Review: La musa de la patria

Reviewed Work(s): In the Name of Salom by Julia Alvarez

Review by: Judith Grossman
Source: The Women's Review of Books, Vol. 17, No. 12 (Sep., 2000), pp. 5-6
Published by: Old City Publishing, Inc.
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/4023546
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tal narrative voices, Kranz shows the often of Maneuvers: The International Poli/ics of -~~~~~~~~~~~~~
unconscious actions that keep us from Militartiing Women ' Lives by Cynthia
steady progress toward what we want. Enloe June 2000). This struck me as a
Kranz succeeds in keeping all her
scenes, from the bedroom to the union
generally thoughtful and important
review and useful comparison to John
a musa de la patria
hall, intimate, individual and authentic Keegan's A History of Wafare. I did how- by Judith Grossman
while still being grounded in an unflinch- ever want to raise a couple of points.
ing understanding of all the forces at work Attempting to describe a major omis-
In the Name of Salom? by Julia Alvarez.
in them. She is asking questions rather sion in the literature she is reviewing,
Munk refers to a "blindness so profound
than providing answers. It is the refreshing
Chapel Hill, NC: Algonquin Books,
combination of political acumen and psy- it's somewhat insane." Just what does this
chological insight that makes this wise sentence mean, and why does the author 2000, 357 pp., $23.95 hardcover.
novel challenging rather than "safe," use metaphor here with such insensitivi-
uncompromising rather than "lite." ty? It is not a quibble with words to point
Sally Heckel out that there is no equation between pro-
New York, NY found forms of blindness and insanity A fter the well-deserved success of available translation of the poetry itself
(nor should mental illness be used casual- her second novel, In the Time of is the extraordinary force of Ureia's
To the Editor: ly to suggest aberrant thinking). The the Butteflies, Julia Alvarez has achievements, overcoming the bias she
Two recent issues of the Women i obviousness of these points does not pre- become the chief literary voice for the faced not only as a woman but as one
Retiew, two problematic comments, at vent use of metaphors regarding disabili- Dominican Republic's embattled histo- whose features clearly showed her
least as applied to lesbians. ties from engaging with deeply held fears ry of liberal dissidence, and memorial- grandmother's African descent.
In June, from Diana Postlethwaite and prejudices that regularly and negative- izer of its heroines. It's a history that we Her ability to write at all was excep-
(reviewing Susan Sontag's In America): ly affect the lives of those who are dis- still need to have told, given the heavy tional for the period. Most of her peers
"She...has the three men in her life every abled. The WomenY Review of Books needsintrusions of American power into among the Santo Domingo middle class
woman needs: a (rich) husband, a (roman- an editorial policy to guide authors con- Caribbean politics. And in Salom? were taught just enough reading skill for
tic) lover and a (wise) friend." In July, cerning such thoughtless usage. Ureiia, the nineteenth-century poet on the basics of Christian morality. "But
from Rosellen Brown (reviewing Jayne Joanne Leonard whom this new book centers, Alvarez they will not learn how to write, so that
Anne Phillips' Motherkina): "Feminism Ann Arbor, MI has portrayed a figure as engaging as the even if they receive a love letter, they
does not necessarily flourish when Mirabal sisters-"the Butterflies" -vic- will not be able to write one back."
women live absent from or antagonistic CORRECTION tims of the Trujillo regime. Thanks to her strong-minded mother,
to men; a woman who comes to grips Two factual errors crept into our July Born in 1856, Urenla became recog- and later her father, himself a poet,
with the other half of the world might 2000
be issue. In Indira Karamcheti's nized as the founding poet of the new young Salom? was given the tools and
said thereby to understand it entire." review of Helen Fielding's Bridget Jones: Dominican Republic, "la musa de la example of a writer. The rest she did
These writers need to have their The Edge of Reason, Anita Loos' novel patria." Celebrated from early youth for for herself, composing in fearless-
assumptions examined; and such state- Gentlemen Prefer Blondes was referred to her impassioned political verse, and because utterly private-protest against
ments should be thought through a little inaccurately as Blondes Have More Fun. In later for her lyric gift in poems of love the continual wars and invasions that
more thoroughly. Kathy Phillips' review of Barbara and maternal care, she was also a dedi- terrorized her childhood. The titles of
Adrian Oktenberg Neely's Blanche Passes Go, W. E. B. cated pioneer in secular education for her poems, "Contestaci6n," "Una
Basin, MT DuBois' phrase "the talented tenth" girls. Alvarez compares Urenia in terms esperanza" and "A la Patria," speak her
was inaccurately attributed to Frederick of stature to Emily Dickinson, although ideals with a characteristic directness.
To the Editor: Douglass. Thanks to readers who point- Elizabeth Barrett Browning, a literary But once Urena's work, signed with a
I'm writing to comment on the article ed out these slips; our apologies to all star in Ureiia's own time, makes a clos- nickname and quietly passed to a friend,
"Basic Training" by Erika Munk, a review concerned. er parallel. What's certain (absent an became published in the newspapers,

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The Women's Review of Books / Vol. XVII, No. 12 / September 2000 5

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her authorship was discovered. Fame daunting maze. Even in her first novel, now know about private life in the period,
and honors followed. At the age of 28 How the Garcia Girls Lost TheirAccents, thisAlvarez' respect for a national icon is a
she married a younger admirer; she bore preference for weaving women's stories more likely explanation. Camila's attrac-
three sons, founded and taught in her en.2e
together in dialogue was already present. tion to women is similarly muted, despite
school. But her writing became crowded By now, the relaxed fluency we've come the twentieth-century context.
to the margins, and its deepening sad- to recognize in Alvarez almost requires Most problematic is the unevenness
ness reflects her husband's frequent that jolt of freshness which jump-cuts in of Ureina's representation as a poet. The
absences and infidelity. In her early for- time and place can give. brief lines of verse that Alvarez quotes
ties she died, exhausted, from a lethal (often in Spanish) suggest an eloquence
combination of tuberculosis and her I n the Name of Salom? is an ambitious that makes me wish that she, herself a
last pregnancy, which, however, pro- and paradoxical book, in its combi- poet, had first of all taken on the task of
duced a much-desired daughter, named nation of historical density with translating Urenia's work into English.
Salom? Camila. broad-brush themes, of Ivricism with an To render the scene of the poet writing
informality that can verge on the banal. seems an intractable challenge, as here:
I n Alvarez' essentially relational Alvarez builds a narrative span across "Looking out at that ocean I felt
v\,,ision, the portrait of even so more than a century, thickened with inspired, and for the first time in wo
remarkable a heroine comes framed - .............
political dramas and high-voltage family
years, I picked up my pen and wrote,
and mediated bv her family. Her narra- crises, as well as multiple cultural cross- not one, but two poems." And v,et, just
tive begins with Urefia's daughter: ings between Caribbean islands and the a few pages later, Alvarez is capable of
Camila, as she is known, is in the United States. She brings a deep and giving us this hauntingly desolate night-
process of working out her heritage serious piety to her task of reimagining scene, during which Urefia realizes that
from the national Muse. We meet this heritage, for which I have as serious she is fatally ill, and that the latest coup
Camila late in life, at the point of her respect. Only with the core figure of will scatter her family forever: "Hour
retirement as Spanish professor at Salom? Urenia herself, perhaps after hour, as the dark room slowly
Vassar, in 1960. Never married, her inevitably, a fictionalized life falls short. became light, I could see all that was
deepest feelings have been for women, In part, the difficulty lies with an insis- coming... Pancho himself forced to flee,
although she has long been without a tence on the primacy of a woman's self- the instituto's doors closed, my children
Julia Alvarez
partner. "Childless and motherless, she sacrificial love for one man (who is, of without a settled home. And I could not
is a bead unstrung from the necklace of course, handsome, fickle and undeserv- catch my breath. No, I could not catch
the generations." Now, feeling both lib- er's instituto had grown to the size of a ing), a principle that merges neatly with my breath. I could not for the life of me
erated and lost, she hears by chance the whole country!" that of self-sacrifice for the patria: the catch my breath."
appeal sent out by Fidel Castro's nas- Alternating chapters trace the histories Fatherland. Urenla is portrayed as follow- In such passages, Alvarez gives us a
cent revolution in Cuba for teachers, of daughter and mother-Camila's told ing this script all too perfectly. ("Deceiver, powerful sense of inhabiting the life
professionals of all kinds. Cuba, the in third-person, Salom?'s spoken in first-egotist, philanderer, liar...good for noth- that she recreates, along with the chang-
next island over from her birthplace, person (cued by the poems themselves, ing, but I was still in love with him!') ing world that surrounds it. And if In the
was her first home-in-exile with her and her family letters). To challenge a Strangely, considering the reputation Name of Salom? raises questions about
father, after her mother died, and reader further, Camila's life is traced Alvarez' writing has for sensual earthi- the limitations of historical fiction,
Camila goes to spend the last thirteen backwards in time, while her mother's ness, sexuality throughout is rendered leaving me with a hunger for more
years of her life there, reclaiming her runs straight forward from its beginnings.with conservative tact: here again, the direct access to the factual record, and
lost connection to Salom? and her mis- But Alvarez' talent for the intimate narra-romance mode doesn't seem far away. less novelistic simplification of so rich a
sion: "Teaching literature everywhere, tive voice, pulling us quickly into the cur- This may just be plausible in the case of subject, still I'm grateful to Julia Alvarez
in the campos, classrooms, barracks, rent of her scenes, makes accessible what Urenia's chapters, given the nineteenth- for bringing Ureila and her daughter
factorias-literature for all.... My moth- in other hands could have become a century voice-although with all that we this far into the present. i

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6 The Women's Review of Books / Vol. XVII, No. 12 / September 2000

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