End of the Game and other stories

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Image from cover of "End of the Game"

ORIGINAL TITLE: Final del juego / Las armas secretas / Blow-up e outras historias
TRANSLATED BY: Paul Blackburn, © 1967
PUBLISHED: New York, Collier Books
ISBN: 0394728815 0060906375
LCCN: 687668, 6610413, 8422792
NOTES: Later published as "Blow-Up and Other Stories"

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If these stories can be described in one sentence I'd say they concern themselves with who we are and how we arrive at our conceptions of who we are. That is probably a little too broad but there is some evidence for this, from what Eco calls the "alternative anthropology" of Montesquieu's Les Lettres Persanes evident in Axolotl, down to the earthy supernaturalness of he idol of the Cyclades. And if anything, these fragments are about drive.

As all of Cortázar they come highly recommended, but as the first of JC I'd read, especially so.

Contents

• One
  • Axolotl
  • House Taken Over
  • The Distances
  • The Idol of the Cyclades
  • Letter to a Young Lady in Paris
  • A Yellow Flower
• Two
  • Continuity of Parks
  • The Night Face Up
  • Bestiary
  • The Gates of Heaven
  • Blow-Up
• Three
  • End of the Game
  • At Your Service
  • The Pursuer
  • Secret Weapons

Blow-Up was turned into a film by Michelangelo Antonioni, the video cassette is distributed by MGM (MGM-CBS Home Video 1980). The script was published as well:
London; Lorrimer Pub.; ISBN: 0856470961
New York; F. Ungar; ISBN: 093061298