(review)

Abstract

MLR, 96. , 200I MLR, 96. , 200I a bit crushed, yet cannot help but think that the dry stridency of revolutionary commitment needed and deserved an adversaryin the culturalcold war arena, even if it was warts-and-allMundo Nuevo. UNIVERSITY OFABERDEEN FRANK MCQUADE A Synergyof Styles: Art and Artifact in Gabriel GarciaMarquez. By GLORIAJEANNE BODTORFCLARK. Lanham, Maryland, and Oxford: University Press of America. I999. iii + I47 pp. $35. It is a very unscholarlyapproach to a work of criticismto state that it does not look right, or it does notfeel right, but one is eventuallyjustified when it does not read right.The title and subtitleof Clark'sstudyaresnappyand euphonious, the chapter headingsare catchy and cleverlybalanced, the subjectis important,and the topic is quite interesting.And yet ... This book is a slim volume divided more or less uniformly into four chapters. Chapters I and 4 constitute the introduction and the conclusion, with Chapters 2 and 3 devoted to the exemplarynovels, Chronicle ofa DeathForetold and TheStory ofa Shipwrecked Sailor, respectively.Chapter , 'AnExplorationinto the BinaryNature of Writing', reads like a poorly revised dissertation. In an attempt to reconcile the confluence of literatureand fact, fantasy and reality, art and life, Clark gives us a history of representationfrom Plato and Aristotle, right up to the new critics like John Hospers, John Hellman and John Hollowell, the history of reporting and journalism, leading up to the New Journalism of Tom Wolfe, Truman Capote and Norman Mailer, and the non-fiction novel, for example In ColdBlood.All of this is meant to prepare the way for the treatment in Chapter 2 of Chronicle of a Death Foretold. This gives Clarkthe pretextfor discussingthe traditionof the news cronica in LatinAmerica, up throughcostumbristRomanticism (localcolour, sliceof life),and especially the prose works of modernista writers like Najera and Marti, which prefigure Garcia Marquez's novel. Because it narratesa succession of events and appears authentic, the chronicle is reputed to be more than journalism, and in Garcia Marquez's case is a work of literature which transcends mere reporting, through the author's use of artistic elements like symbolism, time, and the allembracing ,if difficultto define,concept of magical realism.Unfortunately,much of this chapter, like the one following, is devoted to plot summary, with occasional pointless forays into the history of twentieth-centuryLatin-Americannarrative. It shouldbe pointed out that GarciaMarquez has claimed that thisnovel is one of his most accomplishedworks.Butauthorsarenotoriouslyincompetent, andunentitled, to judge their own work, whilst critics tend to shy away from the 'emperor'snew clothes'approach,especiallywith regardto writersof canonical status. In Chapter 3, 'Factas Fiction: TheStory ofa Shipwrecked Sailor',Clarkdoes for the testimonio what she did for the crdnica in Chapter 2, with regard to its history and theory, from BernalDiaz del Castilloup to Miguel Barnet,with much repetitionof the New Journalism material. The episode of the Colombian shipwreckedsailor was duly reportedby Garcia Marquez asjournalism. Now we are expected to read the testimonio asliterature.As in Chapter 2, thereis much plot summary,surrounded by a rosary of quotations from the critics. Chapter 4, 'The Concurrence of Journalism and Literature',which is meant to provide closure, is more or less a restatement of the material provided in the previous chapters on the reporter/ journalist, fact/fiction, journalism with literary technique, mimesis, reality, and magical realism,not fantasy,as Garcia Marquez insists,though Clarkseems to use the termsinterchangeably.Inherpursuitof a neat ending,Clarkresortsto repetition a bit crushed, yet cannot help but think that the dry stridency of revolutionary commitment needed and deserved an adversaryin the culturalcold war arena, even if it was warts-and-allMundo Nuevo. UNIVERSITY OFABERDEEN FRANK MCQUADE A Synergyof Styles: Art and Artifact in Gabriel GarciaMarquez. By GLORIAJEANNE BODTORFCLARK. Lanham, Maryland, and Oxford: University Press of America. I999. iii + I47 pp. $35. It is a very unscholarlyapproach to a work of criticismto state that it does not look right, or it does notfeel right, but one is eventuallyjustified when it does not read right.The title and subtitleof Clark'sstudyaresnappyand euphonious, the chapter headingsare catchy and cleverlybalanced, the subjectis important,and the topic is quite interesting.And yet ... This book is a slim volume divided more or less uniformly into four chapters. Chapters I and 4 constitute the introduction...