Novellas- Cortazar and Cabrera Infante

currently reading
Masterworks of Latin American short fiction : eight novellas
and found 2 treasures:
the Pursuers by Julio Cortazar
I heard her sing by G. Cabrera Infante

Cortazar's story revolves around a writer, a jazz critic, who has befriended a fictionalized account of the famous Charlie Parker. In the introduction Ilan Stavans, implies this story was a precursor to Cortazar's famous Hopscotch. the story is intriguing and well done, The depictions of music and drug addiction are real as is the singular genius that many artists portray: in their art they are superhuman, but in their more personal realm they are failed characters.

With Infante- this is my first encounter of this wild man of a writer. This story appears to also be a precursor to his magnum, Infante's Inferno, which I ran out to buy a used copy at Strand's Book Store just yesterday. Infante's pre-revolutionary Havana's nightlife is vibrant and filled with characters that burst off the page. Wild sex, hot cafe's, music and artists fill the pages, his writing is unique and bristling with life. He has a great sense of humor and appears to be well known for his puns (see Paris Review Interview: http://www.theparisreview.org/interviews/3079/the-art-of-fiction-no-75-guillermo...

I did not read any of the 6 other novellas, all written by giants of Latin American literature.

Cabrera's Three trapped tigers is a seminal work in the Latin Boom. I liked that quite a lot. Holy smoke is an interesting piece of work on the history of the Cuban cigar. One thing I remember from it--while the workers in the cigar rolling factory are doing their rolling--one of their number is reading out loud to them some novel or work of poetry. An interesting idea--I wonder why no one has thought of doing that here in the United States. At least some of the time there might have been something to the worker's paradise idea. Not that I'm a tobacco smoker but for those who are Obama's opening the door to Cuba is one of the best things that has come out of his 8 years IMO. Cabrera Infante originally was in on the Cuban revolution but he had some kind of falling out with Castro and lived the last decade or so of his life in exile in Britain.

Cortazar is another iconic boom writer. I've read a bit of Cortazar over the years but I don't remember reading the pursuers though I may have if it's a short story. Hopscotch is good but what I liked best from Cortazar was his short story collections All fires the fire and End of the game.

Cabrera's parents supposedly started the Communist Party in Cuba and he was part of the initial Revolutionary Castro regime but fell out over his writing. He states his work was so popular because it was pornography although it is so much more, I believe this is just his self-deprecating humor.

the Paris Review interview is worth reading.

I think this Cortazar piece is a great introduction to his work. I have been aware of Hopscotch for decades but never made the jump. I was quite pleased to find a piece that was more easily digested.

I felt fortunate to be reading Infante as Obama landed in Cuba- this was purely accidental. It was cool, too, that Obama mentioned both Borges and Cortazar at his Buenos Aires press conference- btw- his pronunciation was impeccable and I now know how to properly pronounce Cortazar.

I posted Infante on an interesting 3 month thread on the Reading Globally group- you'd be interested if you have not yet checked it out.