The Cortázar Revolution
Author Review
Julio Cortázar, born on August 26th, 1914, to two Argentinian parents in Brussels, Belgium. Around the age of five, Julio settled just outside Buenos Aires with his mother and younger sister. As he describes, his childhood was spent in deep sadness and constant reading, coming in contact with writers like Jules Verne and Edgar Allan Poe, who would later influence him greatly in his future endeavors. At the age of eighteen, Julio had already earned his teaching qualification and pursued philosophy and linguistics at the University of Buenos Aires. In 1944, Cortázar became a French literature professor at the National University of Cuyo in Mendoza, but he resigned from the position two years later due to political pressures. In 1951, Cortázar emigrated to France, where he would stay for the rest of his life, though he traveled often and widely. From 1952 onwards, Julio worked for UNESCO, the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization as a freelance translator. He wrote most of his significant works in Paris or Saignon in the south of France during this time. In later years, he became actively engaged in opposing abuses of human rights in Latin America. He was a tremendous supporter of multiple movements, including the Sandinista revolution in Nicaragua and Fidel Castro's Cuban revolution and Salvador Allende's socialist government in Chile. In 1980, he briefly returned to education to deliver eight lectures at the University of California in Berkeley. A year later, he became a French citizen. Cortázar's primary masterpiece, Rayuela, translated as Hopscotch, which he published in 1963, is an open-ended novel, or anti-novel where the reader is invited to rearrange the different parts of the story according to a plan prescribed by the author. It was the first of Latin American novels of the 1960s to gain international attention, making Cortázar a household name. Ariel Dorfman of the New York Times, a close friend and colleague of Cortázar, wrote an article in 2014, remembering his first encounters with Julio, celebrating his accomplishments and incredible masterworks. He praises Cortázar for being a master of his craft. He acknowledges him as one of the most influential authors and creators, "But nothing prepared anyone for Hopscotch (1963), which became the foundational text of a generation: an earthquake of language, an assault on reality, anticipating, with its joy and radical demands on the reader, the social liberation that the youth of Latin America dreamed for our continent. Hopscotch challenged us to drastically break out of the prison-house of consciousness and history in which we were ensnared. We need, Cortázar said, to throw reality out the window and then throw out the window as well," (Dorfman). Dorfman regards Cortázar as a revolutionary figure whose ideas changed a generation, a people, and the world. Towards the end of his life, Cortázar lived happily with his last of his three great loves, Carol Dunlop, until she passed in 1982. Julio would pass away two years later at the age of sixty-nine. Cortázar's works Bestiary, Axolotl, and The Night Face Up connect through similar themes of confusion, dream states, and the transfer of consciousness. Julio's thoughts often put him in the shoes of others, and not just humans. He has a haunting way of becoming what he writes; his technique draws you in, only to have you lose connection with what you think you know and don't.
Cortázar often used magic or dream states to fool around with the reader's perception. In contrast, reading his short story Bestiary, which is seen from a child's point of view out in a family's country home. The story takes place with three children, including the protagonist, Isabel, and three adults, all of whom we are not told specifics or details of their relationships. One adult seems to be Nino's father, while the other two women aren't entirely portrayed as wives, sisters, or just housekeepers. The third kid is unnamed but seems to be Nino's uncle, but the reader is not quite sure. Cortázar adds one more character, a tiger that freely roams the house as the other inhabitants are fully aware of and avoid bothering the beast. As our narrator learns more of the conflict between the family members, it becomes known that Rema, one of the adults, has had sexual abuse problems with the unnamed kid. Isabel, having enjoyed Rema's company, knowingly sends the kid to a room containing the tiger. Screams and mauling are heard from all as we find the kid is dead. Cortázar never willingly reveals the tiger's symbolic nature but wants each reader to find their fear and understanding of the piece. Although Isabel is just a kid and does not have control over the tiger, she figures out a way to use its power against her enemies. Often a similar theme in Cortázar's work, the idea of what goes around, comes around. Because of the unnamed kid's violent actions towards another, there is an inevitability that he would have a violent or dangerous act inflicted on him. Cortázar seemed to be a big believer in karma. Isabel starts and finishes the story in two different worlds, one with conflict, which leads her to create one without. Having a tiger roam throughout the story is consistent with the image of death. The tiger looms in the background while each character knows that death could be waiting around the corner. With influences like Edgar Allan Poe, the thought of death is continuously present and studied. It is relevant in most of Cortázar's works.
An axolotl possesses features typical of salamanders in a larvae state, including gills and a fin extending from behind the head to the vent. They have small triangular heads with lidless eyes, deep-set eyes of gold and black as Cortázar would put it. His story, titled Axolotl, starts with a man in Paris heading towards the zoo, he passes his usual friends, the tigers, and panthers, both unamusing today. He becomes drawn to the aquarium. He strolls around still unamused until the tank of axolotls appears. Cortázar describes the creatures with great depth, much better than any dictionary had ever done. He gives the animals character and a soul, the protagonist, stares at the tank for hours on hours. He comes back day after day, captivated by their inability to move; they seemed lifeless and emotionless initially, but as Cortázar shifts mid-sentence to become the axolotl. As the audience sees a transition from "I" and "me" to "we" and ours," the man becomes the animal. We understand that here, "I saw a rosy little body, translucent (I thought of those Chinese figurines of milky glass), looking like a small lizard about six inches long, ending in a fish's tail of extraordinary delicacy, the most sensitive part of our body" (Axolotl). This is the first point we are introduced to the idea that the narrator is not human anymore. His reality has switched. Later in the story, the man switches minds with the salamander; he is in the same tank next to the other axolotls looking up at his human face pressed against the glass. The story ends with the man returning to his life, slowly stopping his habitual visits to the aquarium. The axolotls continue to have their human minds, though, meditating in deep thought with the pride of knowing that this man will someday write about them, he will tell their story.
In his short story, The Night Face Up, written in 1967, tells of a man on his motorcycle ride through the streets. As the man with no name rode down his favorite tree-lined street, a woman suddenly jumped in the road, causing him to crash. He cannot recall the events between falling and awakening surrounded by strangers. For the most part, he is healthy and barely injured; he is taken to the hospital where he stays. He can't help but feel strange as if something is wrong, he identifies it as nausea. The motorist closes his eyes for the night only to have a peculiar nightmare, Cortázar's very common dream sequences. His dream is set during one of the ancient Aztecs famous manhunts, often referred to as the war of the blossom, taking enemies as sacrifices to the gods. The motorist plays the role of the Aztec's enemy and is searching for the darkest part of the forest to hide. He slips in and out of the dream as time passes, just when the nightmare is about to worsen, Cortázar switches back to being in the hospital bed listening to nurses' passing conversations. The story takes on a similar pace of that of Dream Children by Gail Godwin, where both the protagonist and reader become confused about which is truly a reality and which is the dream. Is the motorist dreaming of being chased down by the Aztecs, or is he dreaming of riding this metal insect down a path lined with trees when he is really on the Aztecs' chopping block? As Cortázar writes, "He managed to close his eyelids again, although he knew now he was not going to wake up, that he was awake, that the marvelous dream had been the other, absurd as all dreams are-a dream in which he was going through the strange avenues of an astonishing city, with green and red lights that burned without fire or smoke, on an enormous metal insect that whirred away between his legs" (TNFU). As the audience comes across these lines towards the end of the story, they can't help but question their reality. The story ends with this thought as the protagonist slips between each world back and forth until finally, the final knife closes his eyes for good.
Julio Cortázar makes you feel like you know the story while at the same time is dragging you along for an existential rollercoaster. Much like in Axolotl and The Night Face Up, Cortázar starts as one, one protagonist, one reality. He then rambles and starts his obsession that drags the reader down the same rabbit hole. You become the axolotl, you become the hunted, chased down by your fears, the character's fears. Cortázar's writing style heightens this ability to confuse and toy with the audience, each sentence might seem to come to a reasonable end, but he continues. He might even bring up a new idea, or something crucial might happen at the end. He keeps you attached to the end. The commonality in his stories of not naming a character or giving details of relationships allows readers to use more of their imagination; the unnamed man can be anyone, anyone can be an axolotl. Julio became captivated with others' fears; terror intrigued him much as it did with Edgar Allan Poe. In the stories Bestiary and Axolotl, Cortázar describes the protagonist's fear of the animal characters. The tiger and axolotls are feared in their stories, the tiger because of it's dangerous nature and sheer power while the axolotls are feared because of their deep and unmoving eyes. Cortázar plays with these ideas along with confusion and reality-warping events to bring the audience into a new world, one where they can revolutionize the way they think. No wonder Cortázar had strong ties with radicals in the Latin American political scene. Opening the minds of others is what made Julio such an essential and forward-thinking author. Even now, I'm not sure if I'm writing about Cortázar or is Cortázar writing this about me writing about him, maybe only the axolotls know.
Boldy, Steven. "Julio Cortázar (26 August 1914-12 February 1984)." Modern Latin-American Fiction Writers: First Series, edited by William Luis, vol. 113, Gale, 1992, pp. 119-133. Dictionary of Literary Biography Vol. 113. Dictionary of Literary Biography Main Series, go.galegroup.com/ps/i.dop=DLBC&sw=w&u=cuny_kingsboro&v=2.1&id=GALE %7CLMIRZJ065266555&it=r. Accessed 18 Nov. 2017
Cortázar, Julio. “Axolotl”. Blow Up and Other Stories. 1st Pantheon pbk. ed. New York: Pantheon Books, 1985. Accessed 16 Nov. 2017.
Cortázar, Julio. “Bestiary”. Blow Up and Other Stories. 1st Pantheon pbk. ed. New York: Pantheon Books, 1985. Accessed 16 Nov. 2017.
Cortázar, Julio. “The Night Face Up”. Blow Up and Other Stories. 1st Pantheon pbk. ed. New York: Pantheon Books, 1985. Accessed 16 Nov. 2017.
Dorfman, Ariel. “Brother, Come Back: Remembering Julio Cortázar”. The New York Times. Dec. 24, 2014.
https://www.nytimes.com/2014/12/28/books/review/remembering-julio-cortzar.html. Accessed Nov. 19, 2017.