One of the outstanding characteristics of [Libro de Manuel] is the blending of fictional narration and journalistic clippings, based on the organizing motif of a sort of baby-book for a revolutionary child compiled as the legacy of his parents and mentors. The novel moves back and forth between being the process of compilation and being the baby-book itself. The result is a noteworthy blurring of the distinction between fiction and documentation, using the materials of popular culture, both highbrow and yellow journalism.

Cortázar's present effort [Fantomas contra los vampiros multinacionales] is an even more radical step and bespeaks eloquently the concern of the contemporary writer in Latin America to produce a literature that addresses itself to the masses rather than to the educated elite, without being simply a modish and chic exploitation of big-market mass culture. Fantomas is a historieta both in graphic format and in narrative...