American Association of Teachers of Slavic and East European Languages

Elias V enezis by Alexander Karanikas; Helen KaranikasReview by: Costas M. ProussisThe Slavic and East European Journal, Vol. 15, No. 3 (Autumn, 1971), pp. 399-400Published by: American Association of Teachers of Slavic and East European LanguagesStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/306857 .

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Reviews 399

ing and cogent. The critical part proper does not deal with stories as individual units, but rather follows themes, problems, and archetypes: recurrent ways of deforming social realities, the types of space, the vagaries of Eros, religion, zoologic and mechanic mixtures with man, the use of scientific concepts, etc. In other words, Balota tries to define the logical mechanism behind the absurdity of the actions and the characters. His conclusion is that Urmuz makes literature out of the death of literature (p. 140). One would have wished to find more of an effort at integrating the different thematic analyses. The main objection that can be raised to Balota's study is that it takes too tragic and serious a view of Urmuz' outrageously high-spirited truculence. Perhaps a language analysis might have captured this fun better than the surfeit of (otherwise learned and witty) parallels to Mannerism. In spite of such limitations (and some irritating repetitions), we must be grateful to Balota for his many insights and for his valuable mapping of the territory. With this monograph and Pani's edition, Urmuz scholarship can finally begin earnest work.

Virgil Nemoianu, University of Bucharest

Alexander Karanikas and Helen Karanikas. Elias Venezis. (Twayne's World Authors Series, 74.) New York: Twayne Publishers, 1969. 158 pp.

Elias Venezis (born in 1904) with his short stories and novels has played a leading role in Modern Greek literature for more than forty years; yet he is little known in this country. Modern Greek literature is not the best known subject in American universities. It is therefore gratifying that university scholars are at last beginning to focus their attention on it. This book forms a modest but welcome start in the direction of a wider and deeper study of Modern Greek literature and of Venezis' work in particular.

Professors Alexander and Helen Karanikas examine the work of Venezis not only with love and understanding but also with critical detachment and objectivity. They try to follow and explain his literary growth through the troubled circumstances of his life, against a background of successive wars and their tragic aftermaths for the author and the people. They show the forces that shaped him and influenced his development and how from the fusion of various elements his personality as a man and as a writer emerged. Their main task, however, was to survey all of Venezis' books and summarize them as clearly and completely as possible. They have performed this task competently; they have analyzed his works one by one chronologically and evalu- ated them with a fair and open mind. Some of their interpretations are rather swift and not so felicitous, yet they provide a fresh view of Venezis' motives, causes, and aims. At the same time they present and discuss the relevant opinions of other critics. In this respect one may observe that the Selected Bibliography (151-54) of the authors is indeed too selected, especially for the secondary sources. There are many more important essays and reviews on Venezis' work and the so-called Generation of the Thirties in Greece that should have been cited.

The book is not free of misprints, mistranslations, and misstatements of facts. Some of the careless renditions of Greek names and words may be listed: the correct name is Fotis, not Milton, Kontoglou (p. 11); it is Stratis Doukas and not Stratis Loukas (11, 23, 145, 154); Antonis Pagidas and not Antonas Pagidas (44, 45, 46); Thrassos, not Drassos, Kastanakis (78, 145, 148, 153); and several others. The title of John Hatzinis' book is not Greek Works but Greek Texts, and his essay there on

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400 The Slavic and East European Journal

Venezis is not "The Characters of Elias Venezis" but "The Humaneness of Elias Venezis." The title of the book of I. M. Panayotopoulos is not Writers and Their Works but The Persons and the Texts. And the Greek periodical Elefthera Grammata is Free Letters and not Free Press.

Some misstatements may be also cited: On p. 124 the authors state: "The first major poet to champion demotic Greek [was] Aristoteles Valaorites. He did so from the 1880's on." The first major poet to champion demotic Greek was Dionysios Solo- mos (1798-1857), not Valaorites. And Valaorites (1824-1879) was not active in the 1880's, simply because he died earlier. Venezis and the other Modern Greek authors have not used the demotic language as a "literary strategy" "to reach a maxi- mum audience" (that is, to sell more books?) as the writers demeaningly suggest on p. 87, but simply because demotic has been the language of Modern Greek literature (novel, short story, drama, poetry, etc.). And the language of George Seferis is not less demotic than that of Venezis, Kazantzakis, and Myrivilis, as implied on p. 87. Also, Seferis is not an author who "tries to write for the elite" in contrast to others who write "for the masses, in more or less their own speech, as do Kazantzakis, Myrivilis, and Venezis." Nea Estia is not a "popular magazine" either from the point of view of contents or from that of circulation: it is strictly a literary magazine which has, unfortunately, a rather limited circulation.

But these and similar minor shortcomings do not detract much from the real value of Alexander and Helen Karanikas' book, which is a very good introduction to the work of Venezis and to its proper appreciation. The book is written in a lively and elegant style with rare perspective and insight. It is marked by sound, carefully balanced judgments, and composed lucidly and solidly.

Costas M. Proussis, Hellenic College

Ian M. Matley. Romania: A Profile. New York: Praeger Publishers, 1970. 276 pp., $8.50.

This book is one of the first in a new series of brief, general introductions to the nations of the world, the European volumes of which are edited by George Hoffman. Almost one half of its pages are devoted to Rumania's geography and history. The latter, though suffering occasionally from the demands of extreme compression, is well-informed and judicious, despite a mild preference for the Rumanian point of view on most controversial issues. The author has wisely avoided duplicating the detailed accounts of contemporary Rumanian history, politics, and diplomacy found in recent books by Ghita Ionescu and Stephen Fischer-Galati. As might be expected of a geographer, he is at his best in chapters which deal with Rumania's physical, economic, and human resources. But his shorter discussion of the government is com- petent and marked by realistic and candid judgments. Its only serious shortcoming, in my opinion, is a failure to communicate how the present regime affects the daily life of the individual Rumanian citizen and what the latter thinks about it. These insights, as the author himself recognizes, would become clear to a foreigner only after' prolonged residence. The book concludes with a relatively long and deservedly appreciative chapter on Rumania's cultural heritage-with folk culture receiving special emphasis and praise. While pointing out the difficulties political control has caused for contemporary Rumanian writers, he underrates, in my opinion, the corre- sponding problems faced, until recently at least, by Rumanian artists as well. There

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