Woman as Myth and Metaphor in Latin American Literature ed. by Carmelo Virgillo and Naomi Lindstrom (review)

120Rocky Mountain Review nized; for instance, the published script of Cría cuervos, Marcel Oms' book Carlos Saura (Paris: Edilig, 1981), and Gail Bartholomew's "The Development of Carlos Saura" (The Journal ofthe University Film and Video Association 35.3 [1983]: 15-33). Though the film journals Cine cubano and Positif have devoted many articles to Saura, Schwartz's bibliography lists only one entry for Positif and none for Cine cubano. Katherine S. Kovac's important piece "Loss and Recuperation in The Garden ofDelights" is listed in the bibliography as unpublished in spite of the fact that it appeared in the journal Ciné-Tracts (4 [Fall 1981]: 45-54). In his essays, Schwartz offers readers useful biographical and critical information that he has culled from his many interviews with directors and from press books and other limited-circulation printed material. Each descriptive-critical essay provides an introduction to a director's work; the essays do not break new interpretive ground. Unfortunately, these essays have many serious weaknesses. The structure and style of films are frequently slighted as the author focuses his attention on plot, character, and theme. Schwartz follows the auteurist critical approach, but his "profiles" often fail to give readers a clear idea of the distinctive stylistic features and thematic concerns characterizing the oeuvre of a given auteur. The author casts doubt on his credentials as a critic when he evaluates Vicente Aranda's films after admitting that he has not seen them (209-1 1). A failure to see José María Gutiérrez' ¡Arriba Hazaña! must account for Schwartz's classification of this fiction feature as a documentary (217). The author relies too much on other critical opinion (duly footnoted) with the unhappy result that some discussions (e.g. , treatment of El espíritu de la colmena) become little more than the loosely connected critical comments of others. Inconsistencies, awkwardness, and lack of precision and clarity mar the prose and severely limit the usefulness of the book. On page 115 Schwartz describes Habla, mudita as an apprentice film not to be taken too seriously; but on page 1 16 the author discusses the film's beautiful cinematography, impeccable acting, and break with the conventions of film narration. Schwartz several times refers to Manuel Gutiérrez Aragón's "baroque" style without ever clearly identifying and characterizing the baroque features of that style. On page 166, Carlos Saura is described as follows: "Like Buñuel, he is continually sought after for interviews, is still productive. ..." Schwartz's following sentence correctly notes in passing that Buñuel is deceased. The appearance of an English-language reference work on contemporary Spanish cinema is timely, and Spanish Film Directors (1950-1985) does bring together in easily accessible fashion a considerable amount of useful information. Nevertheless, it is regrettable that Scarecrow Press rushed this book into print without the benefit of sorely needed editorial revision and rewriting. DENNIS WEST University of Idaho CARMELO VIRGILLO and NAOMI LINDSTROM, eds. Woman as Myth and Metaphor in Latin American Literature. Columbia: University of Missouri Press, 1985. 199 p. Woman asMyth andMetaphor presents in an organized and coherent fashion critical studies about the mythical representation of woman in contemporary Latin American Book Reviews121 literature. The introduction, written by the editors, shows a deep knowledge of the book's main subject: an adequate analysis of myth and metaphor considered as designations that oppose the notion of a literal transcription of reality. Their interpretive scheme moves away from the limiting criteria that unify woman's mythical representation with sexual stereotypes. As Kate Millett and Simone de Beauvoir have shown, this type of reductionist interpretation has been for the most part damaging to the female image. Virgilio and Lindstrom discuss the development of myth in its relationship with literature and offer a brief evaluation of the several theoretical critics they mention (Northrop Frye, Leslie Fiedler, Roland Barthes). The authors explain that reinterpretations of myth go back to the last twenty or thirty years and that many disciplines such as philosophy, religion, anthropology, literary criticism, psychoanalysis, and linguistics have contributed to the understanding and re-evaluation of myth in contemporary literature. In Latin America, several studies (Romano, Dorfman, Graciela...