Under the Fifth Sun: Latino Literature from California (review)

Arizona Journal of Hispanic Cultural Studies 249 While the sum of the book seems less useful than the individual parts, the parts themselves most often are superb. The volume is divided into three sections ("Since Cervantes;" "The nineteenth century;" "The twentieth century"), with essays in each of the sections offering either a historical overview or thematic approach to the novel. Equally important , the essays are framed by sound theoretical perspectives that give them standing as highly usable and engaging pieces of literary criticism beyond the companion status that they bear through editorial intention. Several of the authors focus on facets of the novel to which they have previously contributed foundational understanding: thus, for example, Noël Valis writes intelligently on decadence at the turn of the century focusing largely on Valle-Inclán; Anthony Close links the Quijote to the picaresque, and then both to the modern novel; Harriet Turner illustrates how La Regenta and Fortunata y Jacinta look to the past for inspiration while serving as a guide to future turns in the novel; Lou Charnon-Deutsch explores gender and writing in the nineteenth century; Roberta Johnson examines the dominance of philosophical thought in the new aesthetics of the early twentieth century. In addition, Brad Epps's understanding of complex texts in contemporary Spain (e.g., Benet and Goytisolo), Isolina Ballesteros linking of the novel and film in Socialist Spain (1982-1995), and Randolph Pope's overview of novelists wriring about writing, stand as thoughtful and original reflections on the novel and how it has been understood during the past three decades. The Companion displays many common components of overview volumes: a bibliography of primary works, suggestions for further reading, a detailed index, and a chronology of events. The latter constitutes twenty-three pages and covers significant events from 1140 to 2002, though selections sometimes appear quirky (e.g., 1901: First motorcycles; 1960: Laser device fully developed; 1974: "Streaker" craze). The core of rhe book remains the essays , however, which individually and collectively are always discerning, and often coruscating pieces of literary criticism. David K. Herzberger University of Connecticut Under the Fifth Sun: Latino Literature from California Heyday Books, 2002 Edited by Rick Heide In this anthology the editor compiled impressive amounts of narratives which include essays, poems, short stories, testimonials, plays and excerpts from novels wrirren by Chicano/a and Latino/a authors from California. Also included with their own perspectives about California issues, are Latino/a and non Latino authors from different parts of the United States, as well as some authors from Latin America and Europe. This diversity of voices indicates the importance of California as a hisrorical place of cultural intersections, where individuals blur cultural borders and create diasporic and amalgamated cultural spaces, as they reformulate and reinscribe their personal experiences. The anrhology is divided into nine sections and includes a variety of intergenerational authors with diverse points ofview that create links across the centuries with the voices of Spanish, Californian, Mexican, Chicano and Latino individuals who have contributed to California's rich cultural past. In the first section titled "Arriving," the native Californian voices of Chicanos/as intermix with narrative voices from Latin America. In these intersecting spaces, the diverse voices retell their experiences from within the confinements of the barrio and bilingual communities; in many instances these audiors accentuate the conflicting past between the subaltern and dominant society. In an excerpt from her novel Pauk, recent California resident Isabel Allende reflects on her journey as a Chilean who escaped tyranny in her homeland and has formed a place of her own in California. 250 Arizona Journal of Hispanic Cultural Studies In the following section, "Between Cultures ," the celebrated Chicana Gloria Anzaldúa initiates this section with a poem titled: "Cuyamaca ." The poetic voice of this Chicana reaches out to a Native American woman in solidarity: Under the encina tree I sat. She emerged out of the smooth amber flesh] of the manzanita, in sandals of woven yucca, skin polished bronze by the sun she appeared with a tattoo on her arm pricked by cactus thorns ground charcoal rubbed on the wound. (64) One of the strong points of this anthology pertains to the...