SOURCE: Carbajal, Brent J. “Illusive Reality in Cortázar's ‘Las Babas del Diablo’ and Antonioni's Blow-Up.” Revista de Estudios Hispánicos 29, nos. 1-2 (2002): 169-76.

In the following essay, Carbajal examines the theme of illusive reality in “Las babas del Diablo” and its cinematic adaptation, Blow-Up.

It goes without saying that many of Julio Cortázar's writings have to do with the ambiguous and illusive nature of any “true” reality. In fact, Cortázar himself would probably agree with the assessment that “it goes without saying,” owing to the fact that he often explored in his fiction a crisis in language and literature in which discourse fails to convey reality and actually distorts any intended message. Scholars have lauded Cortázar's complicated narrative structures and points of view, and students have for years, after struggling mightily with the Byzantine twists and turns of the Argentine's plots, marveled at his...