Review by Choice Review
In this book Taussig attempts to cut loose from customary narrative moorings in both ethnography and the literature on imitation. Taking as his point of departure the curative chants and figurines of the Cuna Indians of Panama, made famous by Levi-Strauss, and the writings of Walter Benjamin on the "mimetic faculty," Taussig relfects on imitation, the postcolonial situation, and postmodernism. Born of contemporary cultural criticism, Taussig's work makes use of history, film, photography, and the history of the phonograph, weaving these together by means of Cuna ethnography and iconography. Although often highly imaginative and tantalizing, providing the reader with glimpses of regions unexplored, the book progresses in fits and starts and lacks a clear overall argument. In place of a thesis, one finds a loosely articulated notion of "mimetic excess," a concept that might have come clearer had Taussig dealt with definitions of imitation and with the meanings of the "mimetic." The book manages to be stimulating despite its self-conscious, frustratingly stylish prose. Advanced undergraduate; graduate. B. Kilborne; California Institute of the Arts
Copyright American Library Association, used with permission.
Review by Choice Review
