Satire in Colonial Spanish America by Robert Louis Jackson (review)

Book Reviews207 my point of view, much the same could be said of several of the articles in the book. Jackson's introductory comments, however, clarify how the given article deepens our understanding of Chekhov, and in some cases these editiorial remarks themselves add a further dimension of understanding. The first section, "About Chekhov," begins with Chekhov's thumbnail autobiographical sketch (an excerpt from a letter responding to a publisher's request) and a slightly abridged translation of Bunin's "In Memory of Chekhov." The inclusion of this material is a nice touch; it reinforces the image of Chekhov as both uncompromising artist and gentle humanist, an image that Jackson emphasizes in his introduction; and the ironic and reticent modesty of Chekhov's half-page "autobiography" contrasts nicely with the encomiastic tone of Bunin's tribute. The rest of "About Chekhov" consists of two articles that focus more on aspects of Chekhov's psyche, as reflected in some of his works and letters, than on his art. The critical essays embrace almost the whole chronological range of Chekhov's works, from one of his earliest "serious" stories, the 1883 story "V more" (At Sea), to his next-to-last completed story, "Arkhierei" (The Bishop, 1902). With one exception, Marena Senderovich's "Chekhov's Name Drama," the essays are each devoted to the explication of a single work, with the primary focus on Chekhov's short stories: only one of his longer prose fiction works is analyzed ("The Duel"), and two articles treat the play Uncle Vanya. The overall quality of scholarship and of editing is high; one somewhat troubling aspect is the uneven quality of the translations from the Russian. To cite only the most egregious errors: one mistranslation attributes a book to Chekhov that he never wrote, Northern Flowers—actually the title of a miscellany to which Chekhov contributed (28); another reverses Chekhov's meaning; the Russian for "to attack from ambush" is translated "to escape ambush" (40). There are not many misprints, but an oversight in a footnote attributes the translation of Lermontov's A Hero ofOur Time to Vladimir and Nicholas Nabokov (231), instead of Vladimir and Dmitri; and in an unfortunate error in composition in the "Notes on Contributors" (258), Laurence Senelick's name is left out and the information on him follows the name of Andrew Durkin, whose information is in turn omitted. But these are minor cavils, and do not detract seriously from the considerable value of this useful volume of Chekhov scholarship. EARL SAMPSON University of Colorado at Boulder JULIE GREER JOHNSON. Satire in Colonial Spanish America. Austin: University ofTexas Press, 1993. 224 p. In her book Satire in Colonial Spanish America, Julie Greer Johnson presents a comprehensive analysis of the satire and satiric forms in the New 208Rocky Mountain Review World by tracing their origin and development from the sixteenth through the eighteenth centuries. The author discusses satire and its various modes—from the multiple parody to the grotesque and macabre—as discursive practices which serve to scrutinize and challenge peninsular hegemony in the colonies. Satire was especially useful to represent the progressive erosion of viceregal societies vis-à-vis the collapse of established hierarchies. This literary genre became the preferred tool of Creoles who denounced their political marginalization at the same time that they heightened America's nationalist consciousness. Johnson's study examines various discourses such as Cristóbal de Llerena's satiric Entremés (1588), which juxtaposes Columbus's utopie vision of the Caribbean with the decline of Santo Domingo a hundred years after. Llerena's radical use of the grotesque allows him to rewrite both history and myth and turn them into a tragedy of absurdity. In the same spirit, Mateo Rosas de Oquendo's "Sátira a las cosas que pasan en el Pirú, año de 1598" ("Satire about the Things That Happen in Peru in 1598") criticizes postconquest Peruvian society as the site of debauchery and corruption. By demythologizing historical and military leaders, Oquendo exposes Spanish heroic history as a story of deception. His poem "Victoria naval peruntina" ("Peruvian Naval Victory") depicts the ugliness and hyposcrisy of Lima's social class system, where money is the only...