Octaedro

Cuando Cortázar parecía haber alcanzado la perfección en el género, Octaedro (1974) aportó novedades de su maestría incomparable a la hora de escribir cuentos.

Los ocho relatos que componen Octaedro -una figura tan geométrica como misteriosa, tan perfecta como reticente- entremezclan cierto contenido social y político que Cortázar había abordado en Libro de Manuel (1973) con sus temáticas más recurrentes: el amor, el sueño, la enfermedad, la muerte, el umbral entre lo cotidiano y lo fantástico.

Pero, además, estos relatos funcionan como caras que, en su conjunto, van completando el sentido de la figura total: así, quien relata su propia muerte en "Liliana llorando" tendrá su contracara en "Las fases de Severo". Cada una de las tramas encuentra a lo largo de este libro continuaciones alternativas, extrañas formas de resonancia.

Compacto y, al mismo tiempo, ilimitado; preciso y también impredecible, si a un libro de cuentos le cabe el atributo de novela encubierta, no hay dudas de que es a Octaedro.

ENGLISH DESCRIPTION

Eight short stories, linked in a subtle way, that reaffirm Julio Cortázar as one of the best Argentinian storytellers.

"You who read me, has it happened to you that a dream begins and returns in many other dreams, but it isn't that, it isn't only a dream? Something that is there, but where, how."

By the time Cortázar seemed to have reached perfection in this genre, Octahedron (1974) provided new insights into his incomparable mastery when it comes to writing short stories.

The eight tales in Octahedron--a figure as geometric as it is mysterious, as perfect as it is reticent--commingle certain social and political topics that Cortázar had already addressed in A Manual for Manuel (1973) with his most recurring themes: love, dreams, disease, death, the threshold between the ordinary and the fantastic.

Also, these stories work as faces that, together, complete the figure in its entirety. Thus, the person recounting his own death in "Liliana Weeping" will have his counterpart in "Severo's Phases." Throughout the book, each plot finds alternative continuations, bizarre forms of resonance.

Compact and at the same time limitless, precise and unpredictable, if there is a collection of short stories that could have the attribute of being a covert novel, it would unarguably be Octahedron.