article provides excellent further guidance in the area of future studies of Portuguese and Spanish in contrast. Before concluding, I would like to call attention to the use of the term “cognate languages” in this volume. Some contributors to this volume seem to avoid the term, but the organizers use it repeatedly. I think that the term used previously, “typologically closest/close languages” (Port. línguas tipologicamente próximas), may be better for use in the context of these symposia,
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given the broader interpretations of “cognate languages.” “Cognate,” to me, means any Romance language or any language with the same family root, which is not the case in these symposia. Unless the organizers meant French, Italian, Catalan, and other Romance languages, it is more precise to say “typologically close” or a term that expresses the particular proximity of Spanish and Portuguese. This is a friendly suggestion to the editors, who deserve our compliments for putting together such a valuable resource. Antonio Simões University of Kansas, USA
Fiction and Film Campanella, Juan José. El secreto de sus ojos. Argentina: Tornasol, 2009. Film. 129 minutos. Pocos filmes en la historia del, relativamente caudaloso, cine argentino han obtenido simultáneamente tantos reconocimientos por parte de la crítica y el público, en el país y en otros campos intelectuales. Supongo que La deuda interna, La historia oficial y Nueve Reinas son otros relatos que también marcaron época y expresaron las narraciones dominantes acerca de la identidad del país. Sin desmerecer en nada a los filmes señalados podría decirse que su revelación la realizan en contextos de mayor consenso social, o claramente mayoritario, acerca de la “Verdad” identitaria de la Argentina. Puede agregarse que el desentrañamiento de sus historias resulta muchísimo más simple y sus pistas acerca del funcionamiento de la alegoría nacional en dichas historias tiende a ser una opinión evidente por la que el discurso argentino estaba pendiente y de la que la sociedad ya hablaba al margen de dichos filmes. ¿Cuál es el maravilloso “secreto” de El secreto de sus ojos? ¿Cuál es esa pieza secreta en el complicado entramado de su elaboración que no solo la hace marcar época sino revelar el corazón vibrante del ADN de nuestro “ser nacional”? ¿Qué es lo que produce, más allá de algunos mínimos errores de libreto, la exposición encandiladora del “gene” ar“gentino” y simultáneamente lo retrae de la exposición explícita? Y este es uno de los puntos principales en la confrontación con los otros clásicos mencionados. Mientras el poder expresivo de aquellos filmes crecía con la exposición explícita de una verdad socialmente reprimida e incluso, a veces, ignorada, el poder estremecedor de El “secreto” se acrecienta con la ocultación-exposición de una verdad socialmente evidente pero inaguantable al punto de entrar en el terreno de lo olvidado (psicoanalíticamente). Se trata de maximizar la ambigüedad de un mensaje que igual nos llega (aunque no lo entendamos) ya que reprimido lo tenemos en la configuración de nuestra consciencia del tejido social. Evidentemente en el resto de esta reseña interpretativa intentaré volver explícito el secreto del filme para que aumente su belleza y disminuya su desgarrador manejo de “lo siniestro”. Me estoy refiriendo al concepto clásico y revelador de Sigmund Freud: lo “Unhemliche” (lo “uncanny”, lo aterrador) pero literalmente lo “un-home-ly”. Se trata de aquellos elementos absolutamente conocidos pero que han sido desfamiliarizados mediante un férreo mecanismo de represión psíquica. De este modo lo realmente espantoso no son los pulpos gelatinosos de utilería sino las fases ocultas y reprimidas de la historia de nuestra identidad, en rigor, en el fondo, lo más familiar. Volviendo a El secreto de sus ojos pueden señalarse dos anomalías en el modo en que el filme segmenta y refleja la historia argentina de las últimas tres décadas del siglo XX: las dos resultan sumamente originales y, en mi opinión son las que producen este acomodamiento de la estructura de sentimientos de la que venimos hablando. En primer lugar la reelaboración del poder represivo estatal no toma lugar (como sucede con la mayoría de los filmes que han obtenido gran repercusión) a partir del golpe genocida de la junta militar del 24 de marzo de
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1976, sino mucho antes, con la muerte del general Perón y el acceso hegemónico al poder de la “siniestramente” recordada AAA (Alianza Anticomunista Argentina) en el invierno de 1974. Parece ser un cambio de relevancia nimia, sin embargo es enorme el caudal de imágenes que brotan en el imaginario general de la argentinidad en uno y otro caso. Por otra parte se desestabiliza la leyenda de que los argentinos éramos un grupo de partisanos progresistas cuando en realidad ya teníamos un poderoso terrorismo de estado entrelazado con diversos estratos de la sociedad funcionando impunemente en 1974. Isidoro Gómez, violador y asesino confeso, logra ascender socialmente y hacer carrera integrándose en la Triple A. El otro punto curioso es que siendo un filme realizado en 2009, elige colocarse en un presente narrativo reiteradamente explicitado como 1999 (“Pasaron 25 años, no es su vida, 25 años”, le reclama Morales a Expósito). En vez de elegir el panorama más amplio, exitoso y congruente de la Argentina actual el paisaje de la sociedad argentina es visto (y tratado de explicar) desde el destartalado y caótico gobierno de la “Alianza” y Fernando de La Rúa, que debe huir de la Casa Rosada expulsado por las mayorías a fines del 2001. El final, que nos dice algo que parecemos no entender en medio de la confusión, nos lo dice todo: cuando el Estado no hace su trabajo público los individuos deben abandonar el ámbito de lo privado para hacerse cargo de lo público. Morales encierra en una justa pero oximorónica prisión perpetua a Gómez (atroz y bellamente). Un estado inexistente no nos deja seguir construyendo nuestras vidas: Expósito posee por 25 años una vida llena de nada. Pero cuando el pueblo damnificado revela la posibilidad de hacer justicia, Benjamín recupera la posibilidad de relatar, de ser un sujeto y de amar. Alejandro Solomianski California State University–Los Angeles, USA Pombo, Álvaro. La previa muerte del lugarteniente Aloof. Barcelona: Anagrama, 2009. Pp. 179. ISBN 978-84-339-7202-6. Álvaro Pombo (Santander, 1939) es miembro de la Real Academia Española, poeta y novelista. En este último ámbito, Pombo ha sido capaz de crear una voz propia y peculiar, donde sus estudios filosóficos nunca pasan desapercibidos. La originalidad y calidad de sus novelas han sido reconocidas por premios tan importantes como el Herralde de Novela, el de la Crítica o el Nacional de Narrativa, por citar solo algunos. Tras la publicación de La previa muerte del lugarteniente Aloof, la obra narrativa de Pombo se acerca a la veintena, lo que no impide que su prosa siga sorprendiendo al lector con una estructura experimental que obliga a la reflexión constante. Esta novela corta está plagada de guiños a la crítica literaria (con la que dialoga y a la que, en no pocas ocasiones, satiriza). Durante todo el texto se alternan partes en cursiva y partes con una grafía normal. Las primeras pertenecen al diario del lugarteniente Aloof, quien narra sus aventuras ulteriormente; las últimas, en cambio, refieren a la voz de un narratólogo que teoriza sobre los distintos fragmentos de dicho diario. El lugarteniente tiene mucho de postromántico en su vitalismo dionisiaco (recuerda al Marqués de Bradomín de Valle-Inclán). Por el otro lado, el apolíneo profesor universitario retirado, que analiza el texto desde una perspectiva académica, acaba cayendo en la falacia autobiográfica que él mismo critica al intentar rastrear las huellas textuales de Aloof más allá del propio texto. Esto se problematiza todavía más si tenemos en cuenta que el propio profesor es parte del texto ficcional que está intentando deconstruir, por lo que llegamos a una especie de neohistoricismo, donde los límites entre lo histórico y lo ficcional se diluyen en la textualidad que caracteriza a ambos discursos y de la que no pueden escapar. Quizá esta manera de engarzar lo dionisiaco y lo apolíneo en un diálogo entre vitalismo y racionalismo no sea sino lo que Ortega y Gasset—cuyas teorías no le son para nada ajenas a Pombo—llamaba “razón vital”, pues son elementos inseparables que nunca se manifiestan puros.
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En este libro abunda la intertextualidad filosófica, lo cual es una constante en gran parte de la novelística de Álvaro Pombo. En este caso específico tenemos, además, referencias a escritores y críticos literarios españoles actuales, como Arturo Pérez-Reverte, Javier Marías, José-Carlos Mainer o Darío Villanueva. En lo que respecta a la filosofía, Pombo dirige su mirada hacia el pensamiento contemporáneo occidental, con menciones a Heidegger, Althusser, Ortega y Gasset, Spinoza o Sartre, entre otros. En La muerte previa del lugarteniente Aloof, salen a la luz muchas de las cuestiones más candentes del debate narratológico actual, entre las que destacan el sentido y los límites de la entidad responsable de la narración, la focalización de lo narrado, el proceso selectivo de toda creación textual, los silencios, o la memoria no fiable que cambia en el tiempo, pero sin la cual es imposible narrativizar para dar sentido a experiencias inconexas (lo que posibilita la emergencia del yo). En esta última paradoja, se asienta el eje de esta novela. Es la eterna problemática del narrador que se narra a sí mismo y, al hacerlo, emerge su yo al conectar, mediante la memoria, varias experiencias selectivas y nemónicamente manipuladas; pero se trata de un yo textual y, por ende, ficcional. Esta paradoja ontológica y metaficcional es muy del gusto de Pombo: el sujeto es una construcción imposible, pues al tener conciencia de sí se aniquila, pues se convierte en objeto de conocimiento de sí mismo. Debemos entonces, si queremos salir de dicho círculo, abandonar la dicotomía filosófica moderna entre sujeto y objeto, y pasar a teorías constructivistas donde un objeto no es más que la construcción de un observador. En esta novela, el lector es un observador de segundo orden que observa al profesor observando al lugarteniente, que a su vez se observa y describe a sí mismo. El libro supone un ejemplo magistral de constructivismo y de interrelación entre narratología, memoria, ontología y epistemología. Álvaro Pombo, entre otras muchas cosas, representa un paso hacia la renovación y revitalización de la novela filosófica española actual. Luis Prádanos Westminster College, USA Vargas Llosa, Mario. El sueño del celta. Doral, FL: Alfaguara, 2010. Pp. 454. ISBN 978161605246-1. Prior to the publication of La guerra del fin del mundo (1981), Mario Vargas Llosa had determined to write exclusively about his native Peru. Subscribing to the Jean-Paul Sartre’s notion that literature about the present had deeper revolutionary implications, Vargas Llosa restricted his novels to a contemporary Peruvian context, until his disillusionments with Castro’s Cuba led the author into a decade of literary experimentation that culminated in his novelistic rendition of the turn-of-the-century Canudos rebellion in the Brazilian backlands. As Vargas Llosa distanced his concept of literature from a strictly Sartrean mode, he also cast an increasingly global gaze upon his literary landscapes. Most recently, his latest historical novel, El sueño del celta (2010), recounts the anticolonialist labors of the Irish nationalist Roger Casement in three different continents. El sueño del celta is divided into fifteen chapters and further subdivided into three sections—“El Congo” (11–138), “La Amazonía” (139–340), and “Irlanda” (341–446)—with an essayistic epilogue (447–52) and two pages of reconocimientos (453–54) as a conclusion. Though the novel does not possess the structural complexity of some of Vargas Llosa’s earlier works, its author adeptly alternates between Casement’s impending execution for high treason and the story of his revolutionary activities. “El Congo” recounts Casement’s transition from his naïve trust in the professed virtues of colonization efforts in Africa to his suspicion and eventual condemnation of the abuses that he witnesses during some twenty years in that region. Following the 1904 publication of his “Casement Report,” denouncing disturbing human rights violations by King Leopold II in the Congo, he is commissioned by the British government to travel to the Peruvian Amazon. “La Amazonía” is the longest and perhaps most captivating of the three sections, as Vargas Llosa’s familiarity with the Peruvian terrain is evident in his descriptions. (Throughout the novel, however, his creation of convincing dialogue among primarily native
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English-speaking characters is also impressive.) Producing condemnatory reports against the Peruvian Amazon Company and its rubber baron Julio César Arana in defense of the Putumayo peoples, Casement returns to Europe with a pessimistic conclusion: “El Congo, otra vez. El Congo, por todas partes” (176). By this time, Casement’s mental and physical health are questionable; and yet, his experiences have awakened an overriding desire to see the liberation of his native Ireland from English colonial rule. “Irlanda” portrays his revolutionary activities as an Irish nationalist. As Vargas Llosa describes Casement’s attempts to secure arms from Germany in support of an imminent Irish uprising, he provides answers to pending questions that had developed throughout the narrative, introduces others, and then powerfully concludes the novel with the execution of his protagonist. Dissimilar to some of Vargas Llosa’s other totalizing narratives, El sueño del celta focuses almost entirely on a single character. With minor exceptions, including Casement’s mentor and friend Alice Stopford Green and the sheriff who is a reticent interlocutor during his time in the London prison, truly memorable secondary characters are scarce. Roger Casement, however, is masterfully developed from beginning to end; in my opinion, Vargas Llosa has not stretched a protagonist to his ultimate capacity so successfully since Santiago Zavala in Conversación en La Catedral (1969). Throughout relentless scenes of abuse, Casement is a constant witness who exemplifies the words of José Enrique Rodó in the novel’s epigraph: “Cada uno de nosotros es, sucesivamente, no uno, sino muchos,” which also becomes a pervasive theme throughout the narrative. Vargas Llosa’s choice to delve deeply into the internal struggles of one man’s pursuit of human dignity and freedom makes El sueño del celta at once intimate and universal. Placing Casement at the center of every chapter also emphasizes the constancy of his struggles and the exhausting nature of the anticolonialist enterprises that eventually claim his health, mental stability, and very life. As readers have come to expect, there is much of Vargas Llosa within his latest novel. The author’s ability to incorporate his deepest passions into El sueño del celta and yet disappear entirely within its pages is a creative gift that he has refined over more than a half-century of writing. Familiar Vargasllosan themes—such as civilization and barbarism, revolutionary action, fanatical idealism, eroticism (in this case, homosexual fantasy), and the power of writing—abound in his latest novel. Readers attempting to better understand Vargas Llosa’s most recurring literary demons—as he tended to call them in earlier decades—will have a quintessential experience in El sueño del celta. Moreover, Vargas Llosa scholars will find significant parallels between Casement’s personal disillusionments (“La vida africana le fue mostrando que las cosas no eran tan claras como la teoría” [44]) and the author’s diverse life experiences, especially his own struggles to reconcile his early “ingenuo idealismo” (275) as a young socialist and his disappointments with its practical application in subsequent years. As Vargas Llosa endows his character with personal sentiments derived from lived experience, his descriptions of Casement’s life as “una contradicción permanente, una sucesión de confusiones y enredos truculentos” (265) become as rich literarily as they are enticing academically to scholars interested in the life and writings of the recent Nobel laureate. Shortly following the press release for the anticipated publication of El sueño del celta, Vargas Llosa was announced as the 2010 recipient of the Nobel Prize in Literature. For readers who seek to understand the Academy’s decision to award the Nobel Prize to Vargas Llosa “for his cartography of structures of power and his trenchant images of the individual’s resistance, revolt, and defeat,” El sueño del celta is certainly a potent starting point. Due to its horrifying depiction of colonial abuses, its expert development of the conflictive character of Roger Casement, and its noteworthy control of language even in challenging English-dominant settings, El sueño del celta is clearly equal to the description on its back cover: “Una novela mayor de Mario Vargas Llosa.” David P. Wiseman Lewis-Clark State College, USA
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Reader Response Response to review of Ricci, Cristián, and López Calvo, Ignacio, eds. Caminos para la paz. Literatura israelí y árabe en castellano. Buenos Aires: Corregidor, 2007. Pp. 317. ISBN 978-950-05-1740-9. I am very grateful for this opportunity to address the “review” by María Aránzazu AlegreGonzález, of Townson University, of the book Caminos para paz. Literatura israelí y árabe en castellano (published in Hispania 94.1 this past spring). I felt compelled to offer another perspective of the text, particularly since the published review says nothing specific about the book’s content. The “review” offers little critical commentary—good or bad. The only particularized criticism the reviewer offered concerns the book’s title, which in the reviewer’s opinion employs unfortunately imprecise language (e.g., israelí) with its reference to “nationstate” (but that really implies “Jews”) and, more importantly, árabe, which does not refer to a nation or religion, but is meant to imply Palestinian and Muslim (both criticisms I cannot totally dismiss). She also critiques the editors’ “utopian” view of what can be expressed in a third language (castellano) that Jews and Muslims might not be able to otherwise (a criticism that is short-sighted, given that the book’s contents often belie this notion). Finally, she criticizes the mythical nature of the convivencia to which the editors appeal in creating this “third place” in which their contributors write. Unfortunately, the review also makes accusations about the political tendencies of some of the books’ contributors without offering a bit of substantiating evidence to those who have not read the collection. Reviews are most useful to readers when they are specific, and what is most missing in this one is a discussion of the actual work contained in the collection. Coeditors López-Calvo and Ricci saw in their project the possibility of creating a “third space” in which Spanish-writing authors from both groups could offer an intimate sense of shared concerns that, for the most part, transcend their entrapping geopolitical and historicoreligious boundaries. In other words, castellano seems to have served as a “third place” for the authors who finally did contribute to the volume. Most of the contributors do not write from a position of binary opposition, with an “us vs. them” dynamic, but rather from a very human and humane perspective, such as in stories like “Imán en el cuarto cerrado” about the fear experienced by a little girl who senses being watched through rifle scopes (ojos de fusiles, in a panoptic sense) as she walks to school every day; “Salmos trozados en salumuera,” an all-out, Borgesian, word-bending criticism of the peace process that disputes contradictory yet assumed meanings of words and references; “Al borde del desenlace,” about differences that seem insurmountable more due to a failure to acknowledge what Bakhtin called the “primacy of context” in the competing meanings of words and places than anything else. In considering the possibility of language as a “third place,” I am reminded of philosopher Emmanuel Levinas, whose book Totality and Infinity: An Essay on Exteriority (New York: Springer, 1979) posits that our responsibility for the “Other” derives not from our own subjectivity, but from the experience of meeting the “Other” face-to-face, from encountering his or her own subjectivity. Such is certainly the case in “Imán en el cuarto cerrado,” by Abi Ben Schlomo, about a girl who fears being indiscriminately shot by all-seeing but invisible border guards, and is eventually shot, making impossible the face-to-face meeting that Levinas believes to be so necessary for avoiding the “othering” of other human beings. Likewise, the outcome of “Al borde del desenlace,” by Ahmed Mohamed Ngara, whose main protagonist “others” potential African immigrants to Spain, results from his finding a language “common” to him and a group of them, and additionally discovering that what seemed to him to be two, clearly defined national and political shores (the northern coast of Africa and the southern coast of Spain) are really both a blessing and a curse to both their residents and those who would risk all to leave or reach them.
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Like “Salmos trozados en salmuera,” “Tlönesque” is a bit of speculative fiction by Daniel Blaustein. In it, the author creates an antinarrative that invites the reader into a Putnam-like experiment in semantic externalizing that involves subordinating preconceived signifiers of Jewish and Palestinean space that both peoples see and name as their own—a perspective that really helps understand how much language contributes to this terrible conflict. Caminos para la paz is an experiment worth reading and analyzing. We have too few opportunities to read about the tensions that both divide and are shared by Jews and Muslims and, more specifically, Jews and Palestineans for whom Spanish is a common language. Had I been the reviewer of this book, I would have invited my readers to explore the book, with all its triumphs and limitations, and to consider what its positive qualities or shortcomings might say about the limits of politics and the potential power of language. Kenya C. Dworkin y Méndez Carnegie Mellon University, USA
