Reviewed by:

• Accidentals by Susan M. Gaines
• Carlos Gámez-Pérez (bio)

When reading the novel Accidentals, by Susan M. Gaines, one may believe that one is reading a combination of Walden, by Henry David Thoreau, and a Greek tragedy. The plot describes some contemporary environmentalist issues with descriptions of wildlife, but the outcome follows a classical dramatic structure. The final resolution is the overcoming of a tragedy thanks to the reasoning of contemporary anthropology based on scientific statements.

The historical time period of the novel is the end of the twentieth century, near the beginning of the current millennium. A mature woman, Lili, and her 23-year-old son, Gabriel, travel from California to Uruguay. She is Uruguayan born. Both have American citizenship. She wishes to start a new project, the creation of a sustainable farm in Uruguay. Her son Gabriel is a mere young companion who loves to observe birds and tries to extend his knowledge in an unknown environment: “I started taking notes and sketching the birds I saw, all of which were unknown to me” (p. 46). During these observations, he also reflects about the human and natural conditions (pp. 49–50). On one of his walks, he meets Alejandra, a Uruguayan biologist who works in a research department, which is composed of all female researchers (this is a clear demonstration of the gender components of the novel, very well described in pages 155–56 for those who are interested in science departments and women’s studies). He immediately falls in love. However, there are some secrets that Gabriel will discover, some of them related to Alejandra’s family, but there is even more. Lili is hiding that her relationship with Gabriel’s father is broken, and Gabriel’s and Alejandra’s families were intertwined in the past for political reasons. Gabriel begins reconstructing his history and the history of his lover and her family—especially her mother, Eva, the main character of the symbolic construction of the novel—while discovering the gorgeous ornithological paradise that Uruguay is. The history about families is no more and no less than a sample of the recent history of Uruguay, its left-wing movements during the 1970s and the military dictatorships that clashed with them, not only in Uruguay, but also in Argentina, with the help of US secret services.

With Alejandra, Gabriel learns how a lab of microbiology works, and about its relationship with farming and with food industry interests: “You can try to regulate the amount of oxygen in the water, or the acidity, or the dry periods between crops, or the decay of organic matter, the rice straw after harvest. It depends on the microbes you want to encourage” (p. 123). He also discovers the very confusing political situation in Uruguay. The events of the novel happen before the political turnover that occurred in this Latin American country. Concretely, the plot runs in parallel to the first time that [End Page 107] Tabaré Vázquez, leader of Frente Amplio, disputed the runoff against the candidate of the traditional Uruguayan political class, Jorge Batlle. In the end, Batlle won, but the emergence of Vázquez began a political change not just in Uruguay but in all of Latin America. During the next years, a series of left-wing politicians achieved power in South America (Lula da Silva in Brazil, Hugo Chávez in Venezuela, Néstor Kirchner in Argentina, Evo Morales in Bolivia, and Tabaré Vázquez in Uruguay, among others). The cultural context that precedes this political change in Uruguay is very well crafted in the novel (“Tabaré is the voice of the future,” says one of the characters [p. 78]).

In Accidentals, Susan Gaines shows readers how science works. Her writing is a realist portrayal of scientists’ work. Again, one can find the accurate descriptions of scientific work in a lab that promoted Gaines as one of the founders of lab lit for her work in Carbon Dreams: “in recent years, a technique called polymerase chain reaction had changed that, revolutionizing the way they studied microbial ecology. It...

审核人：

• Susan M. Gaines的意外
• 卡洛斯·加米斯·佩雷斯（生物）

在阅读苏珊·盖恩斯（Susan M. Gaines）的小说《偶然》时，可能会相信一个人正在读亨利·戴维·梭罗（Henry David Thoreau）的瓦尔登（Walden）和希腊的悲剧。该图以野生动植物的描述描述了一些当代环保主义者的问题，但结果遵循了经典的戏剧结构。由于基于科学陈述的当代人类学的推理，最终的解决方案是克服了悲剧。

这部小说的历史时期是二十世纪末，即本世纪初。一个成熟的女人莉莉和她23岁的儿子加布里埃尔（Gabriel）从加利福尼亚前往乌拉圭。她是乌拉圭人。两者都有美国国籍。她希望开始一个新项目，即在乌拉圭建立一个可持续农场。她的儿子加百列（Gabriel）只是个年轻的同伴，他喜欢观察鸟类，并试图在一个未知的环境中扩展自己的知识：“我开始做笔记并草绘我看到的鸟类，而这些都是我所不知道的”（第46页）。在这些观察中，他还思考了人类和自然条件（第49-50页）。在一次散步中，他遇到了乌拉圭生物学家亚历杭德拉（Alejandra），他在研究部门工作，由所有女性研究人员组成（这是小说的性别成分的清晰展示，在155-56页中对那些对科学系和女性研究感兴趣的人进行了很好的描述）。他立即坠入爱河。但是，加百列（Gabriel）会发现一些秘密，其中一些与亚历杭德拉（Alejandra）的家人有关，但还有更多。莉莉（Lili）隐瞒了自己与加百列（父亲）的关系破裂，而且加百列（Gabriel）和亚历杭德拉（Alejandra）的家人过去由于政治原因而纠缠在一起。加布里埃尔（Gabriel）开始重建他的历史以及他的恋人和她的家人的历史，尤其是她的母亲伊娃（Eva），这是小说的象征性建筑的主要人物，同时发现了乌拉圭的鸟类学天堂。

加布里埃尔（Gabriel）通过亚历杭德拉（Alejandra）了解微生物实验室的工作原理，以及其与农业和食品行业利益的关系：“您可以尝试调节水中的氧气量，酸度或农作物之间的干旱时期，或者有机物的腐烂，收获后的稻草。这取决于您要鼓励的微生物”（第123页）。他还发现了乌拉圭非常混乱的政治局势。小说的事件发生在这个拉丁美洲国家发生政治转变之前。具体而言，该情节与[End Page 107]的第一次并行运行弗伦特·安普里奥（Frente Amplio）领导人塔巴雷·巴斯克斯（TabaréVázquez）反对径流与传统的乌拉圭政治阶层候选人豪尔赫·巴特勒（Jorge Batlle）产生冲突。最终，巴特列（Batlle）获胜，但瓦兹克斯（Vázquez）的出现不仅在乌拉圭而且在整个拉丁美洲都开始了政治变革。在接下来的几年中，一系列左翼政客在南美取得了政权（巴西的卢拉达席尔瓦，委内瑞拉的雨果·查韦斯，阿根廷的内斯托·基什内尔，玻利维亚的埃沃·莫拉莱斯和乌拉圭的塔巴莱·巴斯克斯，等等）。小说中对乌拉圭政治变革之前的文化背景进行了精心制作（其中一个人物说“塔巴雷是未来的声音” [p。78]）。

苏珊·盖因斯（Susan Gaines）在《意外》中向读者展示科学是如何运作的。她的作品是对科学家工作的现实写照。再一次，人们可以在一个实验室中找到科学工作的准确描述，该实验室推动了盖恩斯（Gaines）成为她在Carbon Dreams中工作的实验室创始人之一：“近年来，一种叫做聚合酶链反应的技术改变了这一现状，彻底改变了人们的生活方式。他们研究了微生物生态学。它...