Jan
28
“Se puede vivir sin pensar”
The first time I read “Casa tomada“ was in Buenos Aires, four years ago, in one of my Spanish classes. I had told my teacher Graciela that I enjoyed reading short stories, so this was one of the stories she picked. Initially, I thought the story was kind of weird and creepy: A fortysomething brother and sister live together in a huge house in the center of Buenos Aires where she knits and he reads French novels all day. One night they hear sounds coming from an unoccupied wing of the mansion. But instead of calling the cops or going on their own to check things out, the pair are totally passive and decide to just close the doors that lead to that part of the house. As the days pass, they hear more noises, like someone else is inside the house, but the brother and sister never investigate but instead choose to shut themselves off from different parts of the house until finally the unknown entity inside takes the house over completely, driving the brother and sister out.
So, what is this story really about? When Julio Cortázar wrote the story back in the late 1940s, military colonel Juan Perón, along with his wife Eva (Evita), were running Argentina. The Perons’ brand of strong-arm socialism (eliminate poverty, elevate labor unions) was bringing about societal changes that created deep rivers of resentment and anger among Argentina’s upper classes.
“Unable or unwilling to understand the growing militancy of working-class sectors and the increasing presence of rural immigrants in the capital city, elite groups (like the protagonists of the story) felt that the world they knew had quickly become unfamiliar; that Buenos Aires was still there, but somehow different. “Casa tomada” chronicles the final decay of an oligarchic family displaced from its mansion by intransigent invaders, symbols of the rural immigrants who began to set up residence in the city. “Casa tomada” brillantly captures the sense of estrangement felt by the middle and upper classes during this period by limiting their realm of the knowable…” — From “Specular City: Transforming Culture, Consumption, and Space in Buenos AIres, 1955-1973, by Laura Podalsky
Listen to (or read) the story here.
I’ve been waiting to see if any comments would show up on this post. I wonder if people are uncomfortable with a sympathetic story about the “upper class”. Kind of like it’s not PC to write about how Franco supporters and church clergy etc., also suffered during the civil war.
Or maybe it’s just me thinking too much.
Thanks, Carl, for commenting. No, I don’t think you’re thinking too much. I actually got a few private emails from people who downloaded the podcast about this story saying that they liked the story or that they love Cortázar’s writing. But I was kind of expecting a few people to have said something publicly on the blog about the actual crux of the story. Oh well. You know that’s how this blogging thing goes….the entries we anticipate being home runs turn out to be singles, while the entries we think are only a single, wind up turning into home runs. Outside of extremely negative/very controversial posts, it’s hard to predict with any certainty what will get a reader/listener response.