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These notes were contributed by members of the GradeSaver community.We are thankful for their contributions and encourage you to make your own.Written by Timothy SextonReading the short stories of Julio Cortazar should seem like fairly familiar territory to many readers. Anyone who grew up watching the Twilight Zone in the 1960’s or devoured Stephen King novels in the 1980’s or stayed glued to each week’s installment of so-called reality show in the early 21st century will bring a feel a certain kinship with these stories in which normalcy is invaded by something not quite normal, but not perhaps not necessarily impossible. A typical Cortazar story is, in fact, kind of a like what you might imagine a Twilight Zone episode written by Stephen King and directed by David Lynch might be like. Very, very strange things occur—a man starts vomiting rabbits, a man transforms into a species of walking fish, after a terrible accident a motorcyclist regains consciousness to find himself the victim of a sacrifice by ancient Aztecs.Clearly, his characters are operating within a twilight zone of their own, though in many cases the quality of strangeness that intrudes upon familiarity is less ‘Salem’s Lot and more Twin Peaks. For instance, in one of his most famous stories, a photographer out for a stroll is moved by the mysterious narrative of an older woman and young man to capture the moment forever frozen in time only to then be moved to uncover the mystery of the narrative by examining and analyzing the moment in detail in an enlarged blow-up.
The original title was “The Devil’s Drool” but was later changed to correspond with the groundbreaking 1960’s movie based upon the story: “Blow-Up.”Cortazar is considered a leading figure of South American fiction’s primary contribution to the history of literature, Magical Realism. This is genre essentially defined by the introduction of the fantastical into a milieu that is otherwise commonplace and normal. What sets Cortazar apart from many of his compatriots in this genre is that in most of his stories there is notable lack of that moment of recognition that something that something very strange and inexplicable and even perhaps a little frightening is occurring. Understatement is the byword of how Cortazar’s character deal with finding themselves in their twilight zone. For instance, the opening lines in that story about a man transforming into a walking fish:There was a time when I thought a great deal about the axolotls.
I went to see them in the aquarium at the Jardin des Plantes and stayed for hours watching them, observing their immobility, their faint movements. Now I am an axolotl.“House Taken Over” is the tale of a reclusive brother and sister of means living in a huge family home who are very slowly forced to confine themselves to ever decreasing areas of the home because some mystery “they” who are never described and only made known by the noise they make begins taking possession. The narrative begins in the middle and flashes back to how this strange situation commenced and here, in its entirety, is that recollection by the brother of the day that the lives and he and sister forever changed after the description of sounds made by entities never actually seen:I went into the kitchen, heated the kettle, and when I was back with the mate tray I told Irene:“I had to close the corridor door.
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They have taken over the back part.”She let the knitting fall and she looked at me with serious and tired eyes.“Are you sure?”I nodded.“Well,” she said picking up the needles, “we will have to live on this side.”And just like that, they make the decision to start giving up parts of their house to the unknown intruders. This scene is repeated with slight variations until finally the brother and sister find themselves out on the street and it is a perfect illumination of the core aspect of Cortazar’s brand of Magical Realism in which it is the realism that is central and not the magical. However odd, bizarre, outlandish and intrusive the magical aspect may be, it is rarely enough to spur his characters to question the very basis of reality. Manifestations that would cause most people to wonder if they were seeing things or going crazy or victims of an illusion perpetrated upon the established social order are in the world of Cortazar just another thing to deal with. Some deal with them better than others, but rare is the figure who is incapable of dealing with them at all.What Cortazar seems to be suggesting with these stories is our reality is one in which possibilities and potential are infinite. The strangeness of our reality is amplified in the reality of his characters, but if we were only willing to be accessible to these possibilities rather than work so hard to avoid or deny them, we might not only be more flexible, but more willing to break out of our routines. Routine is for the Cortazar the only real intrusion upon reality that should be considered monstrous.
Update this section!You can help us out by revising, improving and updatingthis section.After you claim a section you’ll have 24 hours to send in a draft. An editorwill review the submission and either publish your submission or provide feedback.How To Cite in MLA Format Sexton, Timothy. 'Julio Cortazar: Short Stories Study Guide: Analysis'. GradeSaver, 26 October 2017 Web.