Camacho c’est moi: Parodia social y géneros literarios en La tía Julia y el escribidor by Liliana Tiffert Wendorff (review)

The Latin Americanist, Spring 2007 names, and public ceremonies) as places of collective memory. Adrian A. Bantjes’sessay is a provocative interpretation of the problematic relationship of post-revolutionary governments and the Catholic Church concluding that ”The state failed to destroy local religion but succeeded in penetrating local communities” (153), promoting, ironically, a more secular society. Other excellent essays focus on health and education as well as on the place of indigenous populations and of road development in the new country. Tlie Eagle arzd tlic Virgiri is, then, a necessary book that will become an important reference for future works on modern Mexico and Latin America. R. Herncindez Rodrigucz Dcpartnicnt of Foreign Languages Soirtlicrri Coiiriecticu t State Urziziersity CAMACHO C‘EST MOI: PARODIA SOCIAL Y GENEROS LITERARIOS EN LATIA JULIA Y EL ESCRIBIDOR. BY LILIANATIFFERT WENDORFF. LIMA:EDITORIAL SAN MARCOS, 2006, P. 274, $14. The publication in 1977 of La fin lulia y cl escribidor not only consolidated the presence of humor -initiated with Pnntaledn y las visitadoras (1973)-in the works of Peruvian writer Mario Vargas Llosa, but also for the first time the author incurred in the realm of autobiography, as he made evident the story of various of his own experiences during his adolescence. The novel has been interpreted by critics mainly in these two registers, autobiography and humor, which are clearly differentiated in the structure of the novel through the alternation of the chapters that narrate the love story of Marito and Julia with those that reproduce Camacho’s outrageous scripts. Professor Liliana Tiffert Wendorff‘s study reveals and analyzes a very superior complexity in the construction of La tia ]din. The parodic aspect is shown as a dominant feature, not only in the grotesque fiction invented by the writer of soap operas, but also subtly in Marito’s own story. Ironically, in the novel, Camacho will become a decisive influence in the writing career of young Mario. One could say that the title of Wendorff‘s book is confusing. Perhaps it would have been better to give it the subtitle of “Social Parody and Parody of Literary Genres”, since the aspect of social criticism-constant in the works of Vargas Llosa-seems to occupy a secondary place within the novel, and therefore is also secondary in the analysis. That is, none of the possible objects of social caricature chosen by Vargas Llosa (police, Catholic Church, upper classes, sophisticated writers, forms of popular entertainment such as the soap opera and soccer, racism in Peru) escape the analytic eye of the author. Above all of them, however, the metaliterary aspect of La tia Juliahas a special relevance, with its reflection about writing, and how writing infuses different planes of reality: 1)the soap opera affects the lives of the characters; 2) the life of Camacho is reflected in his own creations; and 3) the experience and ideas Book Reviezus of Vargas Llosa are exposed in the whole novel. The metaliterary dimension articulates the study carried out by Wendorff, who dedicates the first two chapters to establishing the methodological bases of her work. On the one hand, these begin from the Bakhtinian concept of ”parody,” which is intrinsically tied to the simple notion of the novel and profoundly rooted in postmodernist aesthetics and criticism. On the other hand, the study about the relevance of La tia Julia within Vargas Llosa’s own production, and of its treatment by the critics, leads to another concept emerged from Vargas Llosa’s own literary theory, which is key to the interpretation carried out by Wendorff: the ”demons” of the novelist, that is, the obsessive fixations of the writer that, emerging from his personal experience, are present in a work to which he devotes himself totally. Parody and demons are key to the interpretation and analysis of L17 tin Julia in subsequent chapters, which are dedicated to the study of parody of different literary genres, the majority of them popular: radio soap opera, romance novel, detective or police novel, chivalry novel and autobiography. Wendorff presents solid documentation about the cliches (which we could also call ”poetics”)of each one of them. She also points out the overwhelming tendency in Spanish-American culture...