Magical Realism and the History of the Emotions in Latin America by Jerónimo Arellano (review)

Book Reviews “transnational diaspora communities,” which receives only brief mention here (xxiii). Similarly, the book’s closing lines observe that “young Koreans in South America” are striving to be “bridge-builders” between these countries and regions (150–151), though this assertion is left largely unexplored. To be sure, Yoon brings much to the table through his previous work on Korean diaspora communities in North America and the original research that he conducted in both of the cities under consideration, as well as in South Korea itself. Yet while a non-specialist’s interest in Latin America is naturally to be welcomed, unfortunately his lack of regional background or language skills makes itself evident. Examples include (admittedly) scarce engagement with Latin American sources and an insufficiently nuanced understanding of race and racial categories in the region, which he reports uncritically through census figures without noting the periodic fluidity of these categories or how they are intricately linked to class. His related assertion that “Perhaps Brazil is more open, inclusive, and less color conscious than Argentina” (140) reflects both this lack of nuance and a tendency to couch arguments in overly broad and speculative language. Nevertheless, Global Pulls merits praise for its unprecedented effort to raise Global North awareness concerning Korean-Latin Americans, a group that is “dim in the minds” even “of most Koreans” (xix). Indeed, the book, and particularly the third chapter, which analyzes the trajectory of “Korean Immigration to South America,” would be a welcome addition to syllabi that seek to either bring Latin America into conversations about immigration , diasporas, and transnationalism, or paint a more multicultural picture of the region. Kevin Funk Department of Political Science & Center for Latin American Studies University of Florida MAGICAL REALISM AND THE HISTORY OF THE EMOTIONS IN LATIN AMERICA. By Jerónimo Arellano. Lewisburg: Bucknell University Press, 2015, p. 244, $80.00. Jerónimo Arellano’s innovative monograph Magical Realism and the History of the Emotions in Latin America offers a critical analysis of the reiterations of wonder and marvel in Latin American narrative. It looks at the evolution of the perceptions of wonder across space and time, comparing the depictions of the marvelous and the ordinary in the chronicles of the conquest and discovery of America and the literary production of the twentieth century magical realism. The monograph offers an interdisciplinary approach to the topic, bringing together literary theory and theory of affect, applied to the colonial and postcolonial discourse. Arellano problematizes the dichotomy of wonder and fear and the marvelous and the 309 The Latin Americanist, June 2016 ordinary, reflecting on the private and public perceptions of these phenomena as a “springboard for fictional fabulization” of Latin American self (xx). The study offers a reassessment of the history of lo real maravilloso (the marvelous real) through its comparison to the historical evolvement of the early Wunderkammer, or cabinet of wonders. Its popularity and decline echoed the “history of disenchantment and reenchantment with the wonder” (27) of the New World, allowing for reconceptualization of the iconic perception of magical realism. The monograph is organized into two parts preceded by an introduction that sets the theoretical frame for the analysis of wonder in Latin America. The introduction focuses on wonder’s relation to affectivity and emotions as vessels that carry it across space and time. Extrapolating from the effects of the rise and fall of the popularity of Wunderkammer, Arellano argues that the recursive history of wonder in Latin America results in the rebirth of lo real maravilloso of the Americas (xix) in the twentieth-century. He further argues for the territorialization of the parts of this binary opposition, in line with the orientalist theory, pointing out the traditional association of the magical with nonWestern realms, while the “modern Western culture is inherently and stubbornly devoid of enchantment” (xx). Arellano invites his reader to reevaluate these propositions for the purpose of reconceptualization of magical realism. Following these premises, the first part of the monograph focuses on the iterations of wonder in the early modern Europe and the early colonial Latin America. It examines the history of the affective and emotional impact of Wunderkammer, a type of “feel tank” (19), on the collective...