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Slavic Review was, of course, only one part of her life, which was filled with quilting and community, languages and music, travel and family, and we are grateful to have shared in it in this small way. As an assistant-turned-friend stated, Jane had an inquisitive mind and spirit "turned outward, toward the world and toward us. She listened to our stories and she told us her own. She humbled us and she encouraged us. We are better because of her." Jane is survived by her husband, Mark D. Steinberg, and her son, Sasha Steinberg. It was an honor to work alongside her.

This tightly focused monograph, an expanded version of a master's thesis, has much to recommend it. It advances a definition of the grotesque and then examines its structure and function in several of Aksenov's works. Dalgard finds that the grotesque, closely associated with the rise of modernist tendencies and an ever growing satiric element, becomes prominent in Aksenov's work around 1965. For his analysis he selects The Steel Bird, The Four Temperaments, The Surplus Barrels, Our Golden Hardware, The Burn, and In Search of a Genre. Dalgard starts with a statement of his analytic constructs. The major theoretical debt is to Mikhail Bakhtin (whom Aksenov acknowledges reading) and to Iurii Mann, but Dalgard also successfully employs concepts provided by Hans Giinther and Iurii Lotman. Each analysis contains a long "Description" section with subsections entitled "Information Situation" (namely, point of view), "Style," "Composition," "Time," "Space," and "Characters." The "Description" presents each work's "structure of the grotesque" in terms of these categories, whose content tends to be somewhat disjointed. Many of these raw data remain raw, but a substantial portion is integrated in the sections of "Interpretation" which treat "the function of the grotesque" and focus on cultural allusions, satire, and the complex of metaphors and symbols that embody and express the theme of each work. Some of these brief sections are quite good, but the manuscript could have profited substantially from further polishing. Awkward exposition is a major problem. The English translation is poor, and the copyediting leaves much to be desired. Dalgard's structural study is nevertheless noteworthy in several ways. It is the first book on Aksenov and the first study of his later "grotesque" works. Although Aksenov's early work had the charm of novelty, it was only with the appearance of his later stylistically more venturesome prose that his writing has become interesting from a purely literary viewpoint. In focusing upon the grotesque, Dalgard emphasizes the most crucial aspect of Aksenov's literary development. D. BARTON JOHNSON

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