Generation X Rocks. Contemporary Peninsular Fiction, Film, and Rock Culture (review)

de toda su poesía” (175). Romera Castillo presenta un yo autobiográfico distinto , por ser el que entrevé en las páginas del tercer Diario de la mujer del poeta, Zenobia Camprubí. Mi resumen de los ensayos de Pasión de mi vida muestra la variedad, novedad y valor de los enfoques que contiene; se trata entonces de un libro de alto valor para los estudiosos de la obra del poeta de Moguer tanto como de la poesía del siglo XX en general. MARÍA A. SALGADO The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill Generation X Rocks. Contemporary Peninsular Fiction, Film, and Rock Culture . Edited by Christine Henseler and Randolph D. Pope. Nashville: Vanderbilt UP., 2007. During the 1990s, Generation X writers took the Spanish public by surprise using an imagery of excess and a fast pace prose that reflected the turbulent period Spain was going through at the time. The volume edited by Christine Henseler and Randolph D. Pope traces the origins of this literary trend on both sides of the Atlantic and analyzes the influence of Generation X authors on the younger generations. Three essays talk about the similarities between Generation X writers and the previous tradition, both American and Spanish. These are “Can anyone rock like we do?,” “Not your father’s rock and roll,” and “Realism on the Rocks in the Generational Novel.” The first one, by Samuel Amago, speculates that some of the principles of Generation X authors can be found in the previous Spanish literary tradition. He focuses on the use of controlled substances in Juan José Millás’ La soledad era esto and Carlos Cañeque’s Quién to show that nihilism, marginalization, the search for personal authenticity, and the abuse of drugs and alcohol were emerging topics in Spanish literature as early as 1950. In a similar way, Matthey J. Marr in “Not your father’s rock and roll” traces what could be considered the real source for later American Generation X writers in The Sun Also Rises by Ernest Hemingway. He compares this novel to Historias del Kronen by José Ángel Mañas and finds that “both novels embrace excessive drinking and drug use as devices that contribute stylistically to a kind of accelerated narrative rhythm” (128). On the other hand, although the term Generation X has lost strength among literary circles, the aesthetics of this movement is still alive in the works of more contemporary authors like Antonio Muñoz Molina and Manuel Rivas. This is the argument presented by Elizabeth Scarlett in “Not your father ’s rock and roll,” when she asserts that some of the works of these writers include themes and make use of a style that resembles those of Generation X Reseñas 93 authors. This is especially noticeable in Rivas’ “El mister & Iron Maiden” which combines “soccer and heavy metal as popular aspects of visual culture that form a hyperreality” (101) for the young protagonist. Also, in “Watching, Wanting, and the Generation X Soundtrack of Gabriela Bustelo’s Veo, veo,” Nina Molinaro presents an interesting update on Generation X authors by analyzing the role of a female protagonist in search for herself. The radical difference between Bustelo and her male colleagues lies in the fact that “the text embeds the peripatetic journey of Vania Barcia within an elaborated thread that propels the plot forward and resists narrative closure” (204). However, behind the passive attitude that Generation X texts depicts, there is a strong criticism of modern society. Authors like Ray Loriga frequently face the reader with a harsh reality intended, for instance, to denounce “TV’s superficiality and the erroneous sense of community it creates” (170). This is what can be inferred from Kathryn Everly’s “Television and the Power of Image in Caídos del cielo and La pistola de mi hermano by Ray Loriga.” Here she affirms that the media in Loriga’s novels is often used “to alienate and corrupt young people” (180). Loriga, the unofficial leader of the Spanish Generation X, is also the subject of two other essays in this volume. The first one, “Reckless Driving: Speed, Mobility, and Transgression,” by Jorge Pérez, introduces a new...