Julio Cortazar's "Blow-Up and Other Stories": An Anthology of Imaginative Fiction

Charles Scott: The gist of each story in Julio Cortazar's collection of 15 superb, short stories, Blow-Up and Other Stories, published in 1967, may be succinctly expressed in a single sentence or a simple phrase, as follows:
"Axolotl" --- The most dangerous creature from the ocean isn't a lionfish, an octopus, or a non-aggressive, striped sea krait.
"House Taken Over" --- More scary, supernatural, paranormal activity, the government or some pesky neighbors moving in.
"The Distances" --- They go on a honeymoon in Hungary, but she has a secret agenda.
"The Idol of the Cyclades" --- They dig up a cursed archeological artifact.
"Letter to a Lady in Paris" --- Raising rabbits is simple and easy.
"A Yellow Flower" --- Contemporary thoughts on reincarnation.
"Continuity of Parks" --- Perhaps the most baffling story in the collection holds the key to solving the mystery in another one.
"The Night Face Up" --- Commuting to work on a motorcycle, he winds up in the hospital, chased by Aztec warriors.
"Bestiary" --- A little girl spends her summer vacation in Argentina with a family of zoologist caretakers.
"The Gates of Heaven" --- Best friends reminisce about ballroom dancing...

United States on Feb 22, 2020

Ewa Mazierska Kerr: satisfied

United Kingdom on Jul 08, 2016

Kevin F. Tasker: Cortazar is an oft-overlooked master of the short story form. In this collection, he delivers stories befitted with beguiling metaphor, tremendous ambiguity, magical realist mind-bending, and, at the tail end of the book, some unrelenting tedium. Like Barthelme and Kakfa, Cortazar works best when he keeps it short and sweet. Wonderful capital-F Fabulist tales in this book include the story of a man turning into a salamander and a girl on summer vacation at a decaying manor house patrolled by a Bengal tiger. These stories, and another in which a couple is chased out of their house by a marauding, unknown force, sing with poetic language, and reveal some cosmic absurdity lurking behind the façade of everyday life...an absurdity we can glimpse if the fates align, but have no real chance at comprehending. The stories at the book's end are much more blasé, particularly one concerning a flailing Sid Vicious-esque musician bombing around Paris on an inevitable downward spiral. These stories do not diminish the power of what has come before, but they seem a little out of place--more like padding than anything else. The book, despite its uneven nature, is a must-read, however, for fans...

United States on May 23, 2016

Eugin: Wow what an amazing experience reading this anthology of Cortazar

India on Jan 29, 2016

Mooz: A mix of stories that are so imaginative and entertaining to read you wont put them down, and others that are too long and drag on.

United Kingdom on Dec 04, 2015

Shubhabrata Banerjee: Cortazar can be a model writer for writers. It's meaningless to explain his stories or his writing skill, just read them and you will understand. A cortazar-story will remain with you forever. Well, a statutory warning, this closeness with your memory can be sometimes disturbing!

India on May 27, 2014

Odysseus: This book was my first experience with reading Cortazar. From the first story on, the excitement of encountering a new (to me) brilliant writer went through me like an electric shock. The book injected an excitement and alertness into what otherwise might have been a sluggish weekend.

I have found, however, that explaining the basis of this excitement to others is not easy. It comes down to the difficulty of explaining what it is that makes great writers truly great -- an elusive insight.

Part of it is simple virtuosity; Cortazar possesses that which also distinguishes the writing of other greats such as Nabokov and Proust: that facility with language, the ability to find and to manipulate exactly the right words, to create a precise, vivid image, and to make music out of prose. (Note: I could perceive his virtuosity even though I read this book as an English translation.)

But it goes beyond virtuosity. If Cortazar wrote about ideas to which I was indifferent, the writing would not matter to me. But his stories inspire those flashes of recognition that make reading exciting; he creates those "aha" moments through his ability to present a feeling or situation...

United States on Jul 22, 2006

Murray: There is always something weird at the heart of the stories in this book, although Cortazar rarely plants his foot firmly in the supernatural (When he does it is always unconventionally, as in the bizarre story 'Letter to a Young Lady in Paris', ). There's a feel of Borges ' not just because Cortazar is Argentinian ' for example in 'A Yellow Flower' in which a man thinks he has come across his own reincarnation and does something he lives to regret. Also, perhaps, a feel of Robert Aickman. The later, longer stories, that make up the second half of the book are more realistic, and are mostly set in and around 60s Paris. 'The Pursuer' is about a Jazz genius who is, I think, based on Charlie Parker. 'Blow-Up' is probably the best story in the book, though ' and it is much stranger (and better) than the film Antonioni based on it.

United Kingdom on May 17, 2003