Customer Reviews

Around the Day in Eighty Worlds

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Julio Cortazar was named after Jules Verne who he read as a child and thus the title of the book. The book is full of photographs, drawings, engravings but most importantly Julio's words. Not really a book to read from cover to cover more like a book to sift through now and then.
If you are a Cortazar fan then you know of his other books:
Bestiario(1951) later published as End of the Game or Blow-up.
Rayuela(1963) later published as Hopscotch.
Todos los fuegos el fuego(1966) later published as All Fires the Fire. (This collection contains my favorite Cortazar story, "The Southern Thruway".) & many other books.
This book will appeal to both longtime fans and also those who want to get to know Cortazar for the first time.
I was lucky enough to find a hard cover in a used book shop and that is a nice way to own this because it is a book which will be picked up and put down often. On the cover is a wonderful painting by Paul Delvaux The Nightwatchman.
I love Julio's stories and highly recommend them to anyone. His novels I think are for a more select group of readers, those who have a lot of patience for long experiments. I like Cortazars short experiments best and this book has,well, at least eighty.
You get some of his fiction but also you get his essays on Poe(he translated the works of Poe into Spanish), Louis Armstrong, Thelonius Monk and Marcel Duchamp, Jose Lezama Lima.... which should give you some idea of what kind of things occupied Julios always curious mind. This more than any other of Julio Cortazars books is a collage-book.
This book is perhaps my favorite Cortazar because it is so varied in its subject matter that I never tire of it or feel like I have uncovered all its secrets.

The review of this book in the New York Times referred to it as a "great man's doodles." I guess that's about right. It's a hodge-podge of photos, short fiction, commentary on art and music, and a story about a cat named Theodor W. Adorno. Cortazar's other books are referenced frequently, so it helps to be a fan.

For me the short story "No, no, no" alone is worth the purchase price (whatever it is). It's like a David Lynch movie compressed into one paragraph that features a showdown between two people who are obsessed with ants. Trust me, it's better than it sounds. Cortazar's writing will also make you curious to try yerba mate, which is worse than it sounds.

I've been reading this book for about 10 years, and when I'm finished I'll probably start again from the beginning.

Julio Cortazar at his most relaxed and free. Combining
essays and fiction and poetry plus excellent visual imagery
(without ever labeling anything), this book is one I keep
on hand for thumbing through, any time. Cortazar's jazz
writing is some of the best ever, preceding by years Lester
Bangs' justly celebrated impressionistic music writing.
Cortazar reveals himself to be a "jazz writer" on a more
profound level than any of the Americans who wrote the
way they thought jazz sounded. His metaphysical approach
puts him in the company of Robert Musil, Clarice Lispector,
and Emily Dickinson, not to mention Charlie Parker, too.
Cortazar's whole approach to writing comes through in this
volume, and it's a great antidote to any outbreak of aesthetic
fussiness you might be experiencing.

After a college professor read a short segment out of this collection of short stories, I wanted to own it. However I had to search to find a copy in decent condition being the book is out of print. But it was more than well worth the hunt. I find myself constantly lending my book to others, and then checking it out from the library while they are reading it. I encourage everyone to read this, each story just gives you a new perspective on life. It's great.!

I think that the book is great. Phileas had me thinking in the beginning that he cold never do something like steal. The book I think was sooooo wonderful. Phileas is not nefarious thuogh.