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Lupi, Juan P. Reading Anew: Jose? Lezama Lima's Rhetorical Investigations. Madrid: Iberoamericana, 2012. 265 pp.
It is difficult to say anything meaningful about Lezama without deep engagement with his work. His work demands it. Casual reading is not an option. Inevitably, therefore, studies of Lezama generally demand a similar degree of close engagement. Little of the critical scholarship is untouched by the intricate language and complex interplay of concepts, images, and ideas of Lezama's works. This book is no exception. Casual reading of Reading Anew is not an option.
Bravely setting out to explore some of Lezama's more idiosyncratic and mysterious ideas, in particular the conceptual schema of el sistema poético, Las eras imaginarias and La expression americana, the author has by necessity entered and inhabited similar puzzling intellectual landscapes. He does so keenly, and whilst the reader may at times struggle to keep up during the moments of deepest reflection, the exercise is a challenging and rewarding one.
The book is based on certain principles that are central to all critical readings of Lezama, most importantly the tension between poetic expression and explanatory exegesis. Lezama explained in interview: "cuando me sentía claro escribía prosa y cuando me sentía oscuro escribía poesía" (Fossey 17), and from there the reader may consider his critical essays, spanning four decades, to be the elaboration of hermeneutic strategies for understanding his poetry-the oft-declared "sistema poético del mundo."1 However, as Lupi poignantly identifies, there is a beguiling circularity in this, as the essays are written with the same mystifying language and style as his poetry. As such, the reader grapples with the articulation of a poetic system in order to understand the very articulation of the poetic system. "The...