Understanding Julio Cortázar (understanding Modern European And Latin American Literature)

Understanding JULIO CORTÁZAR Understanding Modern European and Latin American Literature James Hardin, Series Editor volumes on Ingeborg Bachmann Samuel Beckett Thomas Bernhard Johannes Bobrowski Heinrich Böll Italo Calvino Albert Camus Elias Canetti Camilo José Cela Céline Julio Cortázar José Donoso Friedrich Dürrenmatt Rainer Werner Fassbinder Max Frisch Federico García Lorca Gabriel García Márquez Juan Goytisolo Günter Grass Gerhart Hauptmann Christoph Hein Hermann Hesse Eugène Ionesco Uwe Johnson Milan Kundera Primo Levi Boris Pasternak Octavio Paz Luigi Pirandello Graciliano Ramos Erich Maria Remarque Alain Robbe-Grillet Jean-Paul Sartre Claude Simon Mario Vargas Llosa Peter Weiss Franz Werfel Christa Wolf UNDERSTANDING JULIO CORTÁZAR PETER STANDISH UNIVERSITY OF SOUTH CAROLINA PRESS © 2001 University of South Carolina Published in Columbia, South Carolina, by the University of South Carolina Press Manufactured in the United States of America 05 04 03 02 01 5 4 3 2 1 Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Standish, Peter. Understanding Julio Cortázar / Peter Standish. p. cm. — (Understanding modern European and Latin American literature) Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 1-57003-390-0 1. Cortázar, Julio—Criticism and interpretation. I. Title. II. Series. PQ7797.C7145 Z793 2001 863'.64—dc21 00-012030 . . . it was a matter of achieving the appropriate degree of correction in order to ensure that the subject was properly framed, without the photographer’s shadow treading on his toes. Julio Cortázar, “Los pasos en las huellas” This page intentionally left blank Contents Editor’s Preface ix A Prelude xi Chronology xv Chapter 1 Sparring Session: Cortázar’s Life and Works Chapter 2 The Weigh-In: Early Publications 16 Chapter 3 Winning by a Knockout: The Stories 21 Chapter 4 Break: Cortázar on Literature 76 Chapter 5 Winning on Points: The First Three Novels 85 Chapter 6 The Brawl Outside: Literature and Politics 121 Chapter 7 The Final Round (and Much More): Miscellaneous Creative Works 151 Down, but Not Out: Posthumous Publications 176 Chapter 8 A Postlude 1 195 Notes 199 Bibliography 209 Index 215 vii This page intentionally left blank Editor’s Preface Understanding Modern European and Latin American Literature has been planned as a series of guides for undergraduate and graduate students and nonacademic readers. Like the volumes in its companion series Understanding Contemporary American Literature, these books provide introductions to the lives and writings of prominent modern authors and explicate their most important works. Modern literature makes special demands, and this is particularly true of foreign literature, in which the reader must contend not only with unfamiliar, often arcane artistic conventions and philosophical concepts, but also with the handicap of reading the literature in translation. It is a truism that the nuances of one language can be rendered in another only imperfectly (and this problem is especially acute in fiction), but the fact that the works of European and Latin American writers are situated in a historical and cultural setting quite different from our own can be as great a hindrance to the understanding of these works as the linguistic barrier. For this reason the UMELL series emphasizes the sociological and historical background of the writers treated. The philosophical and cultural traditions p