An Analysis of Julio Cortázar’s Influence: between the Aesthetics and the Sociopolitical

To talk about Julio Cortázar is to talk about one of the most controversial yet influential Latin-American authors of all time, and to talk about "Rayuela" is to talk about one of the greatest pieces of Latin-American literature thus far (arguably, the greatest). Published in 1963, this novel is considered to be a central piece when it comes down to understanding Cortázar's writing (process and evolution) as well as his personality.

To better understand this author's growth throughout his career - which, by the way, is hardly considered to be an easy one - one must gather some information concerning his upbringing. This being said, in furtherance of giving you some context, he was born Julio Florencio Cortázar on August 26th, 1914, in Brussels, to Argentine parents. Four years later, his family would return to Argentina to live in Banfield, a town on the outskirts of Buenos Aires. Sooner than later, Cortázar's father would then abandon his family and he'd never see him again. Even though the author would barely mentions him, it is interesting to notice the absence of the father figure as a perpetual characteristic amongst his creative writings.

Just as paramount, if not more, was his mother's influence. She was an avid reader, a highly cultured person in terms of the literary world, and would represent an utterly significant role in Julio Cortázar's reading habits. At the tender age of twelve years old, the author would have finished reading Montaigne's essays. Decades later, during an interview published in 1980, Cortázar would emphasize just how decisive his introversion and what he presumed to be a certain level of hypochondria in the household would also lead to him reading certain works that were mainly intended for an older audience. Hence, one of Cortázar's main traits as a child that would posteriorly become prevalent in the child characters that he'd welcome into his works was his sensitivity, as he'd himself admit in some interviews.

Julio Cortázar would also work as an English and French literature teacher. During that time, he'd develop either new or previously growing interests such as mythology and oriental philosophy, painting, and boxing. However, one of his interests that would become key towards his writing and creative process was music, mainly, jazz. Although his aunt was a music teacher, for example, for which he'd grown used to listening to plenty of music at home, the jazz genre would come, during that time as a teacher, as a tremendously significant part of his life, therefore, his work. During the reading of "Rayuela", for instance, it is quite impossible not to notice the seemingly increasing number of jazz composers, singers, and lyrics that are referenced throughout the many chapters that indite this work.

Up until the publishing of "Rayuela", Cortázar's life was filled with several events that assuredly influenced what would come to be - albeit not his most controversial - one of his most discussed and esteemed (amongst not only the literary field but also the youngest generation) pieces of work. To highlight a few, in 1938, Julio Cortázar begins by publishing poetry under the pseudonym of Julio Denis, and he'd entitle that book of poems as "Presencia". Fast forward a few years, and "Los Reyes" becomes the first book to ever be signed under his real name. Just as important to mention, two years later, Cortázar moves to Paris, France, after being granted a scholarship by the French government. And this would be his home for years to come. Plus, during this year, he publishes not only a translation of "Little Women" by Louisa May Alcott but also his first stories collection, "Bestiario". Another two years and the author ends up spending some time in Italy, marrying his first wife, Aurora Bernárdez, and beginning his work as a translator for UNESCO. Being a huge Edgar Allan Poe fan, it comes as no surprise that he'd end up translating into Spanish his complete prose works, which is published in 1956, during which he also publishes his second collection of stories, "Final del Juego". Merely three years previous to "Rayuela" does he publish his first novel, "Los Premios", and does he travel to the United States of America for the first time. Finally, in 1963, "Rayuela" is published and Cortázar makes his first trip to a Cuba under Fidel Castro's administration.

Eventually, Julio Cortázar would become a far more politically conscious author than he was previous to, some say, 1966. Up until then, he's given the opportunity to further understand the conditions of Latin-American countries and the roles that each and every one of those countries played in/to the United States of America. Ever since he grew this sense of awareness, it became gradually difficult for him to keep a distance from sociopolitical considerations. This would, of course, lead the author towards self-critic by stating that prior to the Cuban Revolution, he'd been nothing short of an ivory-tower type of writer much more focused on the aesthetic part of literature and life, overall, than the crucial aspects of an everchanging sociopolitical society. This being said, several critics would find various political allegories or allusions throughout his earliest works - although this meant little to Cortázar's tendency towards self-criticism for even though he'd opposed the rise of Franco in Spain and Péron's fascism, for example, he'd nonetheless done it from the comfort of an armchair.

So, in 1968, for instance, it should come as no wonder to find Cortázar displaying his support towards the protesting students by showing up during the Paris riots, or to find out that he'd very openly welcome public discussion concerning Cuba. Having said that, it also translates as no astoundment the fact that, ultimately, Cortázar's role as a Latin-American intellectual would be questioned and that he'd find himself going through controversial times. One mustn't forget that this politically aware side of the author would contrast with the other side that'd focus more on the artificial aspect of literature, on the premises of human psychology and aesthetics.

Cortázar would then find himself under the attack of those who'd consider his works to be obnoxiously elitist. To this, he wrote a famous open letter to Roberto Fernández Retamar, a Cuban intellectual who, at the time, held a meaningful post in Casa de las Américas, a cultural institution that attended to the interests of the revolutionary regime. In such letter, he explains what lead to him becoming what he considered to be a new man, for the witnessing of a manifold of sociopolitical problems in Latin America throughout his travelling plus the revolution itself had copiously notched clout on the writer that he'd thereafter become, one that would like to contribute for change in his fashion. Cortázar was cognizant of the fact that he'd write under the hopefulness that within every reader one could find the seed of the future of humankind (as he'd further explain in his letter to Retamar).

Notwithstanding, this wasn't the only type of critic to which Cortázar would be exposed. Having his name as one of the few that became famous enough to be considered alongside that of Jorge Luís Borges, people that shared the same home country, Argentina, would come to speak of him as being unpatriotic and, for that same reason, treasonous. Some would even validate this percipience by stating that no true Argentine writer would live and work abroad. To this antagonist designation, Cortázar would react by saying that not only did being away from Argentina grant him new and enhanced sentience of his homeland given that many, most, even, of the writers that were included in the so-called Boom of the Latin-American literature were also away from their own countries (a great deal of which were, actually, in Paris).

From the late sixties onwards, several events in Cuba were the cause of many intellectuals being secluded. Howbeit, the event that appalled the intelligentsia worldwide was the imprisonment of poet Heberto Padilla, a prize-winning author who'd been charged with counterrevolutionary practices. As a result, over fifty intellectuals, amongst which Cortázar was found, directed a letter to Fidel Castro demanding an explanation to which the, at the time, Prime Minister of Cuba responded by stating that none of those critics would be welcomed in Cuba, claiming that real writers and revolutionaries would not be treated condescendingly by, what he considered to be, "pseudo-leftist bourgeois-liberals" that worked and lived in Europe. Not long after, Padilla would make a public confession of guilt that resembled the mock trials of intellectuals in Soviet Russia, which would flare many protesters out and lead to a second letter, published in Le Monde, accusing Fidel Castro of following in Josef Stalin's footsteps. This time, however, Cortázar did not sign this letter. And while most of these critics who had actively supported Cuba had, by then, lost sympathy with it, Cortázar would make what is considered to be a degrading attempt at mending relations with Cuba albeit having its doors closed to him and being given the silent treatment from those he'd considered personal Cuban friends. "Policrítica a la Hora de los Chacales" is the title of the prose poem that Cortázar would write in order to not only express many of his concerns about the path that Cuba had set itself but also to assure his pledge to stand by the/ir ideal of a time when there would no longer be slaves or empires. The author would still be excommunicated by Cuba for seven years or so. Nevertheless, it should be noteworthy the fact that he'd centre his attention on other Latin American countries thenceforth.

By that time, Julio Cortázar was being accused both by those on the right and those on the left, the former condemning him of unfaithfulness towards his bourgeois roots and the latter taxing him of favouring the conventional to the detriment of the demotic.

Time and again, Cortázar would defend that no one should feel entitled to decree how an author should write or what they should write. He would also highlight the fact that the revolution should also be considered within the aesthetic of/in literature and not only on its dogmatic terms, thus pushing the boundaries of literature back as well. Having said this, Cortázar would, in due course, act upon the essay by accommodating both the aesthetic and sociopolitical threads into his opus.

At a given moment, during the late sixties and early seventies, two important debates on the role of the intellectual took place. The most renowned would be the one conducted through the pages of Marcha, an Uruguayan magazine; later, it would be compiled in a book called "Literatura en la Revolución y Revolución en la Literatura". Starring this debate were three substantial names: Julio Cortázar himself, Mario Vargas Llosa, and Oscar Collazos (a young Colombian man who was at the front of the revolutionary line). Somewhere along this debate, Cortázar would acknowledge the fact that writers had not only a social responsibility as they should also be aware of the commitment towards the undertaking of a revolutionary process such as the one they were witnessing, being heedful of its many stages and material aspects, and nourishing the idea that revolutionary novels are not called as such for the simple fact of exploring the alleged "revolutionary content" within its pages but also because these will strive towards revolutionising the novel itself.

At the second debate, which occurred in Paris, in 1970, several radical students attended as did, yet again, Mario Vargas Llosa. At some stage of the parley, registered in "Viaje Alrededor de una Mesa", Julio Cortázar would reason that to demand an immediate reality was one of the most severe faux pas to have directed towards literature and that every writer should be allowed to write as they please; he himself noted that he'd continue to work unto the betterment and development of his solitary aptitude for culture, his imaginative games, and his ontological research.

The presence of Mario Vargas Llosa in both debates sets a thought-provoking antithesis concerning the attendance of Julio Cortázar with whom he'd held some propinquity. Despite having begun his career as a Marxist, Mario Vargas Llosa would, in the long run, drastically diverge to the right whilst Julio Cortázar would go ahead and keep supporting Cuba and other left-wing movements. Regardless, Mario Vargas Llosa stresses, in his preface to 1994's edition of Cortázar's "Cuentos Completos", the fact that any political interval between the both of them did not entail a loss of respect towards the latter.

During the early seventies, in 1973, to be more exact, Cortázar publishes that which would be considered his most controversial book, outraging people both on the right and on the left, "Libro de Manuel". This one was based on the story of a revolutionary group that had planned to kidnap a political figure to free some political prisoners by ransoming him. Being of absolutely no help when it came down to decreasing the controversy in which the author was already entangled, this work did not only ensure continuity to Cortázar's imaginative games within his writing and creative process but also explored the notion of a metaphysical dimension and, more importantly, the many facets of revolutionaries themselves. But a year later, in 1974, "Octaedro", another collection of short stories, is published and Cortázar is awarded the Prix Médicis for the polemical "Libro de Manuel". Not only does he decide to give the prize money to support the legal defence of political prisoners in South America but he also begins his activities as a member of the Russell Tribunal on Human Rights. In 1979, Cortázar commences his fervent engagement with Nicaragua in support of the revolutionaries.

Also during the late seventies, Cortázar finds the love of his life, Carol Dunlop, an American writer and photographer who'd engaged in political protests during the Vietnam War and who had lived in French Canada for some time. "Los Autonautas de la Cosmopista" was to be published a year after the death of Carol Dunlop, from leukaemia, in 1983, a work that consisted of a parody of the chronicles of both Julio and Carol as the great explorers of a peculiar excursion that they'd decided to take on down one of the French autoroutes in an old Volkswagen camper. In the poignant postscript that Cortázar appended to this work, the author allows us to grasp just how deep their mutual devotion was and that Carol had become for him, as he'd put it, his raison d'être. Inauspiciously, Carol's death and his fight against leukaemia would bring an expeditious decline in the author's health and life overall, and the man who was known for looking several years younger than he actually was, looked by then, hoary.

Having been granted French citizenship in 1981, Julio Cortázar would die in Paris on February 12th of 1984. He was buried in Montparnasse.

Rayuela: the climax of a life situated between the wonders of translation and the wanders of writing

It's important to note that Julio Cortázar is considered to have been a man of his time, meaning that his work would reflect both the historical and literary imperatives of the era during which he lived and worked. Also, having been educated in Argentina, he wrote his books almost always in a distinctly Argentine variety of Spanish. This is no different in "Rayuela". One of the main aspects that lead me to read the book in its original language/s is the fact that it appeared to me as if Cortázar, being the devoted jazz fan that he was, would take advantage of his musical knowledge to engage in one of his literary games. And I must say, I was not left disappointed. Not to mention the fact that this piece of literary work was written not only in Argentine-Spanish but also in French, English, Italian, and Latin. I opted for saying that he's "written" this work in several languages instead of saying that he's "added" a few parlances, references, and speeches in other languages because those same languages exacerbated both the aesthetic and psychological factors that generated each character that appears throughout the storyline.

On that note, it is just as important to mention the fact that Cortázar saw translation as a highly valuable skill for it allowed him to discipline and educate himself as an author. He would translate several authors such as Edgar Allan Poe, G. K. Chesterton, Marguerite Yourcenar, Louisa May Alcott, André Gide, and Daniel Defoe. Nonetheless, the heightened pressure and tension that the author felt during the period when he was striving to qualify as a translator led him to experience several nightmares and neuroses. On the brighter side, writing had proved as an efficient, therapeutic way not only to exorcise them but also to inspire numerous stories that would later emerge in his first collection of 1951, "Bestiario".

If one contemplates the many writers (besides musicians and painters) that have inspired the works of Julio Cortázar—from William Shakespeare to Lewis Carroll, Leopoldo Marechal, Macedonio Fernández, Jorge Luís Borges, Alfred Jarry, André Gide, Raymond Roussel, the previously mentioned Edgar Allan Poe, John Keats, Roberto Arlt, Felisberto Hernández, Jean Cocteau, amongst others—we're able to observe that the Argentine author was indeed a reader of the European literature, having come forward with the fact that he felt more at ease with German, French and British literature rather than the Spanish or the Hispanic ones. And even though the English poetry of the nineteenth century has undoubtedly prepossessed him into being a romantic himself, surrealism also played a huge role concerning his evolution as a writer for he'd seek inspiration from its more influential writers to its most eminent painters. Cortázar himself has stated that he'd welcomed the thoughts of becoming a musician or a painter, or even a philosopher; feeling, however, inapt to pursue such career paths, he decided to stick with literature, a field in which he'd convey a curious mixture between a cosmopolitan feeling and a rather archetypal Argentine quality to his works.

While we're on that topic, it is also worth mentioning that the association that's established between Julio Cortázar and Jorge Luís Borges has quite a few reasons behind it, one of which might be the fact that the latter acknowledged the former's aptitude and yielded a publishing egress that'd aid his œuvre's prosperity. Despite the political chasm that existed between the two authors, Cortázar never seized to appreciate the influence that Borges' works had on him.

And these were times when a great sense of revolution spanned both an atmosphere of elation and a tendency towards execration, setting a stage for a society that defied the establishment and questioned the mores, leaving people with such gumption that it ended up translating itself into a sense of urgency, epochal and innovativeness. In this day and age, withal, what is now commonplace emerged from whatever used to be considered contentious and groundbreaking, belligerent and vigorous, pressing and vital. Interestingly enough, though, it certainly leaves room for wonder the fact that almost two decades after his death, Cortázar's work started to be, once again, reunited with an inflated feeling of curiosity and what could roughly be considered a brand new perception regarding its value apropos a new era of warfare and bedlam that the world is facing. For not only should the reading of Julio Cortázar's works be held as a life-altering experience but the understanding of his annals should too be deemed a fundamental happening in a reader's life.

Altogether, Cortázar's life work consists of six novels, a few plays, some poetry and miscellanies, and more than eighty short stories, not to mention, for example, that a major number of literary translations into Spanish were done by him and that some of his interviews were long enough for them to give way to, at least, three more books. Also, it might be interesting to know that the author used to write from an early age; yet, he chose to only publish many of his works until he was well into his thirties for he'd rather feel positive that the work that he'd engendered met those which were his own high standards.

By and large, his work seems to be the playground where a profound ontological concern, a keen sense of the ethical, and an evergrowing discovery of the gaiety and consequent freshness mixed with the artlessness of the candour one that's delved into the world of philology and linguistics, and creative writing find one another. Be that as it may, Cortázar himself would frequently state that none of what the readers and the critics interpreted from his works was to be lessened for the benefit of his own stance; it is safe to say, though, that the various annotations that he left concerning his creative process and his characters' development would inevitably contribute to such a goaded reading that it often came close to undergoing a metatext sort of experience.

Anyhow, it seems that no one could have been prepared for the foray that "Rayuela" brought upon its audience in 1963. All of a sudden, the Boom of Latin-American literature during the early sixties, found itself as the core of three major literary phenoms which were Carlos Fuentes' "La Muerte de Artemio Cruz", Mario Vargas Llosa's "La Ciudad y Los Perros", and Julio Cortázar's "Rayuela".

Although some may argue otherwise, "Rayuela" is considered by many the greatest Latin-American novel of the century. Despite opinions, "Rayuela" is indubitably Cortázar's most successful novel, and it being a constant target of the curious minds and eyes of the youngest generations was most certainly a matter of utter gratification to the author for he'd bared his soul in this piece of work and was fully aware of the impact that it could have within the minds of those that, like him, were middle-aged and had grown used to a certain way of doing and reading and critiquing literature.

Contrary to what its author had until then used his readers, this lengthy and intricate book came with an invitation: the reader could choose how to read it and what to read. Gone is the effortless comprehensibility of a novel's usual structure for gone is the customary thus expected chronological sequence. All of a sudden, from the get-go, the reader is left to wonder what is the plot and what is the unifying element that sews each chapter to a logical sense of space and time that indeed conducts the reader through a coherent storyline. Seemingly, its protagonist, Horacio Oliveira, is the chaotic mind that brings a feeling of stability to a game of hopscotch during which the essence of existence and the sometimes frugality, other times fragility of moral and ethics coexist in a riotous journey that consists of the finding of a lost lover. The scenes diverge from philosophical to poetic to non-sensical to some sort of a cinema script to journaling to satirical. However, I come to you speaking of "Rayuela" having taken only one of its possible routes. Having yet to read the first book that the author presents, in its Table of Instructions, when I affirm that many times the fiction questions not only the reader but also itself, it might be an experience that is mainly current throughout the enthusiastic game in which the reader finds themselves immersed in while deciphering the second book.

Notably, what might further surprise "Rayuela"'s reader is the encounter with several occasions that prompt a mix of reactions, be it good or unpleasant ones. For example, there's a scene during which Cortázar defies us to cohabit with the knowledge that death is present in a room full of life and commotion, that one of the characters has died and that inevitably another character is going to realise their condition of decay. For forty-five whole pages, the reader becomes yet again an accomplice to the powerlessness with which one is left against the ephemerality of bodies, humans, and circumstances, one need not be of a certain age nor have experienced certain presumed guarantees throughout their lifetime to sooner or later, become death's chaperone.

If I may be allowed the indiscretion, I must warn those of you who wish not to be in any way spoilered in regards to the content of this work that the following last paragraphs of this review will approach in detail two major chapters. For those of you who've read it already (or haven't but are still intrigued enough for this not to be a matter of concern), then I hereby share with you that two of the moments that have struck a chord within me the most were, without a doubt, Maga's letter to Rocamadour (Chapter 32 or 88, depending on which book you're considering) and the short yet delightful essay about love (Chapter 7 or 13, once again, depending on which book you're considering) - while doing my research in order to better this review, I found out that the latter is actually considered to be the most famous of this book's chapters; and it comes as no wonder for the poetry behind the delicate yet poignant prose that describes what it is to feel and to be in love is of such wondrous that I, as a reader, find it quite ineluctable for one to be left absolutely mesmerised by Cortázar's way with words.

The fact that Chapter 7 consists of two simple paragraphs that populate not even two pages and that have people memorising its sentences by heart speaks volumes about its intensity and beauty. Also, the fact that this chapter comes as some sort of break from the complexity and convolution that had characterised every previous chapter predisposes its reader to a substantially warmer reception of its composition. Notwithstanding, what's remarkable about this chapter is the fact that what one is reading is, in reality, a carefully prose-disguised poem. For starters, what might immediately draw attention to a heedful reader is the fact that both paragraphs are home to an "exaggerated" total of twenty-five comas. However, one might also consider that these comas serve the purpose of bringing awareness to their cadence and the existence of verses. And within this cadence and these verses inhabit several, breathtaking rhymes. Moreover, we're able to distinguish at least four distinct literary devices once we analyse what might be considered this chapter's poem: metaphor («(...) mientras nos besamos como si tuviéramos la boca llena de flores o de peces, de movimientos vivos, de fragrancia oscura. (...) y yo te siento temblar contra mí como una luna en el agua.»), oxymoron («Y si nos mordemos el dolor es dulce, y si nos ahogamos en un breve y terrible absorber simultáneo del aliento, esa instantánea muerte es bella.»), alliteration («Me miras, de cerca me miras, cada vez más de cerca y entonces jugamos al cíclope, nos miramos cada vez más de cerca y los ojos se agrandan, se acercan entre sí, se suponen y los cíclopes se miran, respirando confundidos, las bocas se encuentran y luchan tibiamente, mordiéndose con los labios, apoyando apenas la lengua en los dientes, jugando en sus recintos donde un aire pesado va y viene con un perfume viejo y un silencio.»), and anaphora («Toco tu boca, con un dedo toco el borde de tu boca, voy dibujándola como si saliera de mi mano, como si por primera vez tu boca se entreabriera, y me basta cerrar los ojos para deshacerlo todo y recomenzar, hago nacer cada vez la boca que deseo, la boca que mi mano elige y te dibuja en la cara, una boca elegida entre todas, con soberana libertad elegida por mí para dibujarla con mi mano en tu cara, y que por un azar que no busco comprender coincide exactamente con tu boca que sonríe por debajo de la que me mano te dibuja.»).

On a final note about this chapter, another thing that is fascinating about it is the fact that it is part of a trilogy within the book that includes chapters 6, 7, and 8. No matter which book you're reading, these three chapters are the only ones that are read chronologically throughout the entire story/ies - which further emphasises the fact that they need each other in order to have sustenance and thus create a whole.

Now, chapter 32 is... one of the hardest chapters that I have ever read. I simply am incapable of reading it without bursting into tears. For way too many reasons that I can't itemise or else this review will see no end, Maga is my favourite character. The way that Cortázar was able to humanise her is astounding to the point where I, sometimes, became so entranced I forgot I was reading about or the thoughts of a fictional character. So, it is hardly surprising that once I read her letter to Rocamadour I felt my heart breaking into tiny pieces. Nonetheless, literarily speaking, this is yet another chapter that is poetic in an uncanny way and it also subsists on the use of several literary devices, some of which I've previously mentioned. If I had to highlight the one that is, in my humble opinion, the device that most definitely served the purpose of portraying Maga's excruciating pain is the anaphora/epistrophe. The continuous repetition of the baby's name from beginning to end of this chapter unequivocally serves as a means to evoke a pungent emotion within the reader («Bebé Rocamadour, bebé bebé, Rocamadour: Rocamadour, ya sé que es como un espejo. Estás durmiendo o mirándote los pies. (...) algún día comprenderás, Rocamadour.») and it most certainly works. Also, the brilliant, and at times discreet, use of the metaphor/simile helps to prolong this uncomfortable sensation within the reader given the things of which they're already aware and that the character of Maga seems yet fully unable to process and comprehend («(...) todo el mundo es muy sucio y hermoso en París, Rocamadour, las camas huelen a noche y a sueño pesado (...). Yo no te podría tener aquí, aunque seas tan pequeño no cabrías en ninguna parte, te golpearías contra las paredes.»).

As an additional mention, I'd also like to point out the fact that Chapter 28 (or 57, depending on which book you're considering) is one of the most disturbing that I've read thus far in any book. It is the chapter that allows for Chapter 32 to exist. This chapter is worth mentioning for the way that suspense is working within the meanders of the absurd that constitutes the normal amongst this group of characters. Here, Cortázar explores an alternative modus vivendi through these characters' reactions to the chapter's main event. Moreover, Cortázar scrutinises the limits of the concept of suspense (a word that derives from the Latin form "suspendere") by ultimately suspending time, which is to say that the author chose to play with the chapter's rhythm through its deceleration. No wonder this chapter is over forty pages long. Another thing that might be curious to ponder over is the fact that music is an immense influence throughout this whole novel and that this suspension might be considered from a musical point of view, meaning that Cortázar chose to play with silences and pauses.

Last but not least, for those of you who have yet to read this book but are not sure whether or not it might be of interest to you, bear in mind that this is a highly complex book albeit completely entrancing due to its unusual dynamic. To read this novel is to be surrounded by the piquant fragrances of cafes and busy European metropolitan cities, and dirty clubs as it is to be welcomed into a world whose background is composed of jazz melodies, sharp classical euphonies, and cumbersome silences acutely interrupted by a cacophony of philosophical and, some times, absurd dialogues. It is a book that allows its reader to travel through the quintessential Argentine ambience and the just as paradigmatic milieu of Paris during the sixties. If this resonates as being the type of plotline that would keep you eager to read it from beginning to end, I highly recommend that you do so. Plus, remember that this is a game. You can either read book one, book two, or both. You choose.

CORTÁZAR, Julio, Rayuela, Debolsillo, 2016

STANDISH, Peter, Understanding Modern European and Latin-American Literature: Understanding Julio Cortázar, University of South Carolina, 2001

TCHEREPASHENETS, Nataly, Currents in Comparative Languages and Literatures: Place and Displacement in the Narrative Worlds of Jorge Luis Borges and Julio Cortázar, Peter Lang Publising Inc., 2008