Summary
Julio Cortazar: Tales of Chronopia and Fame
Singing and Crying Manual
Absurd, horror, burlesque, fantasy, satire, allegory, sf, fable, paradox, myth, comedy, anecdote, drama, irony... a seemingly hard-to-combine conglomeration of terms, and we list them because they are mentioned in the list with Tales of Chronopia and Fame and because Julio Cortázar managed them skilfully mix in his curious "melting pot" - cooking up a real delicacy!
In addition to witty instructions for singing, crying, climbing stairs, winding the clock and similar instructions necessary in life, the author reveals to us in this peculiar poetic creation, composed of about a hundred fantastic stories and cartoons, his wonderful bestiary, a wonderful world of strange beings, inhuman creatures - chronopy, fama and Esperanzas - who live, as the song says: "a life different from this" and more or less "to the rhythm of dance music".
An Argentine by birth, Cortázar spent most of his working life in Paris, which resulted in him being able to boil in the aforementioned pot Latin American magical realism, which he brought with him, along with European surrealism and the avant-garde, which he could not resist in his new homeland. It is mysterious why Cortázar was neglected for a long time in our translation editions, but now Šareni dučan happily joins several publishers who (as per agreement) have decided to correct this huge injustice towards one of the Greatest Latin American writers.
To conclude: Stories about chronopiums and fams is an innovative, rarely beautiful and wacky book. A wonderful writer, an amazing work, a must for cool and free-spirited readers!
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