MAURICE HEMINGWAY and FRANK MCQUADE The Writer and Politics in Four Stories by Julio Cortazar La critica se ha ocupado mucho de las ideas de Cortdzar respecto a la relacién entre su compromiso politico y su actividad como escritor, pero ha prestado muy poca atencién a sus intentos de sintetizar las dos cosas. Este articulo examina cuatro cuentos de tipo politico (“Segunda vez,” “Grafitti,” [sic] “Apocalipsio de Solentiname” y “Recortes de prensa”) Los cuatro manifiestan las caracteristicas uswales del estilo cortazariano, por ejemplo la ambigiedad narrativa y la irrupcién de lo irracional en lo racional. Sin embargo, cuando Cortdézar no logra distanciarse de los sucesos en que se inspira para hacer propaganda acerca de una situacién politica determinada, dichas caracteristicas no hacen mds que enmas- carar lo que en el fondo es una simplificacién de la realidad, procedi- miento muy ajeno a su estética. Por otra parte, cuando adopta una perspectiva mds amplia, se podria decir casi profética, lo irracional y la ambigiedad Wegan a integrarse dentro de ta estructura temdtica del cuento. ‘The main preoccupations of Cortézar’s works are not overtly political; his fiction is always informed by a belief in the ambiguity of experience, the irrational forces within man, as well as a sheer delight in the imagina- tion and what he called “lo hidico.”! Yet from his visit to Cuba in 1962, at least, he was deeply committed to the socialist cause in Latin Amer- ica, particularly in Argentina, Cuba, Chile and, latterly, in Nicaragua.? His, and others,’ sense of the intellectual’s duty to participate actively in the struggle for political change undoubtedly caused him problems, because of the dislike of some of his co-religionists for his hermetic art, and their demand that he should write “para el pueblo.”* In response to such views Cortézar showed not only a measure of defensiveness and exasperation, but also a firm conception of his role as an artist. His prestige as a writer was to be used in such activities as journalistic pro- paganda and his membership of the Russell Tribunal. But in his fiction itself he refused to accept the constraints of “dead socialist realism” or ‘an unsophisticated proletarian readership.t The writer’s revolutionary REVISTA CANADIENSE DP ESTUDIOS HISPANICOS Vol. XIII, No. 1 Otofio 198850 role was to be revolutionary in his writing;® he had the responsibility “never to recede, for whatever reasons, along the path of creativity.” ‘The “enrichment of reality through culture” contributes to the political process because it has “a clearly demonstrable effect on the revolutionary capability of the people.”* For this reason, Cortézar very rarely wrote on political aubjects and when he did he almoet never treated them in the reductionist way his critics would have preferred. As he put it: “Yo no puedo escribir por indicaciones ajenas ni traiciondndome a mf mismo. En cualquier cosa que yo escribo los elementos de lo fantastico, de lo grotesco, del humor, de la invencién verbal tienen que estar alli”? It is hardly surprising that Cortdzar should have reacted in this indi- vidualistic way to demands that he should have put his art at the service of propaganda. Central to his aesthetic was the notion that artistic cre- ation is based “on the expansion rather than the limitation of reality,” anotion expressed most famously in the appeal to the “lector eémplice.” Clearly the denunciation or celebration of particular events or situations requires, if it is to be at all successful, the narrowing down of the possi- bilities of interpretation so that a very precise message is communicated to the (more or less passive) reader. Cortazar, however, did on occasion write fiction with political con- tent, the most obvious example being his novel Libro de Manuel (1978). Although this novel was intended to have a political impact in precise situations (Argentina and Chile), its concerns and structure do not be- tray Cortdzar’s central aesthetic. Certainly, if Cortazar is to be believed, it was not well received by the revolutionary left. There exists also a small corpus of short stories on political themes. ‘Two of these, “Re- unién” and “Alguien que anda por abi,” which deal with the Cuban revolution, fall, in our view, on the one hand into sentimentalism and on the other into melodrama, precisely because they betray Cortézar’s open-ended view of art in favour of political propaganda. But in an- other four, he manages, either with political allegories (“Segunda vez” and “Grafitti"), or explorations of the relationship between art and po- litical protest (“Apocalipsis de Solentinaine” and “Recortes de prensa”), to draw attention to his political concerns, while largely, though not en- tirely, avoiding these pitfalls.2° Both “Segunda ves” and “Grafitti” were published aud presumably written after the military coup in Argentina in March 1976, and know! edge of this fact leans one towards precise interpretations. Unlike other stories mentioned above, however, they do not necessarily relate to an obvious political situation, such as the Cuban revolution, and they have resonances wider than their political implications. “Segunda vez” is set in Buenos Aires and deals with a girl, Maria Blena, who answers an51 official summons to a government department. In the waiting room all the people are there for the first time, except a young man, Carlos, who is on his second visit, and is the last one to go in before Maria Elena. She is eventually called in, but Carlos does not come out, and in the office she sees neither him nor any other exit. She fills in a form, an- swers questions, and is told to return three days later. She leaves, waits awhile for Carlos, but he never emerges. This is an allegory which, despite the Argentine setting, can be in- terpreted with varying degrees of particularity: Maria Elena, Carlos and the others in the waiting room can represent (1) humanity, (11) the victims of faceless bureaucracy, (111) people living in Latin American to- talitarian (or is it authoritarian?) regimes, and (1v) the desaparecidos of contemporary Argentina. ‘That this is not a realistic narrative is clear from the opposition estab- lished between two kinds of waiting - the unsuspecting waiting of Maria Elena and her companions, on the one hand, and the raised sacrificial kuife of the unidentified officials, on the other. We cannot help seeing each group as standing for something else. The opposition is built into the very narrative structure of the story. ‘The first paragraph and a half are told in the first person by a Ministry official, but thereafter the story is told by a third-person narrator from Maria Elena’s point of view, until the last sentence when the first-person narrator reappears, This gives the uneasy impression that the whole of the story has been told (impossibly) by the all-knowing bureaucrat. ‘The tone of the narrative frame is set in the first clause (“No més que los esperébamos”), The fact that we know the identity of neither the subject nor the object of the verb makes all the more sinister the casualness of the introductory colloquialism and the calculated deliberateness of the details which follow. Of the victims (as we shalll later discover they are) we learn that “cada uno tenia su fecha y su hora,” while their victimizers wait “eso si, sin apuro, fumando despacio,” and drinking coffee brought by “el negro Lépez.”*# ‘The second paragraph, with its slick jokes, fills out the picture of the loutish officials’ ambush, until halfway through we are taken back to the beginning with a reference to “el negro Lépen” bringing coffee and the phrase “nosotros solamente ahi esperando.” There follows a bridge passage which takes us from one point of view to another: “Ahora que eso si, aunque venga en papel amarillo una convocatoria siempre tiene un aire serio; por eso Maria Elena la habia mirado muchas veces en su casa...” (48). Although there is here a shift to Maria Elena’s point of view, it is not at all clear on a first reading that the official is no longer the narrator, a confusion aided by the phrase “eso si,” which he had52 used in the first sentence. Moreover, the third-person narrator disguises his voice throughout by the flow between omniscient narrative, direct and indirect speech and style indirect libre. For example, here we read: “La citaban a una oficina de la calle Maza, era raro que ahi hubiera un ministerio pero su hermano habia dicho que estaban instalando oficinas en cualquier parte porque los ministerios ya resultaban chicos, y apenas se bajé del Smnibus vio que debja ser cierto ...” (ibid.). ‘The central clauses (“era raro que ...”) are in style indirect libre, while the first and last clauses are presumably the narrator’s voice, (although the last words could again be in style indirect libre). ‘As the narrative proper begins, the emphasis moves from the official’s ‘ominous confidence to Maria Elena’s ingenuousness. She is overawed by the “aire serio” of the summons and stares repeatedly at its green stamp, illegible signature and the place and date. Her submissiveness is shown by the way she responds obediently to the mysterious summons and winds up her watch in the bus to make sure she is not late, Yet she is puzzled (as in the example cited above) that the Ministry should be in such an unlikely place, that there is no national flag outside and that there is no elevator. Despite her sense that all is not quite as she might expect, the atmosphere in the street is presented as ordinary - houses, shops, trees, parked cars and the piropo she receives from the news vendor. As so often in Cortdzar, we enter into a different world through a more or less metaphorical door, in this case a suitably anonymous one, with no bell or nameplate. What Maria Elena sees, however, is again em- phatically ordinary ~ a typical waiting-room scene, with its predictable embarrassment and boredom. ‘The whole of this section deals with the second kind of waiting, quite different from that of the bureaucrats in the narrative frame. Maria Elena is shy and self-conscious: she blushes, does not dare sit down until invited, join in the conversation or ask why two summonses are necessary. Her companions are equally inoffensive and go out of their way to be affable. The contrast between the atmo- sphere in the waiting room and the sinister waiting in the first section is heightened by the slightly satirical way in which these new charac- ters are treated. Satire is suggested first by the generic names they are given, e.g. “el sefior calvo,” “la anciana” and “el muchacho de la corbata verde,” and we are only given Carlos’s name because we need to identify with him enough to be concerned about his disappearance. Each of the characters is faintly comic. The “sefior calvo” speaks apparently with the wisdom of experience about the slowness of bureaucratic procedures, but his confident “alo mejor cuatro preguntas y chau” is deflated by the added “por lo menos supongo.” Stubbing out his cigarette, he becomes53 philosophical and utters the cliché “la vida es una sala de espera,” only to be deflated again by the narrator's comment that he looks at his hands “como si ya no supiera qué hacer con ellas” (52). The old lady is “placed” by ler smelling salls, her uuconvincing protestations that she does not mind cigarette smoke, and the “asentimiento de muchos afios” which she sighs in response to the bald man’s aphorism (ibid.) ‘The young man is clearly distinguished from the others by the fact that this is his second visit, and his pleasure in the superiority this gives him is gently Iampooned: “Hay que tomarlo con filosofin” — he tells Maria Elena ~ “no se olvide que va a tener que volver, asf que mejor quedarse tranquila” (53), a somewhat ironic comment in view of the fact that his own second visit and disappearance is to forin the climax to the story. As in the extract discussed above, the flow from one kind of discourse to another is crucial to the effect created in this section. For example: Lasefiora anciana habia sacado un frasquito como de sales y lo olfa suspirando. Capaz que tanto humo la estaba descomponiendo, y el muchacho se ofrecié a apagar el cigartillo y el seiior calvo dijo que claro, que ese pasillo era una vergiienza mejor apagaban los cigarrillos si se sentia mal, pero la sefiora dijo que no, un poco de fatiga solamente que se le pasaba en seguida, en su casa el marido y los hijos fumaban todo el tiempo, ya casi no me doy cuenta. Maria Elena que también habia tenido ganas de sacar un cigarzillo vio que los, hombres apagaban los suyos, que el muchacho lo aplastaba contra la suela del zapato, siempre se fuma demasiado cuando se tiene que esperar, la otra vez habia sido peor porque habja siete u ocho personas antes, y al final no se vefa nada en el pasillo con tanto humo, (51-52) ‘The alternation between narrator’s voice, style indirect libre, direct and indirect speech creates an ironic perspective on the characters’ awkward earnestness because it is observed from a disconcerting variety of angles. However, the irony in this section is not malicious: it establishes the innocent ingenuousness of the characters and a misleading sense of the ordinariness of the situation. The effect is to make all the more striking the contrast between the scene in the waiting room and the scene awaiting Maria Blena beyond the door which leads to the office. The clerks arc not at all concerned with her as an individual: one of them asks her for her yellow form “sin levantar los ojos,” and after the interview dismisses her “sin mirarla.” He is also impatient, as though she is taking too long in filling out the forms. Her human concern for Carlos is placed beside the mechanical im- personality of the clerks as they put her through the form-filling exercise: “Bran las pavadas de siempre, nombre y apellido, edad, sexo, domicilio54 ». La tinica puerta de la oficina, pero Carlos no estaba ahi. Antigtiedad en el empleo. Con mayiisculas, bien clarito” (55). Once again the effect is created by a mixing of discourse: the style indirect libre relating Maria Elena’s thoughts about the forms and her questions about Carlos, and then what she reads on the forms (her voice or the narrator's?) and the official’s instructions in direct speech. Before leaving, she has to answer another set of questions about her personal circumstances, as if the State is particularly concerned with keeping track of people’s move- ments. She is then told she has to return, and, given the disappearance of Carlos, the story’s title takes on sinister overtones as we are made aware of the unspecified fate awaiting Maria Elena when she visits the office for a second time. But she is still unsuspecting, and after waiting for a few minutes for Carlos, she comes to a naive conclusion: “Pens6 que acaso él tardaba porque era el tinico que habia venido por segunda vez, vaya a saber, a lo mejor era eso” (57). Here, the shift from indirect speech to style indirect libre foregrounds her naivety. She came to the first interview unsuspectingly, and will come to the second like a lamb to the slaughter. ‘The story ends by returning abruptly to the narrative frame. As be- fore, there is a bridge passage: “Capaz que entonces las cosas camnbiaban ¥ que la hacfan salir por otro lado aunque no supiera por dénde ni por qué. Ella no, claro, pero nosotros si lo sabiamos, nosotros la estariamos esperando a ella y a los otros, fumando despacito y charlando mien- tras el negro Lépez preparaba otro de los tantos cafés de la mafiana” (ibid.), The reader is bound to assume that the words “ella no” at the beginning of the second sentence continue the style indirect libre of the previous sentence. But the word “claro” and the rest of the sentence, which are repetitions of phrases used by the official in the opening nar- tative ftame, indicate whose voice this is and even suggest that he has been the narrator throughout. This is a chilling ending, especially since the unpleasant narrator does not even disclose his secret to the reader: it is inside information just like the fate of Carlos. The overbearing, oppressive nature of the bureaucrats is emphasized by the fact that the clerk has apparently told us of Maria Elena’s every move and thought on the day of the interview, and this impossible omniscience adds to the uncomfortable feoling that Big Brother io watching, that the System sees and knows all As we have suggested, the obvious contrast between victims and vie- timizers establishes the allegorical status of “Segunda vez.” However, in typically Cortazarian manner, there is more than one possible interpre- tation. The ruthlessness of the officials and the disappearance of Carlos suggest that this is a comment on the “dirty war” of contemporary At-55 gentina, On the other hand, the Orwellian resonances of the story's ending suggest that the subject is tho wider one of Latin American to- talitarian regimes. Yet Marfa Elena and her companions are unlikely terrorists or political activists. Of course, that may be the point: desa- parecidos or victims of persecution quite often are. Even so, the obvious ingenuousness and vulnerability of the victims may prompt us to see this story as a warning of the horror of the bureaucratic monster, not only in Latin America, The obvious reminiscence here of Kafka’s The Trial (K is apparently innocent and no charge against him is specified) invites a wider interpretation, that through a more or less precise polit- ical situation Cortazar is dramatizing the individual’s sense of living in a threatening world, where undeserved suffering and inexplicable death await him. Seen in this light, the official’s ominous “cada uno tenfa su fecha y su hora” and the bald man’s cliché “la vida es una sala de espera” (Beckett?) assume a more general existential significance. “Grafitti” also centres on the victims of a repressive system (the voseo suggests Argentina as the setting) and, as in the previous story, they are unlikely political offenders. This story deals with the activities of a graf- fiti artist in a police state where all forms of expression are prohibited. ‘The man normally operates by night, but his drawings arc invariably removed the following day. His interest in this activity increases when he finds other drawings next to his own, as if in answer to his expres- sion, and he feels strangely certain that; these are by a woman. Because of the drawings an unusual relationship of understanding and affection grows; the man worries aobut the girl taking such great risks, tries to meet her, and is terrified when he sees someone he takes to be her being caught making a drawing and being bundled into a police van. He knows well what tortures she will suffer in police detention, and a month later at dawn he draws another impassioned picture. When he returns to his drawing, he finds that the girl has responded with another drawing, from which seems to emerge a grotesquely disfigured face. Throughout the story there are various hints of political repression, in, for example, the existence of a curfew, the presence of police vans, the prohibition of all forms of self-expression and the fact that people avoid showing open interest in the graffiti for fear of recrimination. But the situation is never made clear because the protagonists are not po- litical animals. The graffiti itself are not political and consist only of such things as boats on the sea or abstract forms, lines and colours. ‘The implication of such graffiti being removed and the pains taken by the authorities to catch the offenders is that such repression is obtuse, brutal and uncompromising: “Poco les importaba que no fueran dibu- {jos politicos, la prohibicidn abarcaba cualquier cosa, y si algiin nifio se56 hubiera atrevido a dibujar una casa o un perro, lo mismo lo hubieran borrado entre palabrotas y amenazas.”** As in “Segunda vez,” the brutality of the system is contrasted with the humanity of its victims. Far from being intimidated, however, the graffiti artist pursues his activity with even greater zest when he finds a kindred spirit, another person who merely wants to draw pictures. Hence the element of human interest intensifies: “Empezé un tiempo diferente, més sigiloso, més bello y amenazante a la ven” (131). A new richness hes sprung up in the man’s life. He tries to imagine what the woman is like, worries about the risks she is taking, and takes greater risks himself in order to reply to her sketches: “se te ocurrié que ella buscaria una respuesta ... Y aunque el peligro era cada vez mayor ... te atreviste a acercarte al garaje” (ibid.). Again, as in “Segunda vez,” authority finally pounces: the girl is ar- rested, possibly never to be seen again. But at this point Cortézar moves on from “Segunda vez,” where he simply draws attention to the horror of the situation. The final twist when the girl replies to the man’s new drawing with a horrifying self-portrait points to one positive response to political repression. His drawing is all joy, passion and hope: “Llenaste Jas maderas con un grito verde, una roja llamarada de reconocimiento y de amor, envolviste tu dibujo con un dvalo que era también tu boca y la suya y la esperanza” (133). Her reply is a reminder of how such feelings are rewarded in the system under which they live. Yet she appeals to him to carry on, and imagines him making “otros dibujos.” We are pre- sumably not intended to take this at face value: that is, the story is not simply about graffiti, but is an allegory in which the graffiti stand not only for freedom of expression but also the specifically human charac- teristics which are threatened by totalitarianism. No matter how fierce the repression, the expression of joy, passion and hope must continue Here the crucial role of art in the political struggle is hinted at. It is suggested that the authoritarian establishment is philistine, and hostile to creativity, imagination and human emotions. It follows then that auy sincere art is engagé in so far as it flows from and expresses these qualities, and that the artist’s role is not to be a propagandist but to be precisely an artist.2° ‘True lo this principle, Cortazar writes this slory with Uke ambiguily characteristic of his work, particularly in respect of the narrative tech- nique. The story is told in the second person and describes the thoughts of the graffiti artist. We are bound to assume that he is either address- ing himself or being addressed by a third person, a kind of omniscient narrator observing his mental processes. But at the end of the story there is a surprise revelation: the narrator is neither the man nor a87 third person, but the woman. As in “Segunda vez,” there is a deceptive bridge passage where the voice is ambiguous: Ya sé, ya sé, pero qué otra cosa hubiera podido dibujarte? ,Qué mensaje hubiera tenido sentido ahora? De alguna manera tenfa que decirte adiés y a la vex pedirte que signieras. Algo tenfa que dejarte antes de volverme a mi refugio ... (134) Reading this, one infers that the subject of “ya sé” is either the man or a narrator, and that the subject of “hubiera podido” and “tenia” is ella. But the phrase “volverme a mi refugio” shows this not to be the case. “Ya sé” are the woman's words and the subject of “hubiera podido” and “tenia” is “yo.” In other words, the whole narration belongs to the woman and what seems to have been the man’s speculation about her turns out to be her speculations about him. Cortazar had already used an identical technique in “Reunién con un cfrculo rojo” (Alguien que anda por ahf) in which a second-person nar- rator describes a man’s thoughts as he sits in a restaurant and observes an Englishwoman whom he takes to be in some kind of danger. He delays his exit until she has left and follows her, only to find that she disappears into thin air. He returns to the restaurant to discover that he himself is the murder victim. We now realize that it is the woman who is telling the story, and that she, an earlier victim, is now a ghost who had intervened to try to lure the man away from the restaurant. Now, although the narrative technique is identical, its effect. in the ear- lier work is simply to heighten the horror of what is essentially a ghost story. Like “Grafitti,” it deals with an attempt at communication which in this case fails because the protagonist, like the reader, sees the situ- ation as a mirror image of what it really is. He thinks he is protecting the woman when in fact she is protecting him. The ghost disappears at the end thinking that she has saved the man, but she had not bar- gained on his returning to the restaurant to save her. Now she looks forward to their meeting when he is dead. In “Grafitti” the sinister element is not supernatural or criminal but political, and the meeting between the man and the woman is not finally a meeting of ghosts but of hearts. In the earlier story the surprise revelation is little more than a contrivance, whereas in the later one it creates poignancy as we learn that the woman has been describing her fate in such a nobly detached way and as we realize that, hiding herself away, she has been speculating about the graffiti artist’s reactions to her. This then is an original and unusual setting for a kind of political Romeo and Juliet, and the reader feels a sense of loss, a sense that delicate human feelings, symbolized by58 the graffiti, have been violated by a régime of terror. “Apocalipsis de Solentiname” (Alguien que anda por ahf) was written in 1976, three years before the Sandinista revolution, and deals with a vision of destruction vouchsafed to the narrator. The plot is simple. The narrator (Julio Cortazar himself) visits Ernesto Cardenal’s community on the island of Solentiname. There he sees and photographs paintings by local peasant artists. Back in Paris, he projects the newly developed films onto a screen only to witness not a series of simple paintings, but a string of atrocities taking place in many Latin American locations. ‘The story’s narrative pattern is common in Cortézar’s work: an or- dinary situation is invaded by the fantastic to create a reaction of “ex- trafiamiento.” Here the invasion is made all the more striking by the fact that the story appears to be autobiographical. Cortdzar did in fact visit Solentiname in 1976 and the story was written soon after in Costa Rica and Cuba. In the story, on his arrival in Costa Rica, he faces the usual press conference and the predictable questions. He en- ters a recognizable geographical and historical situation (Nicaragua and the Sandinista struggle against Somoza) and meets real people such as Ernesto Cardenal. But this is an insidious trap, because the last and most important part of the stéry is clearly not autobiographical: the stereotyped, bland, middle-class intellectual, Claudine, is not, one as- sumes, Cortézar’s real compafiera, and his vision, again one assumes, did not really take place. Another stratagem to draw the reader into the narrative is the way the narrator presents himself through his engag- ing manner — his tone is rambling, familiar, lighthearted, irreverent, with touches of self-irony. Because there is virtually no distance between him and us we are much more likely to share his sense of “extrafiamiento” when the inexplicable occurs. ‘What then is the point of the story? It clearly has to do with the paintings which Cortézar captutes on film. At the press conference he is asked about the film Blow-Up, which inevitably brings to mind “Las babas del diablo.” ‘This is not an arbitrary association because “Apo- calipsis" is an obvious echo of the earlier story. In “Las babas del diablo” Michel, the photographer, has a complacent attitude towards the representation of reality in his art, but when he blows up one particular photograph it escapes his control aud reintegrates into itself those parts of reality the photographer has edited out. A second glance back at “Las babas del diablo” appears early in “Apocalipsis” when Cortézar marvels at reality emerging from nothing on a polaroid negative. He asks a friend what would happen if, after a family photo, Napoleon on horseback were suddenly to appear. This reference to Napoleon as an incongruous intrusion into a conventional image is picked up at the end of59 the story, after the vision, when the same question occurs to the narrator. He fundamentally regards the paintings in the same complacent way Michel regards the scene he photographs. He places them in a good light, ensures that each painting exactly fills the viewfinder and jokes that his photographs will be better (“més grandes y més brillantes”) than the originals. Back home, as he prepares to view his photographs, he reflects that “era grato pensar que todo volveria a darse poco a poco” and each slide seems “pegajosa de recuerdo.” He is self-indulgent and tends to defuse both the original artworks and his copies of them by seeing them, as does Claudine, as “bonitas” because naifs. They are inserted into a comfortable bourgeois order, his “vida de reloj pulsera” along with “los comités, los cines, el vino tinto y Claudine, los cuartetos de Mozart y Claudine” (100). As frequently happens in Cortézar’s work, we move imperceptibly from this rational, unthreatening world into another by means of a bridge passage: “Pequefio mundo frdgil de Solentiname rodeado de agua y de esbirros como estaba rodeado el muchacho que miré sin comprender ...” (101). He begins to describe the scenes of violence which now appear on the screen with the same slightly detached wistfulness with which he has described the untransformed photographs, thus confusing the reader and increasing the sonse of shock. The narrator, drink in hand, sces not a comfortable souvenir but a disturbing vision of the reality faced by the paintings’ creators. A hint of this reality had been given earlier when at Sunday Mass the faithful comment on the story of Jesus’ arrest in the Garden. They understand only too well the threat of sudden arrest. Yet the mannered rhetoric of this particular section, with its accumulation of appositional phrases, suggests that the situation is being viewed from outside. One feels that only someone who does not share these people’s danger could treat it so melodramatically. But ultimately the impact of the story derives from the contrast be- tween the paintings as Cortézar photographs them and the images he sees on the seteen. He describes the paintings of rustic scenes, which lack normal proportion or perspective, as “la visién primera del mundo, la mirada limpia del que describe su entorno como un canto de alabanza” (98). ‘They represent the prelapsarian innocence and vulnerability of their creators, which is forcefully contrasted with the brutal violence done to them in Cortdzar’s vision. Our view of the paintings makes us see the violence as a kind of Slaughter of the Innocents which in the Gospel narrative prefigures the Passion of Jesus, part of which has al- ready been referred to in the story. Another point, one might infer is that, although the details of the vision may themselves seem fantastic, Cortazar is drawing attention precisely to the fact that the violence and60 ctuelty of the political establishments in Latin America do indeed pass belief. Since the writer is anxious not to confine our perspective only to Nicaragua, the vision ranges all over Latin America. The story itself be- gins with an affirmation of Latin American solidarity when the narrator affectionately abbreviates the Latin, American nationalities to diminu- tives, “ticos,” “nicas” and “tinos,” and declares that there is no differ- ence between them. Later, during the Mass, we are told that the threat which the faithful sense is “no solamente de toda Nicaragua sino de casi toda América Latina, vida rodeada de miedo y de muerte” (99). ‘This is, then, an ambitious story. And here we are bound to ex- press misgivings. In the first place, although on the surface Cortdzar does not modify his style to suit the subject matter, and introduces a fantastic element into the apparently realistic narrative, this element is fundamentally gratuitous, as it is not part of the thematic structure. ‘The reality Cortdzar attempts to make us aware of (violence in Latin America) is empirical reality, not an irrational dimension which chal- lenges the empirical. Perhaps, more importantly, Cortézar is forced into certain oversimplifications. In order to rally the troops, he postulates a Latin American homogeneity and solidarity which, stated as baldly as it is, does not convince. Moreover, the prelapsarian innocence of the “pueblo,” which we see in the paintings and during the obviously postconciliar Mass, is perilously close to sentimentality. It. seems as if, in the way he presents his material, Cortazar is proposing a model of the “hombre nuevo.”!5 It consists not only of the innocence referred to above, but also of the good-humoured camaraderie which flows from shared commitment to the revolutionary struggle, and a creativity and spirituality free from the constraints of institutional forms, whether cul- tural or ecclesiastical. Elsewhere Cortazar showed himself well aware that the search for the “hombre nuevo” is not as simple as is here sug gested. But such complex arguments as he engages in, for example in “Apuntes al margen de una relectura de 1984,” would here undermine his rhetorical intent.2° By contrast, “Recortes de prensa” (Queremos tanto a Glenda) com- bines both denunciation and an awareness of the complexity of the issues at stake, A first-person narrator, an Argentine writer, Naomi, living in Paris, visits another Argentine exile, a sculptor who has asked her to provide a text for a book of reproductions of his work. While she looks at the series of sculptures of various forms of torture, he reads a press cutting (the first “recorte” of the title) she has handed him. The cutting contains an account by an Argentine woman of the torture, murder and abduction of members of her family between 1975 and 1977. Having61 agreed to provide the text, Naomi leaves, and in the street she finds a small girl erying. The girl leads her to her house where they are con- fronted by a man torturing his wife who is bound and gagged on the bed. Naomi knocks the man unconscious with a stool, releases his wife, and between them the two women bind and gag the man and proceed to torture him. Next day, in a state of shack, Naomi records on paper what has happened, rings the sculptor to inform him of the previous day’s events and tells him that her story is to be the text he has te- quested. A few days later she receives a letter from him enclosing a cutting from France-Soir (the second “recorte”). ‘This describes a crime identical to the one Naomi has been party to, with photos of the very place. Yet it occurred not in Paris but in Marseilles. Naomi returns to the street where she had met the child but cannot find the house. She does, however, see the child who, she is told by a concierge, was found Jost in the street. Naomi returns home to add a final section to her text. This story is written in a certain defensive spirit. Naomi, despite her sex; is a thinly disguised Julio Cortazar: an exiled Argentine writer, she feels qualms of guilt about writing on non-political matters (71) and has the reputation of being “muy ocupada, quizé de egoista, en todo caso de escritora metida a fondo cn lo suyo” (73). In other words, she feels, like the author, the force of the accusation of hermeticism. Both the discussion between the two exiles and the development of the story as a whole constitute a statement about the role of the artist in the political struggle. (One can identify three strands in the argument. The first is the simple point of making information available. As Cortézar tells us in a note, the first of the press cuttings is real and the source is given. The long list of accusations is carefuly punctuated by the comments of Naomi and the sculptor to make it more digestible for the reader. The other two strands depend on the reactions of the two Argentines to the horrors exemplified by the cutting, and deal on the one hand with morality and on the other with aesthetics. We can infer the moral point both from the conversation between Naomi and the sculptor and from the ensuing scene of torture. In ex- pressing their disgust at the cruelty described, they distance themselves from it. Violence is an alien phenomenon. ‘The only doubt cast on their righteous indignation is a slightly cryptic comment by Naomi on the fact that the sculptures do not betray “la dudosa minucia de tantos afiches y textos y peliculas que volvian a mi memoria también dudosa, también demasiado pronta a guardar imagenes y devolverlas para vaya a saber qué oscura complacencia” (66-67). The suggestion that she herself can take a sadistic pleasure in torture prepares us for her behaviour in the62 following scene. Having released the woman, she helps her to bind the man. Without uttering a word, but looking into each other’s eyes, they become, as do the disturbing couple at the end of “Historia con migalas,” as one: “veo sus ojos en los mfos, un solo par de ojos desdoblados y cuatro manos arraneando y rompiendo y deanudando ...” (77). Thus Noomi is an accomplice in a crime she had previously believed only others to be capable of: “Cémo entender que también yo, también yo aunque creyera del buen lado, también yo, eémo aceptar que también yo ah{ del otro lado de manos cortadas y de fosas comunes, también yo del otro lado ...” (78-79). The Naomi who derives a dubious pleasure from experiencing torture secondhand, is now inflicting it herself. The implication is that violence and even sadism are not just instruments of political repression but are universal human characteristics, and that it is less than honest to pretend otherwise. If this is so, then it is not only Naomi but also the reader who is implicated because his reaction to the description of the torture of the woman, with its sexual overtones, may well be, like Naomi’s, a mixture of indignation and pleasure. ‘The aesthetic point follows from the moral point. The kind of writing which oversimplifies issues or indulges in sensationalism by inviting the reader to see situations in terms of “el buen lado” and “el otro lado” narrows rather than broadens our vision and consequently cannot serve any genuinely revolutionary purpose. The alternative is understatement, which leaves the question open because it does not delimit unduly the reader’s response. Hence the series of understatements in the story and the one exception (the torture of the woman) mentioned above. The sculptures contain “algo de enigma;” each one has to be looked at care- fully “para comprender la modalidad que en ella asumia la violencia;” they are at once “ingenuas y sutiles” and “sin tremendismo ni extorsién sentimental” (66). The first “recorte,” cast as it is as a formal com- plaint, is at times chillingly understated, notably the comment that the dismembered body of the woman’s daughter could not be handed over “porque era secreto militar” (69). After helping to bind the man, Naomi forgets what happened next and attempts to convey the horror of the torture by referring to a story by Jack London in which the torture of a trapper by a group of Indian women is conveyed without ever being described.17 Finally, when she opens the letter from the sculptor, she inadvertently tears the press cutting so that the account of the torture is missing, But at the heart of this story is the possibility of art contributing to the changing of reality. In the first section the writer and sculptor lament their inability to affect events. As the sculptor says, referring63 to atrocities in Argentina: “pero siempre es igual, siempre tenemos que reconocer que todo eso sucedié en otro espacio, sucedié en otro tiempo. Nunca estuvimos ni estaremos alli, donde acaso ...” (71). Yet, just before these remarks, Naomi, as she looks at the sculptures, finds Usal they abolish time and space: Por primera vez escuché un tictac de reloj de pared ... el leve sonido me Hegaba como un metrénomo de la noche, una tentativa de mantener vivo el tiempo dentro de ese agujero en que estébamos como metidos los dos, esa duracién que abarcaba una pieza de Paris y un barrio miserable de Buenos Aires, que abolfa los calendarios y nos dejaba cara a cara frente a eso ... (68) Likewise, Naomi herself, when she leaves the flat, is transported in time and space, to Marseilles at, apparently, another moment. The sound of her steps on the pavement echoes the ticking of the clock: “oi mis pasos taconeando secamente en el silencio, marcando ese ritimo ...” (78). Irrationally, and despite hersclf, she crosses the pavement and follows the girl. Words such as “la oscuridad,” “vislumbrando apenas,” “la penumbra,” “se divisaba” and “ninguna lémpara encendida” suggest that che is entering a vague, unreal world. For a moment, perhaps, when we read “oli un olor a quemado, of algo como un alarido ahogado” (76), we may take this to be a typically Cortazarian descent into Hell. ‘The allusion to Jack London suggests the possible fictiveness of this event and the phrase “quién sabe ... si eran otra ver las réfagas de la noche, pedazos de imagenes volviendo desde un recorte de diario” (78), insinuates that this may be a nightmare provoked by a reading of either or both of the press cuttings. On the other hand, the fact that Naomi awakes next day fully dressed and with a bleeding knee (she had cut it on leaving the place of torture) does not easily allow us to explain away the event in psychological terms. ‘This fantastic event is apparently a metaphor of what art can do. When Naomi declares “yo estaba abi, como sin estar” (77), her words suggest that art, like the sculptures, ean make present (in both senses of the word) what is distant in time and space. Moreover, it can achieve this in a way mere propaganda cannot, because of its ability to draw the perceiver into itself in the way proper to each art form and to convey ambiguities and complexities. ‘The question underlying the previous analyses is this: how did Cortdzar, given his views on the open-endedness of art, rise to the challenge of dealing with political issues in which he was deeply involved? To take “Apocalipsis en Solentiname” first, on the surface, Cortézar does not depart from the style to which he is committed, in so far as64 the irrational plays @ major role. Yet, as we have suggested, this is gra~ tuitous and the story is fundamentally a work of realism which almost descends into sentimentality. The reason is not hard to find. Cortézar in this story is working with recent. personal experiences in Nicaragua and seems unwilling, or unable, to distance himself from them. Consequently, he cannot resist making a precise propagandist point, and the apparent narrative sophistication is simply a cover for the actual thematic over- simplification. As he himself put it, when speculating about genuine revolutionary literature: “Pero esas obras no habran sido escritas por obligacién, por consignas de la hora. Sus temas nacer4n cnando sea el momento ... Sus temas contendrén un mensaje auténtico y hondo, porque no habran sido escogidos por un imperativo de cardcter didéctico © proseletista ...”2° ‘Although the other three stories we have discussed can be related to an identifiable political situation, the treatment of the political subject matter and its implications is broader, and the irrational dimension and narrative ambiguity are integrated into each story’s thematic structure. The issues these stories address are not short-term political goals on a collective level, but the defense of wider human values on an indivi- dual level which, for Cortdzar at least, is the motive for his ideological commitment. One may deduce from this that for him the artist’s role in the revolutionary struggle is prophetic, or that of the leaven in the lump: he contributes to the revolution by exploring and making present the liberation of the individual from all spiritual tyranny (including self- deception) so that, when the military and political objectives have been achieved, the real aims of the revolution will not have been forgotten. University of Exeter and Worcester College, Oxford NOTES 1 See Julio Cortézar, “Algunos aspectos del cuento,” Cuadernos hispanoame- ricanos, 85 (1971), 403-16 (404). See also Emesto Gonzdlez Bermejo, Con- 4 con Cortézar (Barcelona, 1978), 49; Jaime Alsaraki, En busce del los eventos de Julio Cortdzar. Elementos pera una poétice de lo eofantéatico (Madrid, 1082), 15-21; Clelia Pisa, “Julio Cortésar y las reglas del juego," La Gaceta, 162 (June, 1984), 18; Evelyn Picén Garfield, Cortézer por Cortdézar (Mexico, 1978), 52-53. 2 “Le decia y lo he dicho muchas veces: en realidad lo que me desperté a mi a la realidad latinoamericana fue Cuba." Gonzélez Bermejo, 120. 3 Picén Garfield, Cortévar por Cortizar, 75. Miguel Donoso Pareja, in “Cortézar: Literatura y politica,” Testo critico, 20 (1981), 38-43, vigorously10 un 12 13 “ 15 16 a7 18 19 65 defends Cortazar’s socialist seriousness. Ivan Ivaak, The Final Island (Norman, Oklahoma, 1978), 40. “Ses positions politiques comme son art poétique proctdent de Ia conviction suivante: Pimagination, l'art, la forme, sont révolutionnaires: ils détruisent les conventions mortes, nous apprennent & regarder, penser et sentir d'une manitre neuve, Cortézar avait grandi & proximité du surréaliame et son désir Atnit de mener de pair ce qu'll appelait ‘la révolution du dehors et la révolution du dedans."” Carlos Fuentes, “Julio Cortézar,” Le Quinzaine littéraire (16~ 30 April, 1984), 11. See also Cortézar’s essay “Qué poco revolucionatio suele ser al lenguaje de los revolucionarics,” in Aijos de alambrada caltureles (Bar celona, 1984), 78-81, and Oscar Collazos, Julio Cortézar and Mario Vargas Llosa, Literatura en le revolucién y revolucién en la literatura, 7th edition (Mexico, 1981), 73 and 76. Evelyn Picén Garfield, in {88 Julio Cortézar un surrealiste? (Madrid, 1975), 227-46, relates Cortézar's revolutionary view of terature to Surrealism. “Politics and the Intellectual in Latin America," 40-41. Picén Garfield, Cortézar por Cortiézar, 55. ‘Politics and the Intellectual in Latin America," 38: Compare Cortézar’s com- ment in “Realidad y literatura,” Texto eritico, 20 (1982), 5-13 (13): “Hablo de ese enlace a veces indefinible pero siempre inequivoco que se da entre una literatura que no escamotea la realidad de su contorno y aquellos que se re- conocen en ella como lectores a In vex que son llevados por ella més alld de sf mismos ext ol plano de la conciencla, de la visién histérica, de la politica y de In estética.” See Gonzalez, Bermejo, 124-25. Stelio Cro, in “Arte ¢ ideologia en Julio Cortézar,” Cuadernos para le invest gecién de le literatura hispdnica, 6 (1084), 15-21, argues that in Loe reyce and other early works Cortézar makes use of mythology to make an anti-Peronist point. Alguien que ands por abt y otros relatos (Madrid, 1977), 47. Further references to this collection will be given in the text. Queremes tanto « Glenda y otros relatos (Madrid, 1981), 190. Purther refer ences to this collection will be given in the text. A similar point, made more broadly, appears in Libro de Menuel, 4th edition (Barcelona, 1980), 8: “Mas que nunca creo que la lucha en pro del socialismo latinoamericano debe enfrentar el horror cotidiano con la tinica actitud que un dia le dark la victoria: cuidando precioramente, celosamente, In capacidad de vivir tal como la queremos para ese futuro, con todo lo que supone de amor, de juego y de alegria.” Soe Peter Standish, “Cortésar’s Latest Stories," Rev (Alabama), XVI (1982), 45-64 (46). See Esther P, Mocega-Gonsélez, “Julio Cortizar: Io de el ‘nuevo hombre! desde la ladera revolucionaria,” Cuadernos americanos, 39 (1980), part 4, 65~ 16, which is a study of “Reunién: See Nicerague, ten violentamente dulce (Barcelona, 1984), 8-16. From the details given the story is evidently "Lost Face.” See Steven Boldy, The Novels of Julio Cortézar (Cambridge, 1980), 67-68. “Algunos aspectos del cuento,” 416.