ÌÇÐÄVlog

This book is important for the breadth of its coverage, showing that the canon needs to be extended to include the impressive number of writers and artists experimenting in 1920s Spain with a diversity of formal languages that goes far beyond the much-studied surrealism of Bunuel, Dali and Lorca. All quotations are given in excellent English, but it is a pity the original Spanish is not given too. It is to be hoped that this book will be read by those not yet familiar with Spanish culture, who will discover that, before Franco's victory in 1939, Spain was anything but a cultural backwater.

The essays on writers cover the metafictional games and theoretical construction of the avant-garde by Ramon Gomez de la Serna; Gerardo Diego's language games and Carles Sindreu i Pons's visual poetry in Catalan; Francisco Ayala's neglected early fictional visions of the modern metropolis; a lovely discussion by Nigel Dennis of writers' use of bathroom imagery; plus staple poets such as Lorca and Pedro Salinas (compared with Eliot), Luis Cernuda and Rafael Alberti. The two essays on Alberti subject him to an alchemical reading and discuss his less studied poems on cinema. Lorca and Alberti resurface in an interesting concluding essay by Patricia McDermott on theatrical subversions of the golden age morality play. The two essays on painting deal with the assimilation of international trends, represented by Spanish as well as French and other artists working in Paris. The term "hybridisation" recurs here and in Derek Harris's excellent opening essay, suggesting ways of applying to Spain the theories of cultural hybridity that have been developed by Latin American theorists to explain the process whereby avant-garde artists, in societies characterised by uneven development, reinflect imported cultural forms. The one essay, by Germ n Gull"n, that attempts a sociocultural approach deals mostly with 19th-century anticipations of modernism. Lacking is any attempt to relate to Spain the theories of the European avant-garde attempted by Peter Burger, Marshall Berman or others. Also lacking is a sustained examination of many Spanish writers' and artists' love affair with mass as well as popular culture. But some passing remarks suggest the Spanish example might call into question the assumption that modernism produced a split between high and low culture.

What emerges from between the lines is the primacy in this period of the visual image, particularly the new expressive possibilities opened up by cinema. As important as the essays are the wonderful reproductions of little-known paintings, sculptures and photomontages. The diversity of material leaves one wanting more.

Jo Labanyi is professor of modern Spanish literature and cultural studies, Birkbeck College, University of London.