by Julio Cortázar
This volume is my introduction to Cortázar, part of my 2012 Year of Discovering Latin American and Spanish writers. I have his novels on my horizon, and I'm itching to read them, but I thought starting with a short story volume would be a good introduction. In the past, I have neglected short storie...
Cortazar goes meta and then he dives into nightmarish fantasy. From a rabbit-vomiter to girls playing at Statue; from Argentina to Paris, Cortazar manufactures fractures in normal human relations. Sacrifices are made on the altar of antiquity and on the basis of sisterhood. Classic.
The fantastic and the mundane combine in 'Blow-Up and Other Stories', often possessing the scorpion's sting in their tales. The best stories here make for a memorable collection. They have the quality of disturbing dreams, often with nightmare endings, the terrible realisation of the narrator in 'Th...