by Julio Cortázar
Cortázar’s first collection of short stories and maybe the most famous one. The title “The Bestiary” is well chosen since in each story animals play a role – in one way or another. The reader can already recognize the typical basic structure, which makes them a Cortázar story: starting with an ordinary episode in someone’s life, surrealistic things happen and at the end a totally unexpected twist to the story.
The first story in this book – called “Casa Tomada” (The Taken House) – is worth the whole book.A brother and his sister live together in a huge house. One day he hears a noise in a remote part of the house, and he is convinced that foreign people took it and live there now. Sister and brother just barricade that part and live on – sometime hearing some noise from the taken part. Step by step the whole house is taken by those invisible foreigners until the owners just close teh front door and leave, throwing away the keys. Hilarious! Also the story of a guy who dates a woman whose previous two fiances died in mysterious circumstances by poison.
Cortázar is a must for everyone who is interested in Latin American literature.
The first story in this book – called “Casa Tomada” (The Taken House) – is worth the whole book.A brother and his sister live together in a huge house. One day he hears a noise in a remote part of the house, and he is convinced that foreign people took it and live there now. Sister and brother just barricade that part and live on – sometime hearing some noise from the taken part. Step by step the whole house is taken by those invisible foreigners until the owners just close teh front door and leave, throwing away the keys. Hilarious! Also the story of a guy who dates a woman whose previous two fiances died in mysterious circumstances by poison.
Cortázar is a must for everyone who is interested in Latin American literature.
Facts:
English title: Bestiary
Original title: Bestiario
Published: 1951
