[lit-ideas] Re: The Final Island
- From: "Mike Geary" <atlas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: <lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Fri, 15 Feb 2008 16:18:49 -0600
JL:
>>Cortazar of course became famous for his 'Blow up' story (actually, "Las
>>babas del diablo") as filmed with Vanessa Redgrave.<<
When I was three and twenty
I heard a hip friend say:
Be sure you go see "Blow Up",
It will blow you away.
I did. And it did. Well, a little bit. Probably just my amygdala. But most
of the teachers with whom I was teaching at the time thought the film was
immoral, so I decided then and there that I liked it a whole lot. In fact, I
decided to become a freelance photographer just like David Hemming. And maybe
get a chance to take pictures of horny, nubile teens. I bought the camera, but
the teens never showed up. Some 40 years later I bothered to read the short
story -- hey! what the heck? It wasn't anything like the movie. Why did they
claim it was Cortazar's? The short story was amazing. IT did blow me away.
The film, though, well, you know, it was damn sexy. Hard to decide. But 40
years on, I find myself going for amazing.
Of Cortazar, I've only read the short stories in "End of the Game and Other
Stories", I've tried to get through Hopscotch several times and one day will
conquer it, but I love the short stories.
Mike Geary
Memphis
----- Original Message -----
From: jlsperanza@xxxxxxx
To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Sent: Wednesday, February 13, 2008 11:04 PM
Subject: [lit-ideas] The Final Island
Thanks to R. Paul for quoting from Julio Cortazar, and to Andy for
commenting. I don't think Cortazar is onto
sex in 'Continuity of the Parks'. I never quite understood that story, but I
think he's more into some sort of
Borgesian recursive loop.
The same kind of atmosphere that took Borges to the big screen with Mick
Jagger (seeing with a copy of Borges's
A personal anthology") in N. Roeg's Performance.
Borges and Cortazar _have_ links. Cortazar first submitted his first story
ever, "Taken House", to Borges's edited
newspaper.
And along with Puig, they are considered the Canonic Trio of Argentine
literature (Puig of "Kiss of a spider woman"
fame).
Cortazar I enjoy -- usually in Spanish. He can be a bit pretentious, and his
French accent left a lot to be desired
for Argentines wishing to identify! He actually recorded "Continuidad" in a
long-playing record, and his French
accent is too strong to digest!
While one may enjoy Cortazar's metaliterary allusions, I sometimes wonder
about Virginia Wolf and her 'common reader'.
It seems in Argentina Cortazar has become 'academia', but some non-academia
like him too, or did.
"The final island" is one of the few books on him published in English -- in
lit.crit. There is an interview with Garfield, which shows the sexist side of
Cortazar, when he would speak of a passive-reader versus an active-reader
('lector macho', lector hembra).
"Blow up" is about interpretation and the fuzziness of interpretation.
Continuidad about the fuzzy boundaries between
fiction and reality?
He was also good at black humour, or _noire_ if you must.
He is buried in Paris, "Montmartre". And he had been born in Belgium. Hardly
an Argentine? Well, he was educated
not far from where I'm from Banfield, some 20 miles from Buenos Aires. Father
figure absent. Mother a poly-math of Jewish or German ascent, I forget.
Cortazar got a degree in translation studies, made it to Paris, never to
return. His second wife was American, although hearsay hear say that he was
bisexual. His first wife was Argentine, and current (c) holder of his the (c).
He had no children. He also suffered from a sort of strange disease that I
_think_ is called 'infantilism'.
I once illustrated his "Historias de cronopios y de famas" which is perhaps
the closest to my heart, but almost impossible to translate, and in any case,
not worth the try!
His political novels, like "The book of Manuel" leave a bit to be desired. He
is best at short stories ("Bestiario" being possibly his best). "Hopscotch" is
what Latin Americans (but not Argentines) needed for their 'boom'. And while
the Second Part is fun, the First Part can be boring. He quotes from
Wittgenstein, but alas not from Grice.
He is pretty much idolized in Buenos Aires -- still, though.
A good book of criticism is "Understanding Cortazar" by Standish. But why,
Borges would say. One may need an explanation for the explanation. I don't like
when an author needs a "companion" to help readers understand him. Is he
Chinese or what?
Cheers,
JL
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