ISSUE 31 December, 2013 ISSUE 31 (December 2013) ISSN: 1523-1720 TABLE OF CONTENTS Ensayos/Essays • Anne Connor Behaving Badly: Irreverent play in Cortázar's Fantomas contra los vampiros multinacionales. • Roberto González Echevarría Infinito e improvisación en Cervantes • Hugo Hortiguera Pensar las ciudades: Espacios intermediales/espacios interdictorios como escenarios ficcionales en El hombre de al lado (de Mariano Cohn y Gastón Duprat) y Medianeras (de Gustavo Taretto). • Rolando Pérez Severo Sarduy’s "Cuba": Invented, simulated and cross-dressed • Salvador Luis Raggio El flâneur-cámara. Ruptura y ojo cinemático en "El joven" de Salvador Novo • Juan Pablo Rivera El cosmopolitismo y la aporía de la hospitalidad en la escritura de Janette Becerra • León Salvatierra "Estival": visión alegórica de la escritura canibalesca en Azul…de Rubén Darío Entrevistas/Interviews • Janis Breckenridge The Art of Storytelling: A Conversation with Lila Quintero Weaver • Liesbeth François "Me interesa tratar de sembrar dudas respecto de lo que se está contando." Una conversación con Sergio Chejfec Reseñas/Reviews • Carmen Saen-de-Casas Pedro Calderón de la Barca. La vida es sueño. Edición crítica de las dos versiones del auto y de la loa. • Sergio Vidal José Jurado Morales: Las razones éticas del realismo. Revista Española (1953- 1954) en la literatura del medio siglo. 2 ISSUE 31 (December 2013) ISSN: 1523-1720 ESSAYS 3 ISSUE 31 (December 2013) ISSN: 1523-1720 Behaving Badly: Irreverent Play in Cortázar’s Fantomas contra los vampiros multinacionales Anne Connor Southern Oregon University Perhaps because Julio Cortázar himself stated in an interview with Saúl Sosnowski that his primary interest in writing the comic book Fantomas contra los vampirosmultinacionales (1975) was to reach a wider audience and disseminate the findings of the Second Russell Tribunal, for many years the text was largely ignored and treated as propaganda or paraliterature by the critics (54). Even when taken seriously as an experimental text −a concomitant part of Cortázar’s literary project− scholars concluded that it ultimately “failed” because it was produced on expensive paper, making it inaccessible to the masses he sought to reach (McCracken “Hybridity” 149, “Libro de Manuel…” 76, and Franco 51). Recently, however, renewed interest in this innovative and hybrid work has emerged, and critics have explored various literary, artistic, sociopolitical, and historical elements of the text. María de Lourdes Dávila (2008), for example, has analyzed the complexity of the multilayered text, and proposes that it can be read from a variety of perspectives: historical, political or artistic (140). Likewise, Marie-Alexandra Barataud (2009) argues that by combining literary, political and artistic interests, the text’s structure becomes a unique trans-generic writing. Furthermore, Jaume Peris Blanes (2012) has added to the contextual understanding of Vampiros multinacionales by highlighting its relationship to the intellectual debates in Latin America during the sixties and seventies, and finally, José 4 ISSUE 31 (December 2013) ISSN: 1523-1720 Enrique Navarro (2012), through a close reading of the different editions of the text, explains how the modifications of the comic book sections over the years reveal a general disregard for the visual component as integral to the richness of Cortázar’s multimedia experiment. The majority of these articles have for the most part focused on the narrative structure of the text and its place in the popular vs. elite culture debate of the 1970s. While on the one hand Cortázar’s interest in breaking down the established boundaries between high culture and popular art forms reflected his desire to reach a wider audience and promote political activism against the human rights abuses that were occurring throughout Latin America, his exploration of the comic book genre can also be understood as an extension of his greater literary project which was about questioning and re-shaping traditional narrative structure. Notably, few close readings of Cortázar’s multimedia experiment exist, as José Enrique Navarro has pointed out in his analysis of the differences in the drawings within the comic frames in Fantomas contra los vampiros multinacionales over the years: El hecho de que ningún crítico se haya referido a estas notorias diferencias evidencia la atención superficial que ha merecido la obra en sí, y más en particular las viñetas del cómic de Fantomas, que quedan relegadas de esta manera a la condición de material instrumental puesto al servicio del texto escrito. En este sentido, críticos y editores parecen haber coincidido unánimemente a la hora de privar a la historieta de sustantividad. (“Adversidades transatlánticas…”) It is through a careful reading that I propose to elucidate another largely unexplored and yet pervasive aspect of Fantomas contra los vampiros multinacionales: 5 ISSUE 31 (December 2013) ISSN: 1523-1720 the ludic quality of the text. By analyzing Cortázar’s self-deprecating humor, which involves a rather complex identification with the story’s hero Fantomas, and his interest in “behaving badly” – that is, breaking the rules of intellectual conduct, genre, and readerly expectations – we gain a better understanding of the weighty themes at the heart of Vampiros multinacionales. The idea of game playing (“la teoría del juego”) has long been recognized as an essential concept underlying Cortázar’s narrative – we can observe it in his clever ability to play with words, his use of the fantastic to play with the reader’s concept of reality, and moreover in his fascination with breaking narrative rules and creating innovative literary “games” in which the readers must actively participate, such as in Rayuela (1963), La vuelta al día en ochenta mundos (1967), 62 Modelo para armar (1968), Último roun d(1969), and Libro de Manuel (1973). In an interview with Manuel Pereira, Cortázar explained the integral role of playfulness and humor in his writing: Creo que la literatura reclama una dimensión lúdica, que la convierte en un gran juego. […] La literatura comporta experimentación, combinación, desarrollo de estrategias, lo cual, analógicamente, hace pensar en deportes como el baloncesto, el fútbol o el beisbol. En ese sentido es que lo lúdico para mí es capital en la literatura, y siempre he sentido que los escritores que carecen del sentido del humor, por tanto de capacidad lúdica, no son los escritores que yo prefiero. (52) 6 ISSUE 31 (December 2013) ISSN: 1523-1720 The ludic quality of Fantomas contra los vampiros multinacionales works on many levels. First of all, it should be evident visually to readers from the onset, as the cartoon drawing of Fantomas on the cover, with a billowing cape and laser gun in his hand [see image 1], suggests the text is in actuality “una historieta,” a term in Spanish for comic book which also implies, through the diminutive of “historia,” a lack of seriousness or depth. In addition, both the association of cartoons with children’s literature as well as the implication of comedy within the “comic” genre reinforce the playful aspect of the book. At the same time, the fact that Julio Cortázar, recognized at the time as a modern master of the short story and one of the founders of the Latin American Literary Boom, not only pens the comic but also inserts himself proudly as the narrator, shunning in this way any pretense of being above writing “historietas,” can be understood as one of the first subversive moves in this game (1). The initial text itself, however, has no graphic element. Aside from an explanatory header, “De cómo el narrador de nuestra fascinante historia salió de su hotel en Bruselas, de las cosas que vio por la calle y de lo que le pasó en la estación de ferrocarril” (7), the 7 ISSUE 31 (December 2013) ISSN: 1523-1720 story is written in standard narrative form. Still, the formulaic section title parodies the literary tradition (found, for example, in Don Quijote) of announcing the fundamental components of a chapter before narrating them (Peris Blanes 101). The irony apparent in Cortázar’stitle lies in the disjunction between the descriptor “fascinante historia” and the rather mundane activities the header actually highlights. His use of hyperbole pantomimes the over-the-top superhero descriptions commonly found in comic books, while at the same time ironically questioning the veracity of the “guiding” text apparently written by the author or editor. In addition, by making the reader aware of the story’s verbal construct, the subtitle can be understood as another means of breaking with convention in Cortázar’s narrative gameplay. By referring to the narrator in third person, he underlines the artificial character of the text while at the same time problematizing the identification between Julio Cortázar, the author, Julio Cortázar, the narrator, and Julio Cortázar, the protagonist (Peris Blanes 101). The game abruptly ends, however, in the next subtitle: "De cómo el narrador alcanzó a tomar el tren in extremis (y a partir de aquí se terminan los títulos de los capítulos, puesto que empiezan numerosas y bellas imágenes para dividir y aliviar la lectura de esta fascinante historia)" (1). The Latin phrase “in extremis” offers up more ironic hyperbole, along with the repetition of the descriptor “esta fascinante historia,” but the humor also lies in the sudden abandonment of the narrative “tradition” that the section headers had referenced. Instead, priority is given to the visual media, and the suggestion that the images will better divide and lighten the reading once again question the truth behind the adjective “fascinante,” for if it were true there would be no need for such visual breaks. Evidently, the rules of the game are arbitrary and can change with little notice, due perhaps, it is suggested, to the editor/narrator’s own indolence and preference for pictures over words. 8 ISSUE 31 (December 2013) ISSN: 1523-1720 The implication that Cortázar, contrary to his public image, may actually be a lazy narrator plays a part in the self-deprecating humor that runs throughout the text.