MLR, 99.2, 2004 525 'Fighting Fire with Frivolity' that examines each play in the volume carefully,while at the same time providing illuminating background into Raznovich's biography, and the times and circumstances in which these plays were written. Raznovich's career was hindered when repeated threats on her life by the Argentine Armed Forces forced her into exile in 1975, shortly before the military coup that set offthe infamous Dirty War. Exiled in Spain, she returned to Argentina in 1981 to take part in the Open Theatre festival, which brought together fellow blacklisted, censored Argentine artists to produce a cycle ofone-act plays. Included in this volume is Raznovich's contribution to the festival Desconcierto, as well as three later plays, Jardin de otono, Casa Matriz, and De atrdspara adelante. Each work is firmlyrooted in a feminist sensibility that examines how the female body has been consistently co-opted not only by the male gaze, but by a consumerist society that sees the female as merely an object. The plays are critical, moreover, of the role that fiction plays in our lives, and how indeed fiction can perpetuate the subjugation and obliteration of the female, especially a female that transgresses society's prescribed roles. Seen through a biographical lens (and this view is supported by Taylor's introduc? tion), the plays are a mirror of Raznovich's fierce struggle to fightfor her disruptive, darkly comic, and sometimes grotesque view of the world within a specifically Argen? tine, patriarchal society that persists (with and without obvious physical or psycho? logical force) in limiting women whose desire is fluid and bisexual, and whose acts of performance are multi-coded and not instantly read by a public reared on products calibrated for mass consumption by a bureaucratic machine. The plays in this volume are a refreshing encounter with a unique playwright and cartoonist, and serve as an invaluable addition to the knowledge in the Englishspeaking world of work by another dynamic Argentine playwright who ranks as an equal with the inestimable Griselda Gambaro. Although Raznovich's work has been translated into German, French, Italian, and English, this collection is one of a kind, and it is to be hoped that it will encourage the translation and publication of more of Raznovich's work and that of her contemporaries from the Americas. The vol? ume also includes whimsical, witty drawings by Raznovich, which offerthe reader a vivid glimpse into what her cartoon-drawing style might be like. If there is any caveat to be held in this volume's disfavour, it is its format. Instead of giving facingpage translations, the editors have chosen to divide the volume as follows: the four English-language translations of the plays to be read first, and then the Spanishlanguage originals to be read last. This bilingual format makes it difficultto navigate through the volume, especially ifthe reader is bilingual and wishes to read the Spanish and English versions side by side. Nevertheless, Raznovich's work can still happily be enjoyed for its innovation, daring, and style, and it whets the appetite to read not only more of Diana Raznovich's plays but those of same-generation and younger playwrights from Argentina. New Dramatists, New York City Caridad Svich Kommunikation in Wolframs 'Parzival': Eine Untersuchung zu Form und Funktion der Dialoge. By Andreas Urscheler. (Deutsche Literatur von den Anfangen bis 1700, 38) Bern, Berlin, and Brussels: Peter Lang. 2002. 315 pp. ?55.20. ISBN 3-906768-89-9 (pbk). The author of this book discusses the importance and functions of conversation and dialogue in the composition of Wolfram's Parzival, an undertaking certainly justified by the fact that direct speech, for example, takes up over fortyper cent of the total work. He combines two approaches: literary (an aesthetic evaluation of dialogue) and linguistic (based on recent preoccupation with oral communication). 526 Reviews The book fails into four chapters, subdivided into an often unclear number of sections and subsections. The firstchapter deals with forms of conversation and is mainly devoted to the three standard types (direct, indirect, and reported speech), distinguished by the role played by the narrator. It concludes with a brief discussion of inquit-fovmul&s,useful in...