Violence in Argentine Literature: Cultural Responses to Tyranny.

by David William Foster Review by: Marjorie Agosn The Hispanic American Historical Review, Vol. 77, No. 2 (May, 1997), pp. 357-358 Published by: Duke University Press Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/2516966 . Accessed: 16/04/2013 13:36
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BOOK REVIEWS

I NATIONAL

PERIOD

357

have in such results. Indeed, Ranis downplays the consequences of sampling error for his study in an unconvincing fashion. Nevertheless, his work is an importantpoint of departure for more systematic, methodologically and theoretically grounded research on workers'attitudes and behavior,not only in Argentinabut also in the rest of Latin America.
LUIGI MANZETTI,

Southern Methodist University

Violencein ArgentineLiterature:CulturalResponsesto Tyranny.By DAVID WILLIAM FOSTER. Columbia: University of Missouri Press, 1995. Notes. Bibliography.Index. viii, 2o8 pp. Cloth. $37.50. During the military dictatorshipsthat besieged the countries of the Southern Cone in the 1970s, the Argentine literature of dissent became a way to survive life under disguised tyranny.The so-called Dirty War,with its litany of fierce authoritarianism as "familyvalues," became almost a national obsession for Argentine writers. The few citizens who defied literary censorship found salvation in reading amid chaos and horror.Many scholars, literary critics, and historiansengaged in the painstaking analysisof political repression, creativity under adversity,and the roles of citizens in times of historical turbulence. This book, by a distinguished scholar, is for this reviewer the most original and thought-provokingtext to explore how "the violent" has always been a mysterious and perverse constant in Argentina'srich literature.Often the concepts of redemocratization and democratic culture have obscured the previous political history of Argentina,which consisted of tyranny and fear in daily life since the Peron era. This is among the many reasons Foster's work is important.Its eloquent text revisits and explores the works of Enrique Medina, Marta Lynch, Griselda Gambaro,Alejandra Pizarnik, and many others. His analysis of each of these authors focuses on some key aspect of their literary work, as well as the historical and political events that overshadowedtheir writings. world through a bizarre One of the most fascinatingchapters explores Pizarnik's and often neglected prose collection, La condesa sangrienta (The Bloody Countess,
1971), a series of vignettes based on the real life of Erzbeth Bathory (d. 1614), who

would massacreyoung virgins and bathe in their blood. Through a brilliant analysis of Pizarnik'scomplete work, Foster illuminates the complex and arbitraryways of absolute power. This particularwork he interprets as a meditation on horror.The diabolical countess randomly kills six hundred women for the mere pleasure of it. An obvious parallel can be drawnwith the random and perverse killings of innocent Argentine citizens. According to Foster, "the bloody countess embodies masculinist violence, the rape of the other. In her activities as a rapist, she is a symbol both of the absolute power of the aristocratsand her own historicalperiod (she is saved from execution)" (p. 103). The pardoning of the countess despite her crimes resembles the pardoningof the Argentine military for the murder of almost 30,000 people.

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358

| HAHR I MAY

Foster's meditation on Pizarnik'swork, as well as Marta Lynch'sInforme bajo Ilave (Report Under Lock and Key, 1983) and the plays of Griselda Gambaro,bring to this book the important aspect of how women writers have responded to militarism. I am glad that much of this text applies a feminist analysis to totalitarian culture and brings the voice of often neglected authors such as Lynch to readers. Informe bajo Ilave also exemplifies how repressive societies murder the individual spirit, which is the fate of its protagonist. This important novel, which Foster notes was written before Lynch'ssuicide, depicts the existential fate of a woman besieged by her time and place. The book's other chapters explore the relationshipsbetween culture and power and official versus unofficial histories. The inclusion of texts that foreshadowed the years of the militarydictatorshipmakes an importantcontribution to the literaryand historical understandingof the violence that permeated Argentine culture. Foster's analysisof how writers and ordinary citizens alike have survived beyond fear under the darkness of absolute power makes this a major work on violence in Argentine literature. It is a beautifully written and thought-provokingmeditation on violence and the endangered spirit of creativity.
MARJORIE AGOSIN,

Wellesley College

Moral Opposition to AuthoritarianRule in Chile, 1973-z9go. By PAMELA LOWDEN. New York: St. Martin's Press, 1996. Appendixes. Notes. Bibliography. Index. xii, 216 pp. Cloth. $59.95. The military dictatorshipsthat ruled in the Southern Cone of South America in the 1970S and 1980s had many features in common: national security doctrine, torture, the "disappeared," and the near-destructionof civil society. The regime similarities in Chile, Argentina,and Uruguaywere great, but there was one glaring exception the role of the Catholic church in Chile in documenting and bearing witness to human rights violations. PamelaLowden'sstudy focuses on the Vicariateof Solidarity (referred to both in and outside Chile as the Vicaria) in the struggle against Pinochet's bloody regime. Her work is an important contribution to our understanding of the singular role played by this institution in the struggle to protect human rights in Chile and to create an organized opposition to the regime. It is not difficult to agree with the author'sassessment that "the Vicarla'scontribution to the opposition to authoritarianism in Chile was unique, critical, and irreplaceable"(p. 144). The Vicariacarried out its work in an old ecclesiastical palace on Santiago'sPlaza de Armas. The work consisted primarily of documenting cases of the disappeared, allegations of torture, and other human rights abuses and presenting writs of habeas corpus. As established by CardinalRaul Silva Henriquez, the Vicariawas thereby in the delicate but unassailableposition of representing "the Catholic Church in the Archdiocese of Santiago in the field of human rights" (p. 5). Some two hundred people worked for the organization,with an annual budget of two million dollars.

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