The Maravillas District

Chacel's autobiographical novel, a product of Spain's intellectual flowering of the 1920s and 1930s, will enchant lovers of beautiful and complex prose. The author paints a portrait of two artists as young women in Madrid at the turn of the century. Though the comparison to Joyce--made by Kirkpatrick in her informative introduction--fits well, these women, Elena and Isabel, are much more ordinary than Stephen Dedalus. The great accomplishment here, in fact, is the way in which Chacel makes mundane events wonderful. For instance, she fills the days leading up to Isabel's first visit to an art museum with a grand sense of destiny, anticipation and humor; as she follows the two girls through adolescence until they head off for art school, she raises questions about the meaning of gender and the power of romantic passion again and again, never quite resolving them, but patiently engaging them. Though readers who prefer a tight, fast-moving plot will not find this novel to their liking, Chacel shows herself at each turn to be a master stylist in full control of her story. (Jan.)