Postethnic Narrative Criticism: Magicorealism in Oscar "Zeta" Acosta, Ana Castillo, Julie Dash, Hanif Kureishi, and Salman Rusdie (review)

Arizona fournal of Hispanic Cultural Studies 313 text. Simultaneously, focal images changed from a narrow view to a larger scope of surveillance. Accordingly , this transformation attests that the initial desire for classifying people was an ambiguous construct more illusory than real. Hence, the title of the book Imagining Identity in New Spain symbolizes the dreams of the colonial power for maintaining its control in the colony through the construction of the plebeian of New Spain in the Arts. In the fourth and the fifth chapters, Cabrera explores the representation of the human body in the early-nineteenth century in literature and painting. At the beginning of the new century the production of portraiture would continue while the casta genre would cease due to the new political context: Independence. Additionally, the renewal of the Academy of Fine Arts of San Carlos altered the physical envisioning of the subject, promoting a metaphorical body for republican interests. The former corporeal description of calidadwas superceded by a discourse associated with cultural and physical geography. In brief, the power of authorities to control the colonial subject was illusionary and vacillating . Casta paintings and portraiture attempted to fix and stabilize colonial identity, but this practice shifted through time to reflect increasing attempts of regulation and renovation. Cabrera concludes that the intensification of the control of bodies and spaces reveals that indeed these were more imagined and unstable than their visual bindings. This research is helpful for understanding the strategies of the colonial power for mainraining the system in New Spain; however, some readers might miss important information about the artistic principles of the period, the concept ofart at that time or its social function. This study could have been enriched with some background regarding the aesthetical and social criteria of eighteenth -century painting in Spain or New Spain. In reading this book, one may get the impression that, based on an authoritarian regime, the artists would have created their own style without considering the historical framework. Certainly, the political context is a decisive element in the production of the arts, however. It is equally important to first identify the influence of diat ideology on an aesrhetic movement and then to a particular set of paintings. In addition, one final comment is in order: if these paintings respond to European norms of art, we must ask: Who was meant to see and actually who saw these pictures? Most of the casta paintings are currendy housed outside Mexico (i.e.: Private Collection, Breamore House, England; Museo de América, Madrid); therefore, one wonders what the communicative situation was between the painting and the viewer. The reader of this book cannot know whether the Spaniard or the New Spain population was the ideal addressee of these cultural artifacts. In consequence, it is difficult to know if the casta series was an artistic manifestation for reaffirming Spanish beliefs of racial purity in the Peninsula or if it was intended to construct the colonial subject of New Spain in America. Vania Barraza Toledo The University of Arizona Postethnic Narrative Criticism: Magicorealüm in Oscar "Zeta" Acostó, Ana Castillo, Julie Dash, HanifKureishi, and Salman Rusdie University of Texas Press, 2003 By Fredrick Luis Aldama The reaction of anyone familiar with Latin American literature and criticism to this book might be, "why do we need another study on magical realism?" This is especially so after Lois Parkinson Zamora and Wendy Faris's recent and comprehensive anthology of essays. In addition to dieir book there are also recent well-written, wellinformed articles by Alberto Moreiras and Michael Valdez Moses. Aldama attempts to add somediing new to the discussion without really taking any of the most recent, most powerful critics to task though he does mention them in passing. In the process he does provoke some interesting thoughts. Aldama's first innovation is to return to Seymour Mentons formalist definition of magical realism. Rather than simply use the previous term he decides to come up with the new words magicoreal 314 Arizona Journal of Hispanic Cultural Studies for written texts and magicoreel for film. His reason for doing this is to make sure readers and critics do not confuse the literary and the, as he...