day 4

So today, well last night really, I read 2 stories in Cortazar's anthology Blow Up: "House Taken Over" and "The Night Face Up." Neither were as blatantly circular as "A Continuity of Parks," but they have potential. That meaning I can philosophize successfully about either.

House Taken Over was about this couple stuck in the worst routine I've ever heard, and that's really all you find out about them. They wake up every morning, clean the house until 11, and then sit around finding things to waste time. I mean, the woman knits entire bathrobes! One day, "they" (we never find out who "they" are) take over part of the house and the man and woman are forced to abandon all their things on that side. They are suddenly left with two more hours in their day, what used to be taken up with cleaning that side of the house. So as "they" encroaches on their space, and eventually take over the kitchen, the couple is forced to make a dramatic escape to outside.

The Night Face Up was a little more obvious in making it's point: a man gets in a motorcycle accident, has to go under for minor surgery, and winds up hallucinating and maybe even dying. As the reader goes through the character's various stages of consciousness, one starts to wonder the whole what-is-consciousness/what-is-reality question again. It is suggested in the end that the motorcycle ride was all a dream and that his reality was actually in hell or some place like it.

Seeing that I actually kind of like reading these stories, this weekend I'm probably going to end up reading all of them and choosing two that work really well together.

Julia