Like the character in "The Continuity of Parks", written by Julio Cortazar, once I begin reading a book, it is hard for me to put it down. As I'm reading, I get lost in the text, and imagine myself inside of the story. When Cortazar begins establishing magical realism in his short story, I had a very hard time accepting it. I am such a "realist" that it was extremely hard for me to go along with the two worlds coming together. After getting past the twist, and imagining that the man was really reading about his own murder, I felt sadness and sorrow for the man in the green velvet chair. He did nothing to deserve his fate, and I felt myself wanting to jump in and save him. For me, the most emotional line of Cortazar's short story was, "The door of the salon and then the knife in his hand, the light from the great windows, the high back of an armchair covered in green velvet, the head of the man in the chair reading a novel." This is the very last sentence of the story. I was shocked at the direction the story took, and became angry at the adulterous couple. They were the ones who should have been punished, and as far as I knew, the main character never did anything wrong!
Cortazar did a fabulous job at making me feel a connection to the main character before presenting the magical realism. If he hadn't, I may not have had such strong opinion against the adulterous couple. I felt that this piece really impacted me because I felt that I had a pretty good understanding of the story, until the ending. At times, I was a little confused, and this story really challenged me to concentrate. I think I might enjoy reading something like this again, however, I would much rather the twist be positive! I would definitely recommend a story like this to someone who feels that everything they read seems the same. Someone, like myself, who gets bored with stories that are so predictable would really enjoy this story.
I like how you connect your reaction to the story so clearly to how Cortazar constructed the story. I think that you are right that, in general, we prefer our escapist literature to be positive. There seems to be a trend these days to make a lot of escapist art to be rather dystopian. However, in the case of these Latin American authors, as we discussed in class, they want you to be happy, they want you to be think. Not that the two are mutually exclusive, of course, but it might be for these authors.
ReplyDeleteDrat: I have a typo in my comment. Here is what I *meant* to say, except that I was typing too fast.
ReplyDeleteHowever, in the case of these Latin American authors, as we discussed in class, they don't want you to be happy, instead they want you to think."