Verbs, Voyeurism3 and the

Stalker Narrative in Corta.zar's

"Continuidad de los parques"
Julia E. Palmer

Abstract. Julio Cortizar's "Continuidad de los parques" can be described as a stalk-

er narrative in two different senses. Not only is it a story about a stalker -withmur-
derous intentions, it is also a story in which the reader is turned into a stalker.
Modalization in verbs, or the use of the subjunctive and qualifiers, has been
discussed by critics such as Tzvetan Todorov as a characteristic of the fantastic in
literature. What has not been studied is the alternating use of aspect in the past,
here between the verb tenses the preterite and the imperfect, as a technique that
aids in the subtle creation of the reader as a stalker. CortAizar uses these two verb
tenses to form and shape the narrative, moving it in the desired direction and,
in the process, aiding in his creation of the image of the stalker. Both the careful
manipulation of the preterite and the imperfect and the careful interplay between
the two are the vehicle of invasion, an invasion perpetrated by the stalker, in
which the reader is made complicit.

Keywords: Julio Cort6.zar, Latin American narrative, linguistic analysis of litera-

ture, metafiction, twentieth-century fiction

ulio Cortrizar's "Continuidad de los parques" can be described as a

stalker narrative in two different senses. Not only is it a story about a
stalker with murderous intentions, it is also a story in which the reader
is turned into a stalker, first innocently and then later more complic-
itly. The reader's innocent, even voluntary voyeurism of the opening paragraph
(we are fascinated by the protagonist's attraction to the novel he is reading; we see
his sensual, solitary pleasure in the text manifest itself physically as he strokes the
green velvet arm of the chair) leads to a much more sinister involvement of the
reader in the imminent homicide described in the final paragraph.

Copyright © 2009 Heldref Publications

207
 Modalization in verbs, or the use of the subjunctive and qualifiers, has already
been discussed as a characteristic of the fantastic in literature by critics such as
Tzvetan Todorov. What has not been studied is the alternating use of aspect in
the past, here between the preterite and the imperfect, as a technique that aids in
the subtle creation of the reader as a stalker. These two verb tenses are the basic
grammatical skeleton on which the narrative is built. CortAzar employs these
tenses to form and shape the narrative, moving it in the desired direction and in
the process using the tenses to aid in his creation of the image of the stalker. Both
the careful manipulation of the preterite and the imperfect and the careful inter-
play between the two tenses are the vehicle of invasion, an invasion perpetrated
by the stalker in which the reader is made complicit.
PLOT SUMMARY
Using only 543 words, CorrAzar skillfully inserts a story within a story. In the
first-story (story one), a man takes up a novel he had begun a few days earlier and
had to leave because of urgent business. Sitting in his study in an armchair of green
velvet, with his head resting comfortably against the back of the chair, he is quickly
and with deliberate enjoyment drawn into the action of the novel. In this second
story (story two),' two lovers meet in a remote mountain cabin to plan the murder
of someone described only as "la figura de otro cuerpo que era necesario destruir"
'the figure of the other body it was necessary to destroy' (200).2 Their plans are
meticulous, showing careful arrangements for alibis, unforeseen events, and possible
errors, and the two are enveloped and infused with their passion and desire for each
other. The lovers bid farewell to each other before elamante 'the lover' descends the
mountain to the south, finding his way through trees and hedges, until he arrives at
dusk at a house. Everything goes according to plan, and he is able to enter the house,
knife in hand, and find his way up the stairs, down a hall, and into a room where a
man in a green velvet chair, with its back to the door, is reading a book.
THE PRETERITE AND IMPERFECT TENSES
Although preteriteand imperfect are the names of two different verb tenses mark-
ing past time in Spanish, the difference between them is one of aspect, not of time.
Lunn has described the role of aspect in "Continuidad de los parques" as a speaker
or writer's encoding of perspective on a situation (Lunn and Albrecht 228). The
preterite encodes a situation, typically an action, as having been completed, whereas
the imperfect encodes a situation, typically (but not always) a condition or ongoing
action, as unbound, with no information given to indicate the terminus point. The
imperfect does not indicate when the situation or action came to an end because its
3
purpose is not to set a limit or show completion. That is conveyed by the preterite.
THE NARRATIVE STRUCTURE OF,
"CONTINUIDAD DE LOS PARQUES"
One of the many remarkable features of this story is the way in which Corti-
zar uses the preterite and the imperfect to form and shape the two basic stories.

208 ROMANCE QUARTERLY

Out of 543 words, CortAizar uses 53 finite verb forms (forms that show person,
number, and tense). Of these, 33 are in the imperfect; 13 are in the preterite; and
7 may be labeled "other" and include the conditional (1), imperfect subjunctive
(2), and pluperfect (4). Both Lagmanovich (182) and Lunn and Albrecht (228)
have observed the way in which Cortizar structures the narrative in the first story
by using both the preterite and imperfect tenses.
Habfa empezado a leer la novela unos dias antes. La abandon6 [preterite] por
negocios urgentes, volvi [preterite] a abrirla cuando regresaba [imperfect] en tren
6

a la finca. f... v]olvi6 [preterite] al libro en la tranquilidad del estudio que mim,ba
[imperfect] hacia el parque de los robles. (199)

He had begun to read the novel a few days earlier. He abandoned [preterite] it for
urgent business, he opened [preterite] it again when he was returnin [imperfect]
by train to the firm. I... h]e returned [preterite] to the book in the peacefulness of
the study that faced a park of oak trees.

Once he begins to narrate the interior story, the story of the novel, Cortizar uses
only the imperfect, with the exception of one pluperfect form (habia venido).

Primero entraba la mujer, recelosa; ahora lkah el amante, lastimada la cara por cl
chicotazo de una rama. Admirablemente retafiaba ella la sangre son sus besos, pero
dl rech-,mib las caricias. ... ] El pufial se Cntibilba contra su pecho y debajo ld.
libertad agazapada. (199)

First the woman was entering, distrustful; now the lover was arriving, his fice
wounded by the slash of a tree branch. Admirably, she was stanching the blood with
her kisses, but he ms rejecting her caresses. [...] The dagger was cooling against his
chest and below, freedom, crouched and hidden, was beating.

Although Lagmanovich and Lunn have observed that the preterite and imper-
fect forms are carefully distributed and distinctly used to identify the narrative
structure of each story, they have not identified the way in which CortAzar
anticipates the change in story with an increased use of the upcoming structure.
Cort6ar begins to rely more heavily on imperfects than on preterites toward the
end of the first story, that of the man reading a novel, in which CortAzar has been
using both the preterite and imperfect tenses. Because the narrative in story two
is characterized by the almost exclusive use of the imperfect, the increased use of
the imperfect toward the end of story one has the effect of blurring the narrative
lines and allowing Cortizar to seamlessly weave the two stories together.
Many of the imperfect forms that Cort6zar placed at the seam between the two
4
stories are actions, and they connect the protagonist reader's point of entry into
the text of the second story ("retenfa sin esfuerzo los nombres" 'he was retain-
ing without effort the names'; "g.aba del placer casi perverso" 'he was enjoying
the almost perverse pleasure'; "su cabeza descansaba com6damente" 'his head
was resting comfortably,' 199) to the action of the text of this story ("entraba
la mujer" 'the woman was entering'; "Ilegaba el amante" 'the lover was arriving':
"rechazaba las caricias" 'he was rejecting her caresses,' 199).

SUMMER 2009, VOL 56, NO. 3 209

 As the second story progresses and the lovers separate so that el amante can
carry out their sinister plan, Cortizar again blurs the line between stories by
returning to his use of both the preterite and the imperfect, this time at the latter
part of the second story.5 Note the use of both tenses in the following selection
of the text:

Sin mirarse ya, atados rigidamente a la tarea que los speraiba [imperfect], se separa-
ron [preterite] en ]a puerta de ]a cabafia. Ella dtbla [imperfect) seguir por la senda que
iba [imperfect] al norte. Desde la senda opuesta 61 se volvi6 [preterite] un instante
para verla correr con el pelo suelto. Corri6 [preterite] a su vez I...] hasta distinguir en
la bruma malva del creptisculo ]a alameda que 1kmaa [imperfect] a ]a casa. (200)

Without looking at each other now, bound rigidly to the work that was waiting
[imperfect] for them, they went [preterite] their separate ways at the door of the
cabin. She was [imperfect] to follow the path that Led [imperfect] to the north.
From the opposite path he turned [preterite] for an instant to watch her run, her
hair loose. He in turn ran [preterite] [... ] until distinguishing in the purple hue of
twilight the walk that led[imperfect] to the house.

This use of both the preterite and the imperfect continues to define the structure
of the narration in the second story until el amante enters the house:

Los perros no Achfan [imperfect] ladrar y no ladraron [preterite]. El mayordomo no

estarfa a esa hora, y no msiah [imperfect]. Subi6 [preterite] los peldafios del porche
y entr6 [preterite]. Desde ]a sangre galopando en sus ofdos le gban [imperfect]
las palabras de la mujer. (200)

The dogs were not supposed [imperfect] to bark and they did not bark [preterite].
The manager of the estate would not be there at that time and he was not there
[imperfect]. He went up [preterite] the steps of the porch and entered [preterite]
the house. From the blood pounding in his ears the words of the woman were com-
ing [imperfect] back to him.

At this very point when el amante enters the house, Cortizar does something
that from a grammatical or even traditional narrative point of view is quite
unexpected. The final part of the story is narrated in a series of short phrases in
which there are no verbs.

[...] primero una sala azul, despu6s una galerfa, una escalera alfombrada. En lo alto
dos puertas. Nadie en la primera habitaci6n, nadie en ]a segunda. La puerra del sal6n,
y entonces el pufial en ]a mano, la luz de los ventanales, el alto respaldo de un sill6n
de terciopelo verde, la cabeza de un hombre en el sill6n leycndo una novela. (200)

[...] first a large blue room, then a gallery, a carpeted staircase. At the top two doors.
Nobody in the first room, nobody in the second. The door to the study, and then
dagger in his hand, the light from the picture windows, the high back of a green
velvet armchair, the head of a man in the armchair reading a novel.

The effect of deleting all verb forms from the final part of the narration increas-
es the tension. 6 The image is much like a film in which the physical progression

210 ROMANCE QUARTERLY

of the killer through the house is told in a series of jump cuts, with each phrase of
the text signaling the killer's irreversible advance toward the victim. A correspond-
ing effect of these verbal jump cuts is to take control away from the reader, who
is no longer given time or even textual space to process the idea that the killer is
making his way through the house. The rapidity of the movement, enhanced by
the deletion of all verbs and abrupt advancing creates the effect not only of the
confusion of vertigo but of the forced nature of the narration as well.
One can argue that the missing verbs are imperfects: "[there was] ýiblue room.
[...] At the top [there were] two doors. [There was] nobody in the first room."
But one may also argue just as convincingly that the missing verbs are preterites:
"[He passed] a blue room. At the top [he saw] two doors. [He saw] nobody in the
first room." This ambiguity of aspect is possible because of the outside reader's
expectations created by the earlier use of the preterite and imperfect (story one)
or just imperfect (story two) to create the narrative structure. The disappear-
ance of all verb forms at the end of story two essentially creates a third story or
narration, one in which the distance between story one and story two has disap-
peared because both are now part of the same story. Lagmanovich has identified
the fusion of the two stories as the continuity or "continuidad" created by the
author (181). Cort•izar signals the move to this third part in which the two stories
become the same text by switching from the imperfect (narrative structure of
story two) to the preterite and imperfect (narrative structure of story one).
Lunn argues that the narrative is divided into three parts, each signaled by
a change in use of the preterite and imperfect. She identifies the preterite and
imperfect as markers of story one, the imperfect as a marker of the story of the
novel, and the resumption of the preterite's use to signal that the lovers have
entered the husband's world as a marker of the third part of the text (Lunn and
Albrecht 230). 1would like to suggest that the narrative has four parts, the three
identified above and a fourth part that is created at the end of the "Continuidad
de los parques" in which the outside reader continues to bring the story to a
conclusion. In this fourth part a conclusion (or lack thereof) is created by the
way in which the short story ends and is ultimately narrated individually by each
outside reader. This handing over of the narrative to other authors is marked by
the complete absence of text by Cort-izar, and the signaling of the impending
absence of text takes place in the last part of"Continuidad de los parques" where
no finite verb forms are used.
TME READER AS VOYEUR
Santiago Juan-Navarro offers a metaphorical reading of "Continuidad de los
parques" in which readers who read only to consume are punished (242).7 In his
analysis, Juan-Navarro draws attention to CortAzar's desire to make the reader an
accomplice, a co-participant and ultimately a coauthor of the text (243). It is pos-
sible, however, to take Juan-Navarro's analysis to a deeper level and identify the
ways in which the reader of "Continuidad de los parques" is at first seduced and
then later coerced into becoming a voyeur or co-participant in the text. On one

SUMMER 2009, VOL. 56, NO. 3 211

level, the man reading the novel may be described as a voyeur. As he is pleasur-
ably drawn into the story or sdrdida disyuntiva he is reading, CorrAzar describes
him thus: "fue testigo del dltimo encuentro en ]a cabafia del monte" (199, "he
was a witness to the last meeting in the cabin in the wild"). It is also made abun-
dandy clear that the protagonist takes a sensual enjoyment in the whole process
of reading-in both escaping his own reality and, through the act of reading,
watching two people plot to commit a horrible crime.

Gozaba del placer casi perverso de irse desgajando lfnea a lfnea de lo que Jo rodeaba,
y sentir a la vez que su cabeza descansaba c6modamente en el terciopelo del alto res-
paldo, que los cigarrillos segufan al alcance de la mano, que mSs adli de los ventanales
danzaba el aire del arardecer bajo los robles. (199)

He was enjoying the almost perverse pleasure of breaking away line by line from
what surrounded him, and feeling at the same time that his head was resting com-
fortably on the velvet of the chair's high back, that his cigarettes were still there at
hand's reach, that just beyond the large windows danced the twilight air underneath
the oak trees.

It is a process in which reading provides the means of escape. Part of his enjoy-
ment comes from the delightful sensation that he is anchored in his world (as he
reads he can feel his head resting on the back of his chair; he knows his cigarettes
are just out of reach) while partially dangling himself in the other world, where he
is not in control. He is experiencing a sensation of feeling helpless and suspended
from reality, but not so much that he feels he cannot get back to his world if he
needs to. Another part of his enjoyment comes from participating voyeuristically
in the illicit affair and plans of the two lovers. As testigo, the protagonist reader
watches a very private scene unfold between two people plotting a murder.
I, the outside reader, also become a voyeur as I read this story, at first innocent-
ly, but then in a much more sinister, coerced way. As the protagonist reader in the
story becomes engrossed in the novel, I (the outside reader) become engrossed
in watching him read the novel. Cort6zar describes in careful detail how the
protagonist is settled in his study, in an armchair facing a window that looks
toward a grove of oak trees. The setting is one of complete privacy and safety
from intrusion. Cortmzar makes a point of noting that the protagonist is sitting
with his back to the door, considering any interruption a bother. Yet I, as reader,
am allowed to watch this other reader in a private, very personal act. The pro-
tagonist is clearly enjoying reading in his carefully prepared and protected time of
solitude as he allows his left hand to caressingly stroke the chair's green velvet. If
he were reading in the presence of other people, would the reader in the story be
as relaxed, or would he caress the chair's arm? I, as reader, gain a sense of enjoy-
ment from watching him in private. The sense of enjoyment is innocent enough;
1, too, understand the powerful draw of fiction that tempts me to leave my world
and enter it. I also enjoy watching someone else in a personal moment.
The innocent, harmless voyeurism that brings me pleasure at the beginning
of the story becomes much more coerced and uncomfortable by the end of the

212 ROMANCE QUARTERLY

story. When I realize that the descriptions of the house el amante is in are dis-
turbingly similar to the house the protagonist reader is in, I become even more
uneasy. I identify with the man reading the book, not the lover, and I start to
suspect that I have been tricked. Contrary to my expectation, I am no longer in
the room with the reader. I am now accompanying the stalker, and what makes
the discomfort even more acute is that I am aware of the change but the protago-
nist reader is not. After all, I can see the back of his head on the chair. He has
nor turned around to catch the assassin in the act of sneaking up on him. This
last voyeurism has been forced on me. As the outside reader I have been made
complicit in an act that I do not want to be a part of.
Cor•izar's careful manipulation of the two tenses becomes the means of inva-
sion in which the outside reader is made complicit. He uses the preterite and
imperfect to aid in the creation of the reader as a stalker by creating the percep-
tion that the outside reader is at a safe distance from the text, reading about
someone who is reading. At this safe distance the outside reader willingly enjoys
being a voyeur or stalker, watching the protagonist reader in a private act of
enjoying himself Part of what makes it feel innocent and safe to*be a voyeur is
the traditional use of the preterite and imperfect to create the narrative structure
of story one. Having established the first story by using the preterite and the
imperfect, the exclusive use of the imperfect associated with the second story
increases the perception of distance. Lunn observes this as well when she writes
that "the use of the imperfect relegates events of the novel to the background of
the story' This aspectual marking invites readers of the story to assume that the
conventions of reading are being observed. Fiction is unreal, but the readers of
it are real" (229).
I propose that it is in story two where the outside reader feels doubly removed
and at an even safer distance because of the sole use of the imperfect to narrate
the story of the novel. But a subtle shift has occurred in narrative perspective that
is hidden within Cortizar's move to imperfect verb forms only. As the imperfect
forms take over and mark the narration of the novel, the perceived distance from
el amante is rapidly decreased as the outside reader no longer filters everything
through the protagonist reader in the first story. The outside reader begins to pro-
cess the action directly. The outside reader starts out in the quiet, private study of
a man reading a novel; as the second story unfolds, the outside reader accompa-
nies a lover down the mountain. The outside reader watches him turn to look at
his girlfriend run along her path. His watching her is critical, not only because it
reinforces the theme of one person watching another without her knowing it, but
it joins the outside reader to the watching. I watch him looking at her. My new
point of view has been thrust on me, but the change has been so subtle that I am
not yet aware of it. It is a point of view over which I have no control and which
functions to deceive me. I think I am doubly removed from the action because
the lovers' story is within another story. But as I watch el amante make his way
down the mountain, approach a house, and then enter the house with a knife in
his band, the voyeurism starts to become a little more uncomfortable.

SUMMER 2009, VOL. 56, NO. 3 213

 My point of view has become detached from the original reader and attached
to the stalker. I follow el amante down the mountain. I see what he sees. When
he enters the house, I go with him and then realize that my textual sense of safety
and distance has been pulled out from underneath me. I am going with him to
watch firsthand his murder of the protagonist reader in story one. The disappear-
ance of my safe distance is accompanied by the discomfort of knowing I am now
narratively aligned with the point of view of the stalker as he walks into the study.
The switch to the imperfect, which marks story two, is the grammatical pivot
that hooks the outside reader and results in the reader turning into a stalker.
In a subtle but effective inversion, the innocent voyeurism that I participate
in at the story's beginning turns into a forced voyeurism that smacks of sordid
betrayal. I am helpless to prevent what is about to happen, but I am complicit
in the killer's plan. I know more than the reader in the green velvet armchair
because he has not yet turned to see his attacker. The expectations with which I
started the story (the presumption of a safe distance from the text, the innocent
voyeurism) came with the use of traditional narrative techniques. Now both have
been taken away, and my expectations have betrayed me. Having created the
perception of removal from the text, CortAzar manipulates the tenses to remove
the distance and drop the reader and the protagonist reader into the story. This
forced penetration of the outside reader into the text is paralleled by the invasive
reading by the protagonist reader, voyeuristically and sensually drawn inescapably
into the novel he is reading.
The penetration by the outside reader in the first story into the heart of the
second story is subtly and carefully signaled by Cort6.ar by four increasingly
narrow references to the text itself that take place in this order: novela 'novel'
to capitulos 'chapters' to lnea a l1nea 'line by line' to palabraa palabra'word by
word' (199):
Line 1: Habla empezado a leer la novela unos dias antes. 'He had begun to read
the novel a few days ago.'
Line 12: y sepuso a leer los u•ltimos capitylas 'and he began to read the last chapters'
Line 15: Gozaba delplacer casiperversode irse desgajando lUnea a linea de Io que lo
rodeaba. 'He was enjoying the almost perverse pleasure of breaking away line
by line from what surrounded him.'
Line 20: Palabraa tPalabra,absorbidopor la sdrdida disyuntiva de los hbroes, dejdn-
dose ir hacia las imdgenes. 'Word by word, absorbed in the sordid dilemma of
the heroes, allowing himself to go toward the images.'
The textual narrowing is important because the more closed the passage, the
less room there is for turning around. The use of ever-more narrow terms to
refer to the text of story two creates a diminishing distance between the protago-
nist reader in the first story and the narrative of the second story. The last two
references, especially (l1nea and palabra), are accompanied by statements clearly
describing the protagonist reader willingly losing himself in the second text. It is
almost as if we watch him walk farther and farther away from us into the woods.

214 ROMANCE QUARTERLY

The penetration of the protagonist reader in the first story into the text of the
second story corresponds to his gradual release of the reality of the study to enter
the mysterious, unknown, and uncontrollable reality of the second text. This
creates the sensation that precedes vertigo: the willing entry into a situation that
could result in helplessness or confusion. Just as the narration has four distinct
parts, the entry of the protagonist reader into the second story can be marked
at four points.
The invasion of the stalker into the protagonist reader's study parallels the same
kind of slow but inevitable narrowing evident in his gaining entry to the house. El
amante approaches the grounds of the house, enters the house by the front porch,
walks upstairs and down the hallway, and then enters the study. But this is more
than simple penetration into the house. There is a parallel penetration of the reader
into the text in which voyeurism has been turned into stalking and the outside
reader is now complicit in the invasion, the stalking of the prey.
The theme of penetration marked by four points of ever-narrowing entry at
the beginning of the story and paralleled in a much more aggressive way at its end
also takes place on a meta-reading level for the outside reader. The four points
are the four parts of the narrations. 1, the outside reader, go from the first story
to the second one, assuming I am at a safe enough distance as reader to engage
in a bit of innocent voyeurism. But I am quickly and uncomfortably ushered
into the third story. In the final part of this third story, narrated without verbs,
the abrupt jump cuts take away my sense of control and create a state of anxiety
and then a complete suspension of safety (reader safety is an expectation) as the
awareness grows that the reader in story one is now the victim. And it is I, the
outside reader, who create part four, or the denouement, individually authored
and narrated.
Todorov has defined the fantastic as a hesitation, the duration of uncertainty,
when an event that cannot be explained by the laws of our world appears to
have been suspended (25). Todorov also states that the fantastic "implies an
integration of the reader into the world of characters" (31) and that the reader
must decide whether or not what she or he perceives derives from reality (41).
With "Continuidad de los parques," Cort6iar has written the ultimate fantastic
text. The traditional laws of fiction have been suspended because a character has
come out of a novel to kill a reader and we, the outside readers of "Continuidad
de los parques," are faced with a decision. Do we accept that "Continuidad" is
just a piece of fiction and that, accordingly, the laws of fiction have not been
suspended, or do we decide that these laws have indeed been suspended because
a character is not supposed to cross stories and kill its reader?
Although previous critics have discussed the use of the preterite and the
imperfect to mark the narrative structure of CorrAzar's story, what they have not
shown is how CortAzar uses the preterite and the imperfect to manipulate the
outside reader, coercing her or him into the role of a stalker and partial author
of the text. Todorov has written that the fantastic "leads a life full of dangers
and may evaporate at any moment" (41). In this analysis, I show how CortAzar

SUMMER 2009, VOL 56, NO. 3 215

has successfully created a metafantastic text with "Continuidad de los parques"
whereby the fantastic is a continuidador continuous text from which a reader
may not emerge from the limbo of indecision and may indeed remain trapped in
the fantastic, led there by her or his own willingness to be seduced.

Hampden-Sydney College

NOTES

1. Lagmanovich argues convincingly that the novel the man is reading is D. H.

Lawrence's Lady Chatterley'sLover (180).
2. The translations are mine unless otherwise noted.
3. It is not uncommon for Spanish instructors to tell students that the preterite moves
the narrative forward (e.g., gives the play-by-play, to use sport-casting terminology),
whereas the imperfect fills in the details (e.g., gives the color, to continue the sport-casting
terminology).
4. In this article, I will refer to the reader in the text as the "protagonist reader" and
the real-life reader as the "outside reader."
5. Lagmanovich observes that the reappearance of the preterite at this point in "Con-
tinuidad de los parques" is marked as significant by Cortrzar's use of a new paragraph,
the only paragraph division in the story. Lagmanovich also observes that the resumption
in use of the preterite signals that the narrative is no longer marked as fictitious and has
returned to the original story (183).
6. Lunn and Albrecht provide an analysis that persuasively blends linguistic structure
and literary imagery. They show how the three-part change in structure between preterite
and imperfect, to only imperfect, and back to preterite and imperfect is also paralleled
visually (reader's study to mountain and then back to study) and narratively (story to novel
and back to story) (230).
7.Juan-Navarro connects Cortizar's fictional author Morelli in Rayuela to the type
of reader Morelli wishes to destroy in "Continuidad de los parques." He argues that the
death of the protagonist reader at the end of "Continuidad" symbolizes the death of the
prefabricated text and that it is the author's duty to extend to the reader or co-participea
disturbing invitation to aggression in order to create fiction (247).

WORKS CITED

Cortrzar, Julio. "Continuidad de los parques." Cuentos y Microcuentos. Ed. Guillermo

Castillo-Felid. New York- Holt, 1978. 199-200.
Juan-Navarro, Santiago. "79 0 99 / Modelos para desarmar: Claves para una lectura
morelliana de 'Continuidad de los parques' de Julio CortAzar." HispanicJournal 13.2
(1992): 241-49.
Lagmanovich, David. "Estrategias del cuento breve en Cornizar: Un paseo por 'Continui-
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