Transatlantic Correspondence: Modernity, Epistolarity, and Literature in Spain and Spanish America, 1898–1992 by José L. Venegas (review)

In this carefully researched study, entitled Transatlantic Correspondence: Modernity, Epistolarity, and Literature in Spain and Spanish America, 1898–1992, José Venegas appeals to scholars and readers with specialized background knowledge in the field of modern Hispanic transatlantic correspondence. The author begins each chapter with a descriptive analysis of specific epistolary works and then expands to include related literary and theoretical criticism in order to build toward an analysis of various cultural and political issues. The concluding arguments found at the end of every chapter should prove to be valuable to scholars of epistolary and cultural studies.

The introductory chapter provides a useful and well-developed historiographical presentation of relevant criticism that includes references to some of the most important critics in modern literary studies including Jacques Derrida, Jürgen Habermas, Walter Mignolo, Paul de Man, and Fredric Jameson. Equally important, this chapter thoroughly describes cultural Eurocentric notions concerning Hispanism supported mainly by Miguel de Unamuno and Pedro Salinas. The chapter also yields significant evidence supporting the use of the epistolary genre as a subversive antidogmatic tool incorporating examples that include the works of Benito Jerónimo Feijoo, José Cadalso, and Juan Valera in Spain, and elsewhere, the epistolary representations of Voltaire, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Pierre Choderlos de Laclos, Domingo Faustino Sarmiento, and Rubén Darío.

In Chapter 1, “Epistolarity and the Rhetoric of Hispanism,” Venegas produces a careful examination of works authored by Unamuno and, to a lesser extent, writings of Ángel Rama y Alberto María Carreño, focusing on how their texts attempt to configure a transatlantic Hispanism and a cohesive Hispanic self. After providing this examination, Venegas concludes that the epistolary form can be a rhetorical strategy to encompass difference and oppression within the context of colonial discourse; simultaneously, this literary form was used by Unamuno to transform the political divisions created by the Spanish American independence movements into textual matter that could be easily assimilated to a common Hispanic culture. Noteworthy substantial analysis of Unamuno’s discourse is offered in this chapter for readers interested in the intertextual connections between Unamuno and other notable Hispanic writers.

Chapter 2, “Quixotic Correspondence,” gives a detailed description of how Salinas as well as other exiled Spaniard authors such as Paulino Masip, José Gaos, and Américo Castro used letters to substantiate their proposal to conceptualize Spanish America as an extension and a continuation of a Spanish cultural unity and to protect values associated with Spanish civilization that were threatened by the excessive materialism, rationalism, and individualism of North American modernity. In addition to conferring a detailed portrayal of the perspectives of the Spaniard authors analyzed, the chapter could be further developed by either incorporating additional criticism of such perspectives or enlarging the selection of epistolary writings chosen for analysis.

Chapter 3, “Postal Insurgency,” provides a succinct outline of the struggles of the postal system in Mexico after the Mexican Revolution and successfully sustains that letter writing is often transformed into a resistance to abusive structures of power. Additionally, in chapter 4, “Transatlantic Transitions,” Venegas effectively supports his assertion that epistolarity is used as a guide to analyze the impact of dictatorial rule across the Hispanic world and that this form has served as a response to this rule and has contributed to the return to transnational modern democracy.

Chapter 5, “Failed Deliveries,” examines the continuity of the discourse that attempts to configure a transatlantic Hispanic unity as portrayed in the works of Gabriel García Márquez. The chapter focuses on how the Colombian Nobel laureate uses the motif of the letter to revisit the transatlantic bonds between Spain and Latin America and to elucidate cultural values traditionally associated with Spanish civilization. While considering the use of epistolarity in El amor en los tiempos del cólera and El general en su laberinto, Venegas provides a reading of these novels as the fictional manifestations of...