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Book Reviews Peter Read, ed. The International Avant-Garde 1905-1924. Spec. no. oÃ- Forum for Modern Language Studies 32:2 (April 1996), published for the University of St Andrews by Oxford University Press. A distinguished roster of scholars explores relationships between the visual and verbal arts in the European avant-garde in this far-ranging but focused collection. Read's introduction sets the tone by synthesizing the insights of the papers to follow in an engaging and fresh way, though it is marred by some false notes in the Russian sphere (e.g., the definition of zaum', and including Malevich in a group of painters who are also significant poets). David Gullentops (translation by Read) provides a useful exploration of the relationship between Verhaeren and Marinetti which avoids a bias in favor of one or the other, while not especially deepening our understanding of either writer. Christina Lodder's study of zaum' (transrational language) in Malevich's alogical paintings of 1913-15 is less than satisfying, however. In a literal-minded way, evidently matched by Malevich himself at this stage, she applies Russian Futurist statements about zaum' (drawn here from secondary sources in translation) to paintings Malevich did not describe as "zaumny," while inexplicably passing over those slightly later (and to my eyes better) ones that he did so label. She comes to the conclusion that the "illogical" combination of objects and styles in the paintings corresponds to similar effects in the poetry of Kruchenykh. But her commentary on Malevich, though it is perceptive, is not matched by a familiarity with Kruchsnykh's work. It may be that the principles of zaum' in language do not transfer to painting as easily as Malevich or Lodder assume. Her elaborate explanation of the phrase "Mlody Anglik" scrawled on the back of An Englishman in Moscow misses the obvious point that this is simply Polish for "young Englishman" (Malevich's parents spoke Polish at home). The remaining articles are all quite interesting and successful. Marjorie Perloffs careful comparison of Gertrude Stein's Tender Buttons (1914) with Duchamp's readymades of the same period illuminates many hidden connections (Stein professed not to be very interested in Duchamp's art), making the link between the two now seem inevitable. Willard Bohn provides an insightful, detailed analysis of the one figure poem by Catalan modernist Santiago Ru sin ol, "Retrat futurista" (1917), revealing it to be a minor masterpiece of political commentary. At the same time he provides us with a clear strategy for reading such works. Renée Riese Hubert gives us a fascinating, exhaustive analysis of Kandinsky's Klänge as a complex masterpiece of the modernist bookwork balanced between art and writing by one artist. This is coupled with a briefer commentary on Kokoschka's Die träumenden Knaben. What is especially pleasing in this model set of articles is the effort to give the chosen works close attention without immediately jumping to broad but unfounded conclusions. In fact, the lesson here is that commonplace views are off the mark in these cases. The collection ends with Anna Balakian's historical survey of the Paris journal Littérature (1919-1924) as a paradigm of the avant-garde. Her nuanced examination allows her to draw some striking comparisons with the avant-garde of the end of our century. Gerald J. Janecek University of Kentucky 120 Fall 1996 ...

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