Understanding Julio Cortázar by Peter Standish

Abstract

MLRy 98.2, 2003 489 ultimately more rewarding to confront and acknowledge in these works the intensely personal expression ofa sensibility that, as itexamines itself,withdraws into a hushed, often mystical, contemplation ofthe external world. Tiempo and Vuelta present no textual problems and are reproduced here following their original editions and the edition of Prados's Poesias completas, prepared in 1975 by Carlos Blanco Aguinaga and Antonio Carreira. Canciones del farero is a more problematic collection since the original edition, containing only seven poems, is known to have formed part of a longer book entitled Pais that the writer announced but never published. Diez de Revenga has sensibly followed the editorial criteria of Blanco Aguinaga and Carreira and has added to those seven poems two selections of texts from the same period, 'Canciones de ultramar' and 'El tejar y el peine', a total of nineteen poems, which in all likelihood would have constituted Pais. Although Prados himself seemed to attach little importance to these early books, largely overlooking them when he compiled a major anthology of his work towards the end of his life, his Antologia 1923-1953 (Buenos Aires: Losada, 1954), they still bear rereading as testimony of a surprisingly assured initial engagement with issues that would recur insistently in his subsequent work. This edition is best read alongside a number of other works, also products of the centenary, to which Diez de Revenga did not have access. A hitherto unpublished, though overlapping, collection from the same period, entitled Mosaico, located among the papers of Juan Ramon Jimenez, was made available in two complementary editions, one by Francisco Chica (Malaga: Centro Cultural de la Generacion de 1927, 1999) and the other by Christopher Maurer (Madrid: Calambur, 1999). In addition, Francisco Chica's monographic study El poeta lector: la biblioteca de Emilio Prados (Anstruther: La Sirena, 1999) skilfully traces the development of the poet's entire work in terms of the books he read and the influences he inevitably assimilated. Mention should also be made, finally,ofthe publication of a revised edition of Prados's Poesias completas (Madrid: Visor, 1999). University of St Andrews Nigel Dennis Understanding Julio Cortdzar By Peter Standish. Columbia: University of South CarolinaPress. 2001. xvii + 222pp. $29.95. ISBN 1-57003-390-0. Peter Standish's Understanding Julio Cortdzar admirably fulfilsthe task it sets itself, and offers much besides. It belongs to a series designed as a guide to the life and important works of prdminent modern authors for undergraduate and graduate stu? dents and non-academic readers. Cortazar died in 1984 and his work has attracted a vast amount of critical attention from two distinct generations of readers, with a recent resurgence of interest and re-evaluation, some sophisticated and revealing, such as Dominic Moran, Questions of the Liminal in the Fiction of Julio Cortdzar (Oxford: Legenda, 2000), other material openly hostile and dismissive. It was thus surely a daunting task to write a genuine introduction for possibly maiden readers, at the same time approach relatively untouched areas of his work, and combine a feeling of the excitement which the works originally provoked with the more sober perspective of hindsight. Benefiting from a long-term engagement with the work of the Argentinian, Standish strikes a commendable balance, writing what is in fact the only comprehensive study of the whole work of Cortazar. His coverage of the early published works, the relatively neglected early work posthumously published, the critical essays, the drama and poetry (until recently almost entirely neglected), and the crucial works involving other art forms, is particularly welcome. Standish's brief introduction to the life and works, covering Peronism and exile, relations with Argentinian intellectuals, the complex engagement with the Cuban 490 Reviews Revolution, debates on committed literature, and more, is agile and tactful, while Los reyes is effectivelyused as an introduction to major motifs such as the ovillo or skein. The section on the stories is much longer, and though the division into themes might seem unpromising, it works extremely well, and he chooses stories very selectively so as to devote a decent amount of space to each one. Sections on phobias and hands combine with nicely done ones on children and adolescents...