The Usable Past: The Imagination of History in Recent Fiction of the Americas by Lois Parkinson Zamora (review)

Abstract

YES, 31, 2001 YES, 31, 2001 let alone designed and built it for that purpose. Using Herderian discourse of Romantic nationalism (Kampf, Reinheit; Volk; Heimat;Vaterland; Urvolk all occur) does not necessarilysettle the question that at the end of Kelsall's book still needs to be answered:Was it 'Jefferson,in the new world, who [... ] discovered romanticism for Europe' (p. I64), orwas it Kelsall,in the old world,who discoveredJeffersonfor romanticism? UNIVERSITY OF GRONINGEN W. M. VERHOEVEN TheUsablePast. TheImagination of Historyin RecentFictionof theAmericas.By Lois PARKINSON ZAMORA. Cambridge, New York, and Melbourne: Cambridge University Press. I998. xiii + 257 pp. ?37.50; $59-95. Reading new fiction from the United States and Latin America together has been an especially good idea, ever since Jorge Luis Borges graced classic American authorswith his attention and writerssuch asJohn Barthand Robert Coover began reading and critiquingMagic Realism. Some say the key event was Kurt Vonnegut and Jose Donso sharing office space in 1966 as teachers at the University of Iowa Writers Workshop. In the last three decades fiction from the two Americas has addressed similar themes, reaching sometimes different conclusions but similarly devoted to irrealistictechniques. The move of US writerstowardsmore innovative techniqueswas exceptionallynoteworthy;if Barth,Coover, and Vonnegut are to be believed, it was the LatinAmerican example thatpaved the way. In The UsablePast Lois Parkinson Zamora compares and contrasts these two literatures on the basis of how their authors respond to the problem of history. History itself is problematic because of the once-colonial status, and the major difference is that while Latin American developments have been inclusive of a broad range of times and cultures, the dominant US mode has been one of exclusiveness. Zamora finds an exception in the 'buried histories' (p. II) drawn upon by various minority writers, Leslie Marmon Silko, Maxine Hong Kingston, and Toni Morrisonmost prominent among them. She also admiresthe 'discontinuous narrativestructures'used by SandraCisnerosto articulate'multiculturallayers of historyand myth' (pp. 163-64). But for the most partwritersnorth of the border remain driven by the combination of transcendentalromanticism and nineteenthcenturyGerman idealismthatforeseesa national manifestdestiny. When Zamora contraststhe work of Carlos Fuentes with that of Willa Cather, it is obvious how the former writer sees the past as immensely more problematic;in similar manner, her pairing of Borges with Nathaniel Hawthorne privileges the Argentinewriter'sunderstandingof how historyis created.It iswhen the criticlooks for examples among US contemporaries that her argumentsweaken, not because of any faultof theirown, but because her paradigmis unnecessarilylimited. Forher examples of the synchronic and the fragmentaryamong Latin American fictions, Zamora's choices are the best, but for US texts she prefers those critic Linda Hutcheon has typified as 'historiographicmetafiction'. The first half of this term suits Zamora's theme, but limiting recent innovations to what can be called metafictive (fiction whose subject is its own fictionality)omits the work of Barth, Coover, and Vonnegut, three of the writersmost influenced by what commentators called the boom in Latin American fiction. Instead, her most recent in-depth example of what non-minority writers are doing is William Goyen's TheHouseof Breath.Had Zamora looked beyond Hutcheon's metafictive paradigm she would have found US writersimmensely more adept at findinginnovative form in dealing with the constraintsand provocationsof history:among AfricanAmericansIshmael let alone designed and built it for that purpose. Using Herderian discourse of Romantic nationalism (Kampf, Reinheit; Volk; Heimat;Vaterland; Urvolk all occur) does not necessarilysettle the question that at the end of Kelsall's book still needs to be answered:Was it 'Jefferson,in the new world, who [... ] discovered romanticism for Europe' (p. I64), orwas it Kelsall,in the old world,who discoveredJeffersonfor romanticism? UNIVERSITY OF GRONINGEN W. M. VERHOEVEN TheUsablePast. TheImagination of Historyin RecentFictionof theAmericas.By Lois PARKINSON ZAMORA. Cambridge, New York, and Melbourne: Cambridge University Press. I998. xiii + 257 pp. ?37.50; $59-95. Reading new fiction from the United States and Latin America together has been an especially good idea, ever since Jorge Luis Borges graced classic American authorswith his attention and writerssuch asJohn Barthand Robert Coover began reading and critiquingMagic Realism. Some say the key event was Kurt Vonnegut and Jose Donso sharing office space in 1966 as teachers at the University of Iowa Writers Workshop...