Ghost-Watching American Modernity: Haunting, Landscape, and the Hemispheric Imagination by Maria del Pilar Blanco

This monograph argues that we should be more attentive to the ways in which modernity haunts American literature; not with outright ghosts, but with two landscapes that uncannily exist simultaneously. Blanco makes a point of noting that her argument is not a generic one: often these hauntings transcend the genres of the gothic (in US literature) and the magically real (in Latin American literature). Blanco starts with a chapter on the hemispheric imaginary of haunting, before moving into three chapters that read specific scenarios: desert hauntings, urban hauntings, and transnational hauntings. She stakes a position as a close reader of texts (and thus, less interested in placing them in their historical contexts). The readings were not bad, but I found the theory of haunting more useful.

Do the Americas Have a Common Literature? edited by Gustavo Pérez Firmat

This collection of essays features thirteen scholars' perspectives on the relationship between literature produced in the United States and the literature produced in Latin America (more or less). While the style of some of these essays was more casual than I usually expect from academic essays, I found a number of them (particularly the early ones on history and literature, the one on Poe, Borges, and detective fiction, and the one on Faulkner and Carpentier) helpful and intriguing. I am a strong believer in these kinds of juxtapositions and think that more of this kind of scholarship is necessary.

Seized: A Sea Captain's Adventures Battling Scoundrels and Pirates While Recovering Stolen Ships in the World's Most Troubled Waters by Max Hardberger

I received this book via Sneak Peek, a branch of Barnes and Noble's First Look program. I have put the rest of my review behind a cut as we're still discussing the book on the Barnes and Noble boards.

Popol Vuh translated by Dennis Tedlock

This book offers a translation of the Quiché alphabetic text of the Popol Vuh. I thought the introduction did a very intriguing job of explaining that the original book was actually more like a tool to be used by trained specialists, and what was written out in an alphabetic form was what one of those specialists might have said. The stories themselves were intriguing. I was particularly wondering how much indigenous contact with Catholics influenced the way the tales were told (especially with an immaculate conception story and a resurrection story) and how much these things are common to human imagination. There's also a large emphasis on twinning. I was intrigued by the way that humans took four tries to be created properly.

Proceed with Caution, When Engaged by Minority Writing in the Americas by Doris Sommer

This book explores gaps and lacunae in various American texts. Sommer makes a case for reading difficulties in the text as signs of particularity that should be respected instead of as something to be deconstructed and then pushed right over. Rather than the modernist difficulties that showed the reader that his or her work was valuable, these difficulties mark moments when readers ought to realize their status as outsiders. Sommer gives a number of different types of gaps and not telling. I thought her most effective chapters were on Beloved and translation and court cases. I would have liked a conclusion that tied things together more effectively in the end, but in some senses, that might be a lacuna of its own necessary to this text.

A Short Account of the Destruction of the Indies by Bartolomé de Las Casas

This book contains Las Casas's plea to the Spanish throne that they investigate and curtail the cruelties practiced by Spanish citizens on the native peoples of the Americas. Organized geographically first, and then chronologically, the book uses several rhetorical strategies to emphasize the mistakes, cruelties, and horrors the Spaniards have committed in the New World. The book at times details individual actions but denies its ability to recount all the horrors--it will either fall silent or say this example is but one of many. There's a point where Las Casas shows some of the natives' willingness to embrace the Christian religion when it isn't accompanied by violence and cruelty. Las Casas seems to attack these bad actions not only because they show the Spaniards to be more interested in gold than God (and thus leave Spain liable to divine retribution), but also because they are inhumane actions. At times, the book seemed a bit repetitive, but this repetition only drove home the horror of the conquest of the New World.

The Bad Girl by Mario Vargas Llosa

This book is a bildungsroman that develops slowly but surely. I liked the thoughts about translation and interpretation based on the narrator's job. I enjoyed watching the bad girl show up time and time again. Mostly, I enjoyed this book because of the narrator's kindness and love not only for the bad girl, but also for the other friends he makes throughout the course of the book.