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jecting or deforming reality is also discussed in relation to specific texts by each of these authors. In the final chapter, which also serves as the conclusion to this work, the author establishes that despite geographical transplantation and the trauma of exile, there is a sense coherency when the exile is successful in incorporating the new into the old. In this chapter, the author supplies manyexamples ofexiles who chose to remain in France after going back to their country oforigin, illustrating "the irreconcilability and mutual need ofseparation and connection" (144). Through theeight chapters that constitute this work, based in theoretical analysis and illustrated with pertinentexamples from LatinAmerican writers, Kaminsky maintains the reader's interest as she addresses specific issues surrounding the question ofwriting in exile.The author's concern for clarityand the thematic links that she establishes between the different chapters further enhance the author's work. Kaminsky establishes a balance between theoryand concreteexamples, thus addressingglobal issues linked to specificwritings.True to the author's intentions, the text provides a valuable analysis ofthewriting ofexiles, from exile to diaspora. This thematic examination ofimportant literary texts, stemming from particular political, geographic, and social contexts, will definitely contribute to broadening the understanding of Latin American writers to an English-speaking public. ^ Mary P. Nichols. Reconstructing Woody:Art, Love, andLife in the Films ofWoodyAllen. Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield, 1998. 255p. Douglas W. Reitinger University op Wyominc Mary P. Nichols' Reconstructing Woody: Art, Love, and Life in the Films ofWoody Allen is a text full ofvaluable insights, especially in the way it examines the philosophical natureofa number ofWoodyAllen's films. Nichols' textoffers the reader a strong foundation on which to build an understanding ofAllen and his work. Reconstructing Woody is structured so that each offourteen chapters is devoted to a different film in much ofthe Allen corpus. (Unfortunately, however, one of my personal favorites, an early Woody Allen comedy, LoveandDeath, is left out of Nichols' study.) Most of the chapters in Nichols' text adopt a New Critical approach: a strong close reading ofthe film is offered, often followed with a discussion ofAllen's use of analogues and homages that can be found firmly fixed within the traditions ofliterature and philosophy. Chapters analyzingSophocles's Oedipus the King in its relationship to Mighty Aphrodite and insights into how Plato's "Allegory ofthe Cave" is played out in StardustMemories are examples of Nichols' greatest strength. Nichols is able, with obvious ease, to articulate and SPRING 2000 * ROCKY MOUNTAIN REVIEW Ir 121 explain the nuances ofAllen's work in its allusive relationship not only with the classical texts mentioned above, but she is also able to find connections to modern thinkers. In her illuminating discussion ofAllen's films, Nichols also employs such twentieth-century minds as Sigmund Freud (specifically, Civilization andIts Discontents and Wit and Its ReUtion to the Unconscious), as well as a number of exchanges on Jean Paul Sartre's philosophy ofexistentialism. That being said, though, Nichols' text is definitely a work ofauteurism, as the title fittinglysuggests. A minimal amount offilm theoryofany other type is found here, nor is an in-depth discussion of cinematic techniques offered, although clearly neither is the text's rhetorical goal. In the course of using this method of film criticism, Nichols often confines her approach to what reviewers and critics in the popular press have to say about Allen and his work (for instance, Roger Ebert is a staple). Allen Bloom also weighs in with The CUsing ofthe American Mind(l987), as does Susan SontagwithAgainst Interpretation (1961), but these are as close to what academic poststructuralist film study critics may expect. Another element that may jar many contemporary film critics is Nichols' extensive use ofwhat Allen says about his own work. The artist's words about his or her work are one valid avenue to gain an understanding ofthatwork, yet some critics may find this text to contain an overabundance ofAllen's interpretation ofhis art. Reading Nichols' Reconstructing Woodysparked me to make the highly unlikely mental association between WoodyAllen and Ernest Hemingway, two artists who have litde in common in terms oftheir thematic approaches to their art, or, for that matter, to their approaches to their lives. Yet both Allen and Hemingway...

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