strong social commitment become politicallynconscious as they practice theirnvocation. They inevitably encounter thenhandicaps and miseries of underdevelopment,nwhich are not confined to peasants,nworkers, or minorities. Illiteracy,ncensorship, cultural deprivation arenobstacles for the writer, whatever his classnor social philosophy. Consequently, thenLatin American writer is pressured innboth obvious and subtle ways towardnsocial commitment. There are somenpositive aspects in this situation. Thencommitment keeps writers in touch withnliving reality, with the experiences ofnpeople, and it discourages the pursuit ofnesoteric experimentation and forms ofnexpression disassociated from real experiencenthat characterizes some of thenliterature in developed countries. Butnthe situation also presents many dangers.nThe function and practice of literaturenbecome distorted when literature isnviewed mainly as a means for social andnpolitical aims. And many writers, afternall, are not prepared to deal with socialnand political problems. In addition, thendoor is opened for unfortunate pressuresnon evaluation. How can one condemn asnan artistic failure a novel that pointedlynprotests an obvious social injusticenwithout being accused of complicity innthat injustice?nJCIL unt Julia and the Scriptwriter certainlyndoes not sacrifice rich expressionnand technical originality for the sake ofnsocial commitment. Indeed, it is devoidnof morals or messages and reflects angreater concern with the nature ofnwriting than with social or political problems.nSet in Lima during the 1950’s, thennovel has two threads that subtly createnperspective for each other. One is thenstory of 18-year-old Mario, who works forna radio station and writes short storiesnwhile he studies law. He falls in love withnhis Aunt Julia, a divorcee in her thirties.nAlthough Julia is an aunt by marriage,ntheir affair is a family scandal and thenroad to marriage is filled with obstacles.nThe other thread is the story of PedronCamacho, a peculiar and astonishinglynprolific writer of radio soap operas. Innalternating chapters we watch Mario andnJulia moving through complicationsntoward marriage whOe Camacho graduallynloses control of his soap operas andnhis sanity as his stories and charactersnbecome scrambled and transformed intonone another and he eventually beginsnkilling off the bewildering jumble ofncharacters by catastrophic fires andnearthquakes.nThe novel is highly inventive becausenthe scriptwriter thread is developed bynthe author providing episodes from anhalf-dozen programs (written in narrativenprose rather than dialogue). Thesenchapters are packed with bizarre characters,nsordid and melodramatic simations,nand overblown diction. They all build upnto a climax and end with questions:nWould he shoot? Would he castratenhimself? and the like. Perhaps the mostnsurprising thing about the novel is that itnis largely autobiographical. Vargas Llosandid marry his Aunt Julia when he was 18nand working in a radio station, and hendid know such a scriptwriter.nThe novel propounds no particularnideas. Instead, Vargas Llosa draws our attentionnto such issues as the relation betweennautobiography and fiction, seriousnnnand popular literature, soap operas andnreal life, the writer and the writers withinnhis writing. He sets these relationshipsnvibrating and allows readers to draw conclusionsnif they wish. He does little tondetermine those conclusions.nM aria Luisa Bombal ‘s New Islands isna slim volume of five short stories (writtennin the 1940 ‘s) prefaced by a half-pagenendorsement from Jorge Luis Borges.nFour of the stories are about womennfmstrated in love, usually because theynare bound to unloving husbands. Thenstyle is accurately likened by one reviewernto “that excessive yet faindy anemic narrativenstyle which mns from George Sandnthrough Joyce Carol Oates.” Spectralnmists, ominous clouds obscuring thenmoon, enervating silence, dream atmosphere,nimaginary erotic obsessions,nmysterious primal forces and affinitiesn—these are the basic elements of thenstories. Some of the scenes are hauntinglynevocative, but on the whole it isnrather slight stuff.nThe translator refers to Bombal as “thenmost important Latin American womannnovelist of this century.” Most readers ofnNew Islands will be puzzled by thisnpraise, especially when they discover hownlittle else she published. Whatever thendegree of her importance, its basis seemsnto lie in her treatment of the femininenmind, particularly the longings, obsessions,nand frustrations within its innernreaches. Obviously the book has beennpublished now mainly to exploit the currentnwomen’s-studies market. The dustnjacket plugs the stories as “the precursorsnof a modern feminist sensibility, a newnkind of writing about women bynwomen.” There is poignancy in thensituation of these women destined to livenpassively and decorously in submission tonpatriarchal society while their hiddennselves seek escape in dreams and eroticnfantasies. But the romantic self-indulgencenand misty preoccupation withnfeminine erotic yearning resembles thenstuff^ of Harlequin romances more thannan illuminating probe of femalenpersonality.nApril 1983n