Analysis of Julio Cortázar's A Manual for Manuel: "A Manual for Manuel has the distinction of being the most overtly political novel by Argentine author Julio Cortázar(1914–84); it would also be his last novel published in his lifetime. The book is Cortázar's attempt, as he explains in an introduction, not simply to answer those critics who accused him, despite his activism, of having turned a blind eye to social and political issues in his fiction but to merge the worlds of the political and the aesthetic into a unified form—one that, he is aware, may seem too realistic to fans of his fantastic tales and too experimental for those seeking a work of social realism. Regardless, Cortázar claims to have no regrets in the difficult experiment, which by his own admission had 'not been easy in the least.' For better or worse, and on this issue the critics are somewhat divided, A Manual for Manuel sees Cortázar's artistic sensibilities and political consciousness 'at this time and place . . . merged.' The novel records the activities of a group of revolutionaries known as the Screwery who engage in strange social and political subversions bordering on performance art: detaining a public bus by offering gratuitous, schedule-delaying thanks to its driver; eating standingup at an exquisite restaurant; and interrupting the flow of commerce by loudly debating the price of potatoes in a local market. ... A frequent criticism of A Manual for Manuel is that, in attempting to succeed both as a work of art and as a novel of political ideas, it actually achieves neither, a criticism that Cortázar himself acknowledged might have a measure of validity. But such a criticism—as well as any attempt at "summarizing" the book—overlooks its artistry in both its richness of prose and complex, ambitious structure. The narrative is rendered primarily through a mysterious surrogate, a chronicler identified only as 'the one you know,' who has compiled, presents, and comments on the information regarding the Screwery and their exploits. Furthermore, the narrative offered by 'the one you know' is a pastiche of styles, genres, and forms, one of the most notable being the incorporation into the text of actual newspaper reports detailing political oppression, human rights violations, and covert machinations by Latin American and world governments, including the United States. But in employing such structural strategies, Cortázar reminds the reader of the book's true, hopeful purpose, as given in the title: it is a scrapbook intended not only for the infant Manuel but for succeeding generations, an account of a revolution offered with both feats and flaws revealed in the hope that the future might learn from the struggles, and from the sins, of the past."
Literary Theory and Criticism
W - Libro de Manuel
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