South Atlantic Modern Language Association After Exile: Writing the Latin American Diaspora by Amy Kaminsky Review by: Linda Crawford South Atlantic Review, Vol. 65, No. 2 (Spring, 2000), pp. 168-171 Published by: South Atlantic Modern Language Association Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/3201818 . Accessed: 25/06/2014 10:33 Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at . http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp . JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact
[email protected]. . South Atlantic Modern Language Association is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to South Atlantic Review. http://www.jstor.org This content downloaded from 188.72.127.69 on Wed, 25 Jun 2014 10:33:23 AM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions http://www.jstor.org/action/showPublisher?publisherCode=samla http://www.jstor.org/stable/3201818?origin=JSTOR-pdf http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp 168 Book Reviews inherent in Wilder's depiction of Caesar points to the innate difficulty in any attempt at historical reconstruction. Marguerite Yourcenar claims that World War II provoked a pro- longed period of depression and inactivity that she emerged from through the writing of the Aemnoils ofHadrian. Yet as Koelb shows, her novel's goal was less political than personal: it reflects her "hopes to reestablish contact with her own past" (107). What facilitates this quest is Yourcenar's conviction that the self only begins to function when "it discovers in itself an absent other" (110). In this case the absent other is Hadrian. Through Yourcenar's exploration of Hadrian's life she manages, according to Koelb, to examine the "relationship between self and history, the self as history, and history as incorpo- rated in the self"(115). Just as Pater's Marius came to believe that the grasping of the "pure present" was an impossibility, Yourcenar ques- tions the notion of "experience" and tends to conclude that even life lived for the moment "is more often what we like to think of as 'his- tory'" (123). To the extent that history is political in the novels Koelb discusses, it is no more so than in Christa Wolf's Cassandra. The issue here is how can an artist write a novel that is at once Flaubertian in its insis- tence upon history's remoteness from the present, yet Marxist in its sense of history's purpose. Koelb believes Wolf solves this dilemma through feminism. He views Wolf as maintaining that in terms of the marginalization of women and the dominance of a culture based on warfare, history has made no progress (135). Hence the novel is Flaubertian at least to the extent that history displays no development; yet it is also Marxist in so far as a clear statement of the political realities holds the potential for improvement in the future. One can challenge this reading, just as one can question the notion that Cassandra is Wolf's alter ego, or that Yourcenar is in love with her fictional Hadrian, but one must nevertheless admire Koelb's framing of the admittedly complex tensions in Wolf's novel between the author's aestheticism and her Marxism: '" Cassandra uses the methods of Salaninmb to achieve the goals of The Threepentn.' Operd" (141). William Cloonan, Florida State [.4nive~/ity' AJter Exile. IFting the Latin American Diaspora. By Amy Kaminsky. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1999. xviii + 189 pp. $16.95. This book will be of interest to those who study writers in exile, and Southern Cone literature in particular. It begins with an insistence that the term "exile" not be used metaphorically. After proposing that we look at language in a non-sexual way, Kaminsky then carefully This content downloaded from 188.72.127.69 on Wed, 25 Jun 2014 10:33:23 AM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp South Atlantic Review 169 studies the way in which the desire and inability to return home mani- fest themselves in the language and works of several Southern Cone writers. The consideration of the body in space, and not the body as space, is crucial to Kaminsky's study, as she studies the effect of dis- tance and space, as mediated by language, on the writers' works. Exiled authors from Chile, Argentina, and Uruguay are featured in this text. As well as sharing a common language, the three countries were ruled by military dictatorships in the 1970s and 1980s. During the period in which all were under dictatorships, moving to one of the other two countries would not have resolved issues of freedom from persecution; as a result, many writers went into exile, and settled in the United States and Sweden. The distinction between exile and ex- patriate does not affect Kaminsky's study in that the spatial relation- ship of the body and the motherland remains the same, as does the inability to return and find things unchanged: "After years of exile, of alienation and acculturation, of adapting the palate and the ear and the line of vision, the exile-and the exile's palate, ear, and eye--is no longer fully at home anywhere. The end of exile is a richness that must always bear a sense of loss and a desire for what is elsewhere" (144). Chapter 1 examines the relationship of gender to the discussion of home, both as reflected in language and in the exiled writers' vision of the "mother" country. The manner in which place and affect come together in Spanish and English contrast as does the way emotion attaches itself to public and private spaces. Kaminsky introduces the notion of exile as a process consisting of the traumatic moment of departure, adjustment to living in exile, and the moment when return becomes possible. Those who choose not to return become a part of the Diaspora. Chapter 2 considers national identity, and how one comes to iden- tify oneself as a member of a nation in the first place. Identity as a national subject depends upon conflict; one is unconscious of one's nationality until that moment when it is called into question. Kaminsky notes that in the case of exiles it is tied to "loss, lack, and longing" (29). Since one's identity is related to memory and control of dis- course, an exile's identity as a member of a nation is closely linked to his/her identity as an individual. Once in exile, there is a heightened sense of identification with others from home, which can result from being sent away as well as from the feeling of "otherness" that arises in the adoptive culture. Kaminsky also discusses amnesty for those who are guilty of war crimes and torture. Exiles must necessarily remember the conditions of their state, since the subsequent chain of events has come to form This content downloaded from 188.72.127.69 on Wed, 25 Jun 2014 10:33:23 AM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp 170 Book Reviews a part of their identity. Those who stayed behind must accept amnesty to maintain the newly established peace. She stresses, however, that amnesty should not be equated with forgetting: "because the forget- ting is figurative and because it always refers to a kind of loaded memory, the memory of some wrong that is being forgotten as a way of avoiding its being forgiven" (37). Chapter 3 details the processes of exile, alienation and accultura- tion, and their connection to the physical world. Space comes into play in exile literature because exile divides the person's identity. The exile is: "either the subject not originating or the subject not present, but never both at the same time. The exile, spatially, originates some- where and is not present there or is present somewhere from which s/he does not originate" (43). Also discussed in the third chapter, in great detail, are the ways in which the author can textualize space. Space becomes place only when we attribute meaning to it. In chapter 4, Kaminsky demonstrates how language both makes and takes space. Just as the experiences in the new country are a palimpsest on the existing experiences in the homeland, the new language does not represent an erasure of the mother tongue, but rather an addition. Language's evocative powers and links to sensory experience are fur- ther examples of how language takes space. As exile is a process, so is return. Chapter 5 discusses Jose Donoso's attempt to divorce the political from the aesthetic. However, the new experiences and consciousness of national identity cannot be divorced from the exile's memory. Kaminsky contrasts Benedetti's work to Donoso's as an example of how the aesthetic and the political can be blended without undermining each other. Chapters 6 and 7 explore how the exiled writers locate themselves in reality and how they cre- ate meaning from their experiences. Chapter 7 focuses on and con- trasts texts by Jose Donoso and Luisa Valenzuela. In addition to a detailed analysis of these texts, Kaminsky again takes up the topic of memory: "Memory and morality go hand in hand, because if meaning is lost, so is the opportunity to obtain justice. Even more basically, memory is needed to see that history does not repeat itself" (120). Chapter 8 studies the work of two writers who chose not to return. Here, the focus is on the shift from exile to diaspora, an example of which is the adoption of the host country's language for the purpose of public speaking (134). As she has in other chapters of the text, Kaminsky distinguishes the male perception of the mother country as "the nourishing source the man ultimately, but ambivalently, leaves" (140) from the female, which "requires that the subject leave and subsequently return to her mother in order to learn how to perceive her lovingly" (140). This content downloaded from 188.72.127.69 on Wed, 25 Jun 2014 10:33:23 AM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp South Atlantic Review 171 While the book's title promises a study broader than the Southern Cone, Kaminsky's study of what happens to exiled writers when po- litical turmoil has settled is extremely valuable, and the applications of the ideas to the specific texts involved are quite lucid. The percep- tion of the homeland as mother, and the ways in which male and female writers experience and depict this relationship, will provide for further discussion of writers exiled from other parts of Latin America. The examination of the psychological, emotional, and physical pro- cesses of exile and return are valuable to all disciplines. Linda Crawford, Salve Regina UiiezeyItY [r7ndelstanding Chlrista T/f Returning Home to a Foreign Land. By Margit Resch. Columbia: University of South Carolina Press, 1997. 199 pp. $29.95. Margit Resch's book is part of the University of South Carolina Press's Understanding Modern European and Latin American Literature se- ries, which aims to introduce the lives and major works of prominent authors to undergraduates, graduates, and non-academic readers. Ac- cording to the editor's note, the books emphasize historical and socio- logical background. They do not provide detailed plot summaries, because they are meant to be used in conjunction with the original literary works, not as a substitute for them. In general, Resch's chronological study of Christa Wolfs life and work conforms to these guidelines. Her summaries of postwar Ger- man history, the GDR, and the post-1989 Christa Wolf controversy are lucid, though necessarily brief. She discusses some of the important themes in Wolf's major works up to and including Wi7s bleibt, empha- sizing the search for individuality and self. An annotated selected bib- liography and an index increase the book's value as a reference work. Unfortunately, the book suffers from the built-in obsolescence that attends to any study of a living author; Wolf's recent novel Jtedea. Stimmnen, for example, is not covered. Contrary to the editor's asseverations, the book does consist to a great extent of plot summaries with explanatory commentary, though it would probably be impossible to write such a book in any other fashion. At times the style lapses into a kind of erlebteRede, so that it is difficult to differentiate plot summary from commentary: "God did not seem to mind, although pleasing God seemed to require many more lies" (101). Resch dismisses the "preposterous indictments" (7) of the Christa Wolf controversy as an exercise in political correctness, but she does not really discuss or refute many of them. She condemns the attacks on Wolf's "apparent collaboration" ( 7), but speaks herself This content downloaded from 188.72.127.69 on Wed, 25 Jun 2014 10:33:23 AM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp Article Contents p. 168 p. 169 p. 170 p. 171 Issue Table of Contents South Atlantic Review, Vol. 65, No. 2 (Spring, 2000), pp. 1-235 Front Matter Becoming a Southerner: Reflections on a Career, the MLA, and SAMLA [pp. 1-12] Representing AIDS: Thom Gunn and the Modalities of Verse [pp. 13-39] Horses in Blackface: Visualizing Race as Species Difference in "Planet of the Apes" [pp. 40-72] Café de la paix: Mapping the Harlem Renaissance [pp. 73-94] Goethe and Europe [pp. 95-113] From Medieval to Post-Modern: The Arthurian Quest in France [pp. 114-133] Mary, the Maiden, and Metonymy in "Pearl" [pp. 134-162] Book Reviews Review: untitled [pp. 163-165] Review: untitled [pp. 166-168] Review: untitled [pp. 168-171] Review: untitled [pp. 171-172] Review: untitled [pp. 172-174] Review: untitled [pp. 174-180] Review: untitled [pp. 180-183] Review: untitled [pp. 183-185] Review: untitled [pp. 185-188] Review: untitled [pp. 188-190] Review: untitled [pp. 190-193] Review: untitled [pp. 193-195] Review: untitled [pp. 195-199] Review: untitled [pp. 199-201] Review: untitled [pp. 201-203] Review: untitled [pp. 204-206] Review: untitled [pp. 206-210] Review: untitled [pp. 210-212] Review: untitled [pp. 212-215] Review: untitled [pp. 215-217] Review: untitled [pp. 217-221] Review: untitled [pp. 221-223] SAMLA Financial Report: 1998-99 [pp. 229-233] Back Matter [pp. 224-235]