MLR, I03.2, 2008 567 textualizing women and seek todeal with theunderstanding of the feminine handed down from the auctoritates and with the contradictions this issue had always created. UNIVERSIDAD COMPLUTENSE DE MADRID REBECA SANMARTIN BASTIDA Adventures inParadox: 'Don Quixote' and theWestern Tradition. By CHARLES D. PRESBERG. University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press. 200I. x+ 250 pp. $23.95. ISBN 978-0-27I-02364-9. From the opening pages ofDon Quixote, Cervantes imitates the conventions of his toricalwriting in earlymodern Europe. In particular, he attributes to his narrator themethods of a historian: the investigation, evaluation, and comparison of different sources, for the purpose of compiling an accurate account of past events. The au thority for the veracity of this account shifts in the ninth chapter of Part i,when thenarrator discovers themanuscript of theArab historian Cide Hamete Benengeli. Cide Hamete's Arabic manuscript becomes the 'truehistory' ofDon Quixote, and thenarrator can draw the substance of his account from thisauthoritative source, or at least from the Spanish translation of it that amorisco has prepared forhim. The use of thismanuscript, however, is not without challenges. As the narrator himself concedes, the truthof a textby an Arab historian can be called into question, since conventional prejudice attributes toArabs a propensity for mendacity. In attributing his 'true' source to an unreliable historian, Cervantes offers us a variant on theclassical paradox of the lyingCretan, who exhorts us to reject hiswords since all his statements are false.This gesture can be linked to a general interest in the logic and rhetoric of paradox that can be traced through the textofDon Quixote. In Adventures inParadox Charles Presberg has undertaken the firstcomprehensive study ofparadox inCervantes's novel. He traces thehistory ofparadox inEuropean thought and literature,with particular attention to seminal texts in classical paradoxy and to Spanish authors whose works were known toCervantes, and examines the functions ofparadox inselected episodes fromboth parts ofDon Quixote. From his initialdefini tionof paradox as 'aparticular ifbroad species of artfuldiscourse', Presberg explores itsuses as 'a trope of thought, a structuring principle, or a rhetorical strategy that moves freelyand playfully across the boundaries that convention assigns to genres, modes, and intellectual disciplines' (p. 2). He discusses thevarious tropes and patterns that informCervantes's fiction,aswell as theeffectson the reader of a textthatpresents itself in large part as a series of paradoxical encounters. Such effects can be related to central issues inRenaissance poetics and to questions in the ethics of reading and interpretation. Since paradox often challenges conventional ways ofunderstanding, it invites readers to revisit and reconsider theirassumptions about the status of the text and the conduct of its characters. In Presberg's view, themanifold uses of paradox shape the textofDon Quixote and indicate the terms inwhich itshould be read. Presberg divides the body of his study into two parts. The firstsurveys the his toryof paradox in the Western tradition; the second discusses paradoxical reflections on fiction, imitation, and the invention of the self inDon Quixote. The historical survey begins with classical literature and philosophy (Plato, Petronius, Apuleius, Lucian) and ends with a substantial section on latemedieval and earlymodern Span ish authors (particularly Fernando de Rojas, Antonio de Guevara, and Pero Mexia). This history elucidates threekeymeanings. First, 'paradox denotes any assertion that runs contrary to [. . .] conventional understanding or received opinion' and 'elicits a response of shock or wonder, admiratio or "alienation" in the recipient' (p. 37). Second, itcan describe an apparent contradiction that encloses and makes known a hidden, surprising truth (p. 38). Third, itcan correspond in meaning to 'antinomy', a 568 Reviews proposition that involves an 'insoluble contradiction' that requires us to recognize its simultaneous truthand falsity (p. 39). Each of these definitions attests to the effects of paradoxical discourse indisplacing common categories and assumptions, inviting a stance of openness and reflection. Paradox presents truthnot through closure, but as a sustained and 'adventurous' quest (p. 39). The history of paradox also reveals the central place ofChristian thought in introducing 'a fullyparadoxical view of the world into Western consciousness' (p. 17). InNicolas ofCusa the concept of learned ignorance and thedoctrine of coincidentia oppositorum emphasize both the simultane ityof convergences and contraries in the phenomenal world and the limitations of the human mind in resolving this...