Reader Response: Cortazar

         Cortazar's magical realism often reads like a philosophical plunge into existentialism. Whether it be the realities books create, the realities people recreate, or the reality of one's plights found behind a glass wall.
          In the short story "The Continuity of Parks", Cortazar explores the idea that stories, fiction or otherwise, create reality. The narrator is reading a story about a pair of lovers. One intends to murder someone. As the story progresses tension is seamlessly built with each sentence. Most interesting is the scene before the twist. As the murderer gets closer and closer to his target, the verbs disappear. Each sentence reads like a screen shot. Each scene is seen, but no action taken. Then it is revealed that the narrator is a part of the story he is reading. This revelation absolutely destroys the previously created reality and the reader is irrevocably forced to face a reality that they had been a part of from the start.
           In "Our Demeanor at Wakes", Cortazar shows how people make new realities. "Our Demeanor at Wakes" shows people's incredible ability to simply believe themselves into any situation, even a funeral. A family shows up at a wake and begins to put on a show. One of the women kicks off the display by bawling uncontrollably before the casket. So much so that she had to be pulled away. Then, the men give beautiful eulogies as the women hold back the real family members. At the end of fiasco, the neighbors have to finish up the funeral because the family has lost all sense of direction at their own funeral.

            "Axolotl" is, if possible, more convoluted than either "Our Demeanor at Wakes" or "The Continuity of Parks". In "Axolotl", the narrator visits an aquarium and discovers a salamander tank. The narrator cannot help but sympathize and humanize these little creatures in their cramped tank. He relates so much to these axolotl, that he begins to use "we" to refer to himself and the axolotl. By the end of the story, the narrator is looking out the axolotl tank at someone who he hopes will write a story about the axolotl and their plight.

            Cortezar has a mastery of grammar and engaging story telling that can do better than just keep the reader guessing. The reader does not even realize that there is any need to guess until Cortezar throws everything he's written right back in their face.