These tales were filled with rhythm and beat in their lines, a certain poetic style of stream and consciousness that focused more on the sake of the writing itself- it seems, rather than the typical plot points of a story. For this reason, I considered it very peculiar and interesting and I do feel Cortázar is worth exploring further. If you read this, I believe you may feel the same.

3 stars. ( )

Incredibilă. ( )

We Love Glenda So Much and Other Tales - Julio Cortázar's. short-story collection as a series of well-crafted fictional mindbenders, addressing such themes as art and identity, film and identity, hallucinogens and identity, game playing and identity. There are ten stories collected here. To pull away the cape and reveal some Julio magic, below are my comments along with quotes from two of my favorites:

WE LOVE GLENDA SO MUCH
This odd little tale of obsession made all the more powerful since a group of wealthy moviegoers share the same obsession for an actress by the name of Glenda (Glenda Garson in the tale; actually, the stunning British 1950s actress, Glenda Jackson).

How much did Glenda mean to this group? Here are a couple of snatches from the first-person narrator: “Glenda, her dazzling presence in every one of us, and we knew nothing of discrepancies or misgivings.” And again: “We were beginning to feel that our love for Glenda was going beyond the merely artistic terrain and that she alone was saved from what the rest did imperfectly.”

Herein lies the poison of celebrity-worship: projecting perfection onto a mere human, even if that human glows with perfection up there on the silver screen. But, uh-oh. The group detects certain films with Glenda are, in certain scenes, less than perfect!

Emergency measures must be taken, resources must be tapped, cutting and editing is required. Will the group’s obsession turn sinister? Do the Glenda worshipers confuse the glamor of film with the sacred? Let me disclose no more and simply end with a quote, “Certainly perfecting Glenda was perfecting us and perfecting the world.”

ORIENTATION OF CATS
The first-person narrator compares what it means to be seen by his cat and seen by his wife Alana; a comparison made to honor, even worship, a woman’s affinity with the mysterious feline, yet being a woman (good thinking, mate) her vision expands beyond the feline in multiple dimensions, each dimension like cards in a deck, forever shuffled, forever a surprise as to which card winds up on top. Ah, women. As Julio writes: “Behind those blue eyes there’s more, in the depths of the words and moans and the silences another realm is born another Alana is breathing.”

In his apartment with his cat and his wife is one thing, quite another to add the visual arts to the perceptual equation. We read, “The day came when facing a Rembrandt print I saw her change even more, as if a set of clouds in the sky had suddenly altered the lights and shadows of a landscape. I felt that the painting was carrying her beyond herself.”

And then the world of perception is expands even further when he and Alana take a trip to the museum. “I was watching her give herself over the each painting, my eyes were multiplying the lightning bolt of a triangle that went from her to the picture and from the picture to me, returning to her and catching the change, the different halo that encircled her for a moment to give way later to a new aura, a tonality that exposed her to a true one, to the ultimate nakedness.”

Triangulation of seeing and being seen, a series of calculations on ever-changing perception, where the three tips of the triangle are husband/narrator/observer, Alana as she views the paintings and the painting themselves. Alana moves through the museum from painting to painting, contemplating each one and the triangle and subsequent calculation shifts with each viewing; and with each shift, the narrator is given a glimpse of a new Alana, Alana made new encounter after painterly encounter.

But that’s not all; there’s yet another magical triangulation. The narrator sees Alana’s gaze rest on a painting of a cat facing left, looking out a window. The narrator imagines Alana enter the painting and stand beside the cat, so they both look out the window.

And what are they looking at? The window is at the painting’s left edge, thus the object of their gaze is beyond the borders of the painting’s frame. Again, what are those two, Alana and the cat, looking at? The narrator uses his imagination to figure it out: why, those two sets of eyes, one human, one feline, are looking at him. Cortázar-style triangulation!

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We Love Glenda So Much by Julio Cortázar. Short-story collection as a series of well-crafted fictional mindbenders, addressing such themes as art and identity, film and identity, hallucinogens and identity, game playing and identity. There are 10 stories collected here. To pull away the cape and reveal some Julio magic, below are my comments along with quotes from two of my favorites:

WE LOVE GLENDA SO MUCH
This odd little tale of obsession made all the more powerful since a group of wealthy moviegoers share the same obsession for an actress by the name of Glenda (Glenda Garson in the tale; actually, the stunning British 1950s actress, Glenda Jackson). How much did Glenda mean to this group? Here are a couple of snatches from the first-person narrator: “Glenda, her dazzling presence in every one of us, and we knew nothing of discrepancies or misgivings.” And again: “We were beginning to feel that our love for Glenda was going beyond the merely artistic terrain and that she alone was saved from what the rest did imperfectly.”

Herein lies the poison of celebrity-worship: projecting perfection onto a mere human, even if that human glows with perfection up there on the silver screen. But, uh-oh. The group detects certain films with Glenda are, in certain scenes, less than perfect! Emergency measures must be taken, resources must be tapped, cutting and editing is required. Will the group’s obsession turn sinister? Do the Glenda worshipers confuse the glamor of film with the sacred? Let me disclose no more and simply end with a quote, “Certainly perfecting Glenda was perfecting us and perfecting the world.”

ORIENTATION OF CATS
The first-person narrator compares what it means to be seen by his cat and seen by his wife Alana; a comparison made to honor, even worship, a woman’s affinity with the mysterious feline, yet being a woman (good thinking, mate) her vision expands beyond the feline in multiple dimensions, each dimension like cards in a deck, forever shuffled, forever a surprise as to which card winds up on top. Ah, women. As Julio writes: “Behind those blue eyes there’s more, in the depths of the words and moans and the silences another realm is born another Alana is breathing.”

In his apartment with his cat and his wife is one thing, quite another to add the visual arts to the perceptual equation. We read, “The day came when facing a Rembrandt print I saw her change even more, as if a set of clouds in the sky had suddenly altered the lights and shadows of a landscape. I felt that the painting was carrying her beyond herself.” And then the world of perception is expands even further when he and Alana take a trip to the museum. “I was watching her give herself over the each painting, my eyes were multiplying the lightning bolt of a triangle that went from her to the picture and from the picture to me, returning to her and catching the change, the different halo that encircled her for a moment to give way later to a new aura, a tonality that exposed her to a true one, to the ultimate nakedness.”

Triangulation of seeing and being seen, a series of calculations on ever-changing perception, where the three tips of the triangle are husband/narrator/observer, Alana as she views the paintings and the painting themselves. Alana moves through the museum from painting to painting, contemplating each one and the triangle and subsequent calculation shifts with each viewing; and with each shift, the narrator is given a glimpse of a new Alana, Alana made new encounter after painterly encounter.

But that’s not all; there’s yet another magical triangulation. The narrator sees Alana’s gaze rest on a painting of a cat facing left, looking out a window. The narrator imagines Alana enter the painting and stand beside the cat, so they both look out the window. And what are they looking at? The window is at the painting’s left edge, thus the object of their gaze is beyond the borders of the painting’s frame. Again, what are those two, Alana and the cat, looking at? Why, the narrator imagines those two are looking at him himself. Cortázar-style triangulation!


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Queremos tanto a Glenda(1980) propone un renovado repertorio de cuentos a cargo del mejor maestro, Julio Cortázar. En estos diez relatos insuperables, hay variantes para todos los paladares de lectura: rituales públicos y privados, pesadillas que surgen a plena luz del día, cruces imperceptibles entre la realidad y la imaginación, humor, violencia y melancolía. Desde la exquisita ambiguedad de Orientación de los gatos a la perfecta construcción lógica de Anillo de Moebius, desfilan los temas que Cortázar ha sabido, como pocos, convertir en literatura de antología: los sueños, los gatos, los cuadros, el tiempo, la música, las infinitas trampas del lenguaje. Y ese sabor persistente e indefinible que, como en toda gran obra, está más allá de toda fórmula. ( )