<$BlogRSDUrl$>

8.29.2005

julio cortazar's cronopios and famas 

cronopios and famas is a fun little book by julio cortazar. it is split into three parts-- an "instruction manual," a fairly aloof family memoir, and a series of short fables regarding the invented (?) characters from which the book takes its name. each part reads more like a "prose poem" than a narrative, rendering the reading experience refreshingly free and unstructured.

first and foremost, cortazar is funny. he insistently stresses the nonsensical, and does so via everyday life at its most insubstantial. the humor often arises out of the most basic re-evaluations-- how to cry, where to place a bicycle, etc. with the inviting grace of an italo calvino novel, he wages loving warfare against conventional mores. his humor reminds me a bit of kurt vonnegut's, but less venomous... cortazar's world is never quite doomed-- even when he describes it as such. it is a universe of endless accidental meanings, illuminated by a series of like-able, oddball characters. at its best, it has a richard brautigan-esque sense of surrealist joy; at its worst, it gets a bit cute. but it's nice to walk the cute line once in a while. i walk the literary path of doom and gloom all too often.

Image hosted by Photobucket.com

This page is powered by Blogger. Isn't yours?