María Luisa Bombal: Realidad y Fantasía

BMaría Luisa Bombal: Realidad y fantasía by Gloria Gálvez Lira
Review by: Virginia Brownell Levine
Hispania, Vol. 72, No. 4 (Dec., 1989), pp. 967-968
Published by: American Association of Teachers of Spanish and Portuguese
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/343591 .
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REVIEWS

m
Laguerre's ritingsare amongthe island's ost
w
respectedfor theirestheticvalueas well as their
i
profoundnsightinto the complexnatureof 20thP
Century uertoRicansociety.Although aguerre
L
haswrittenin a varietyof genresincludingrama,
d
shortstory andthe essay, EstelleIrizarry'study
s
focuseson his novels,the genrewhichtrulyestablishedhis literary eputation.
r
La novelistica ... is basically a translation of

A
e
Irizarry'sarlierstudy,Enrique . Laguerre ubp
A
S
lishedin the Twayne uthor eriesin 1982.Minor
differences etweenher earlier ookandLa noveb
b
i
o
listica... includene chapter n the formerbook
on Laguerre'shortstories, essays andplays;La
s
novelistica ... omits that chapter and includes in-

m
stead a study of Laguerre's ost recent novel,
i
Infiernos rivados ublishedn 1986. Both books
p
p
a
providea usefulbibliographys well as frequent
o
t
referencesthroughouthe text to the opinions f
h
other critics. Estelle Irizarry as writtenextenb
wsivelyon Laguerre ithan additionalookon his
L
a
classical a llamarada s well as articles,bibliographiesandspecialeditionsof his works.
The eleven chapters of La novelistica... study

a
n
t
Laguerre's ovelswithin he cultural ndsociohistoricalcontextof PuertoRico. The first chapter
e
relatesthe author'sife to the changing conomic
l
o
andsocialstructure f the island,fromits agrarian
troots at the end of the 19thCentury o the urban
t
society of the present. Throughouthis study,
o
t
i
Irizarrys careful o pointout the influence f hisi
a
toryandchange s theyarereflected nLaguerre's
h
works.Thus,forexample,she demonstrates ow
i
the profound isruptionsn the ruraleconomyof
d
coffee andtobaccofarmscausedby the introduci
i
a
tionof U.S. sugar nterests retracednLaguerre's

967

A
w
c
thors,as wellas Latin merican riters onsidered
by Irizarryas possible influencesin Laguerre's
novels.And,although aguerre asbeenreferred
h
L
to by the criticConcha el6ndez s "unnovelista
a
M
abarcador e la realidad uertorriquefia,"
d
p
Irizarry
t
emphasizeshe factthatLaguerre's
literarympori
tance extends beyondthe island's orders:"Con
b
la publicaci6n e susnovelasmis recientes, El
d

fuego y su aire, Los amos benevolos e Infiernos

s
privados, aguerre one en evidencia u dominio
L
p
a
de recursost6cnicos,colocAndolol lado de los
otros grandesnovelistasde la Nueva Narrativa
EstA
Hispanoamericana. atentoa lo puertorrique(
fio, lo hispanoamericanolo universal"15). Lay
a
a
guerre'suse of symbolism ndmetaphor s well
o
as hisrecurrentutilization f legend, myth and
folklore,both local and universal,are carefully
i
o
examinedn her analysis f the novels.
La novelisticade EnriqueA. Laguerreis a care-

fully-written
studywithusefulandoftenenlightenfor
ing information those who wish to understand
L
in some depththe novelsof this important atin
a
American uthor.
F
O
Margarite ernandez lmos
Brooklyn College, CUNY...