¡Exacto!: A Practical Guide to Spanish Grammar by Ane Ortega, et al (review)

Abstract

808 Reviews overall interpretation of this unusual author and has merely emphasized the need for a comprehensive study relating the multiple fields of Manganelli's creative activity. Grazia Menechella's II felice vanverare constitutes a bold and extremely welcome attempt to bridge this gap in recent scholarship. In the introduction to her volume the author states her aim of analysing Manganelli's works in the light of Linda Hutcheon's and Guido Almansi's definitions of irony and parody. Fortunately, her study achieves much more than that. Chapter i sets out with a helpful summary of Manganelli's biography and moves on to some reflections on the classificatory schemes that have been applied to his writings. In this context, Menechella's discussion of critical cate? gories such as 'postmodernism' and 'neo-baroque' reveals an exceptional awareness of both Italian and North American scholarly debates as well as a talent for indicating the best results of each critical tradition. Chapter 2 gives a generic account of Manganelli's involvement with the Gruppo 63 and draws attention to rare sources such as the firstissue of the Roman periodical Grammatica. Additionally, the chapter re-presents Menechella's analysis of Manganelli's debates with Moravia, firstpub? lished as an article in 1993. Chapter 3 concentrates on Manganelli's later works and traces the thematic and stylistic influences of Baroque literature, which are particu? larly evident in Manganelli's treatment of the themes of love and death and in the metamorphoses of subject and landscape recurring in many of his texts. Next follows a chapter addressing Manganelli's provocative denial of genre categories: Centuria and Discorso delVombra and dello stemma are analysed by Menechella as complex and contradictory literary rewritings designed to challenge dominant reading conven? tions. The volume's final chapters focus on two less evident but nevertheless crucial aspects of Manganelli's creative production. Chapter 5 is dedicated to Manganelli's travel writings and offersstimulating points of comparison between his reflections on India and China and those of other travel writers, including Pasolini, Moravia, and Tabucchi. Finally, Chapter 6 comments on Manganelli's ambiguous attitude towards the publishing industry and discusses his playful use of paratextual features. The wide range of Menechella's concerns as well as the distinctive focus and depth of her single analyses mark this volume as one of the best contributions to Manganelli scholarship to date. Readers in search of a comprehensive assessment of Manganelli's works and ideas might nevertheless find it difficultto orient themselves among the diverse information provided by Menechella and might wish for a more explicit in? troduction which clearly defined the relation between the book's differentsections. As it stands, the overall structure of the volume fails to match the great clarity of its parts. Should Menechella, arguably one of Manganelli's most articulate and precise critics, have momentarily yielded to the temptation of imitating the Roman writer's magmatic and diffuse erudition? SCUOLANORMALESUPERIOREDI PlSA FLORIANMUSSGNUG jExacto!: A Practical Guide to Spanish Grammar. By Ane Ortega, Tita Beaven, Cecilia Garrido, and Sean Scrivener. London: Arnold. 2002. xix + 260 pp. ?12.99 (pbk). ISBN 9-340-76309-4. The title of this grammar book, written by members ofthe Spanish Programme at the Open University, encapsulates simply and directly its aims: accuracy and precision. It is subdivided into six principal areas as follows: a general introduction; a glossary; twenty-five units containing grammatical concepts; an appendix; an index of gram? matical points in approximately fortypages; and the key to the exercises. The gram? matical concepts section is by farthe largest, running to some 219 pages. It contains visually appealing explanations and tables, as well as exercises set at differentlevels of MLR, 99.3, 2004 809 difnculty.The examples consist ofauthentic journalistic and literarydiscourse in both European and American Spanish. The glossary contains definitions of grammatical concepts in both Spanish and English, the definitions being complemented by illustrative sentences in Spanish that are translated into English. This section is one of the most helpful and challenging ofthe book foruniversity-level students of Spanish. If one compares this book with the traditional Spanish grammar, the most inno? vative sections are the eight units dedicated to verbs and related...