First published in English in 1972 and long out of print, 62: A Model Kit is Julio Cortázar's brilliant, intricate blueprint for life in the so-called "City."
As one of the main characters, the intellectual Juan, puts it: to one person the City might appear as Paris, to another it might be where one goes upon getting out of bed in Barcelona; to another it might appear as a beer hall in Oslo. This cityscape, as Carlos Fuentes describes it, "seems drawn up by the Marx Brothers with an assist from Bela Lugosi!" It is the meeting place for a wild assortment of bohemians in a novel described by The New York Times as "Deeply touching, enjoyable, beautifully written and fascinatingly mysterious." Library Journal has said 62: A Model Kit is "a highly satisfying work by one of the most extraordinary writers of our time."
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Book Description
--This text refers to an alternate
Paperback
edition.
Editorial Reviews
From Library Journal
One of the great writers from Latin America, Argentine Cort zar's surrealistic novel is described as a type of guidebook for living in the "big city," which could be any city in any country in the world. The plot unfolds through the lives of a cast of unusual characters.
Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an alternate Paperback edition.
Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an alternate Paperback edition.
Review
...enthusiastically recommended for anyone interested in pushing the literary envelope as exemplified by the format of the novel. -- Bookwatch, November 2000
Anyone who doesn't read Cortazar is doomed. Not to read him is a serious invisible disease which in time can have terrible consequences. Something similar to a man who has never tasted peaches. He would quietly become sadder...and, probably, little by little, he would lose his hair. -- Pablo Neruda
Cortazar breaks open ready-made perceptions by submitting them to surreal perspectives. -- Time Out
Deeply touching, enjoyable, beautifully written and fascinatingly mysterious. -- The New York Times
New Directions' reissue repairs what was a regrettable gap in the available works of Cortázar. -- T.J. Gerlach, Review of Contemporary Fiction, Spring 2001 --This text refers to an alternate Paperback edition.
Anyone who doesn't read Cortazar is doomed. Not to read him is a serious invisible disease which in time can have terrible consequences. Something similar to a man who has never tasted peaches. He would quietly become sadder...and, probably, little by little, he would lose his hair. -- Pablo Neruda
Cortazar breaks open ready-made perceptions by submitting them to surreal perspectives. -- Time Out
Deeply touching, enjoyable, beautifully written and fascinatingly mysterious. -- The New York Times
New Directions' reissue repairs what was a regrettable gap in the available works of Cortázar. -- T.J. Gerlach, Review of Contemporary Fiction, Spring 2001 --This text refers to an alternate Paperback edition.
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
15 of 17 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Enter this labyrinth if you dare,
By A Customer
This review is from: 62: A Model Kit (Paperback)
The way in is through a looking-glass that is also a vampire-haunted castle and at the sa e time a city that is all cities. Be forewarned that once you have entered the Zone, you will never completely leave it. You will find yourself in its shadowed galleries, its furtive plazas, its unpredictable elevators, from time to time for the rest of your life. You will ask questions that will never be answered (what was inside the doll?) and you will be haunted by a realization that important things are always happening just outside your understanding. Cortazar invented the interactive book in Hopscotch, another highly disturbing expedition into parallel reality, but 62: A Model Kit is his masterpiece. Here is a writer admired by Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Pablo Neruda and Carlos Fuentes (who once wrote, "Anyone who does not read Cortazar is doomed") but has been deeply neglected in North America. Other writers talk about alternative realities; Cortazar opens the door.
6 of 7 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Ably translated from Spanish for an English reading audience,
By Midwest Book Review (Oregon, WI USA) - See all my reviews
This review is from: 62: A Model Kit (Paperback)
62: A Model Kit is ably translated from Spanish for an English reading audience by Gregory Rebassa and is a novel of fantasy, comedy, cities, snatches of conversations, brief meetings, characters whose lives begin at any moment and end in intense, brilliant encounters with others on a train, poignant love making, and even restaurant dining. The construction is free and open, devoid of the usual restraints of traditional novelistic order and take the reader on a daring and exciting new approach to life itself. 62: A Model Kit written so deftly and daringly by the late Julio Cortazar (1914-1984) is enthusiastically recommended reading for anyone with an interest in pushing the literary envelope as exemplified by the format of the novel.
5.0 out of 5 stars
my favorite Corttázar book,
By
This review is from: 62: A Model Kit (Paperback)
Cortázar never tells a story directly, instead he dances around, weaving an intricate web of words, images, allusions - what later crystallizes into a coherent story.
Jumping-around Jazz-like narrative.
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First Sentence:
"I'd like a bloody castle," the fat diner had said. Read the first page Key Phrases - Statistically Improbable Phrases (SIPs): (learn more)
feuille morte, fat diner, anonymous neurotics, bloody castle, high sidewalks, guti guti Key Phrases - Capitalized Phrases (CAPs): (learn more)
Julio Cortázar, Frau Marta, Monsieur Ochs, Boniface Perteuil, Harold Haroldson, Seńora Cinamomo, Gresham Hotel, Christmas Eve, Michel Butor, Ladislao Boleslavski, Inspector Carruthers, Buenos Aires, Madame Denise, King of Hungary Hotel, Courtauld Institute, Rue de la Clef, Tilly Kettle, Scotland Yard, Ben Webster, Latin Quarter, Rue de Vaugirard, Good Lord, Bedford Avenue, West End, Neurotics Anonymous Browse Sample Pages:
Front Cover | First Pages | Back Cover | Surprise Me!
"I'd like a bloody castle," the fat diner had said. Read the first page Key Phrases - Statistically Improbable Phrases (SIPs): (learn more)
feuille morte, fat diner, anonymous neurotics, bloody castle, high sidewalks, guti guti Key Phrases - Capitalized Phrases (CAPs): (learn more)
Julio Cortázar, Frau Marta, Monsieur Ochs, Boniface Perteuil, Harold Haroldson, Seńora Cinamomo, Gresham Hotel, Christmas Eve, Michel Butor, Ladislao Boleslavski, Inspector Carruthers, Buenos Aires, Madame Denise, King of Hungary Hotel, Courtauld Institute, Rue de la Clef, Tilly Kettle, Scotland Yard, Ben Webster, Latin Quarter, Rue de Vaugirard, Good Lord, Bedford Avenue, West End, Neurotics Anonymous Browse Sample Pages:
Front Cover | First Pages | Back Cover | Surprise Me!
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