Continuity of Parks

“That afternoon, after writing a letter giving his power of attorney and discussing a matter of joint ownership with the manager of his estate, he returned to the book in the tranquility of his study which looked out upon the park with its oaks.”

Working through an analogy, the narrative establishes an ironic foreshadowing of the passive immersive kind of reading indulged in by the protagonist and the risky loss of personal power this entails. That is, just as the protagonist gives his estate manager power to make legally binding decisions involving himself and his property, he likewise gives himself over to the powers of the novel he is reading. While the protagonist does not realize these risks, “Continuity of Parks” underlines the danger of submissively immersing oneself within a story. It does this through literalizing, making actual and concrete, the danger as the plot to murder the reader. Additionally in this sentence, the “joint ownership” of property points to the “joint ownership” the two narratives finally take in the story “Continuity of Parks.”

“Sprawled in his favorite armchair, its back toward the door—even the possibility of an intrusion would have irritated him, had he thought of it—he let his left hand caress repeatedly the green velvet upholstery and set to reading the final chapters.”

The protagonist’s privileged immunity from any disturbance of his secluded comfort is so complete as to be unthinkable. He sits with his back facing the door, indicating that he is so secure in his safety and the knowledge that his tranquil bubble will not be disturbed. Cortázar’s fiction is designed to disrupt exactly this kind of self-satisfied complacency.

“He tasted the almost perverse pleasure of disengaging himself line by line from the things around him, and at the same time feeling his head rest comfortably on the green velvet of the chair with its high back, sensing that the cigarettes rested within reach of his hand, that beyond the great windows the air of afternoon danced under the oak trees in the park.”

The narrative emphasizes the escapism of the protagonist’s reading. He uses his novel to detach his attention from his world. However, at the same time, he maintains a sensual, physical connection to his material comforts, his armchair and his cigarettes. This sentence points to the kind of dual consciousness that may operate when we are absorbed in reading and so to the “continuity” between the part of our consciousness that is absorbed in a fiction and the part that maintains contact with our surroundings.

“Word by word, licked up by the sordid dilemma of the hero and heroine, letting himself be absorbed to the point where the images settled down and took on color and movement, he was witness to the final encounter in the mountain cabin.”

This sentence underscores the protagonist’s passive reading; he does not so much consume the novel as he is consumed, “licked up,” by it. The fictional images take on life, and the reader becomes present as a “witness” in the scene he is reading. The phrase “sordid dilemma” points to the sensationalist, steamy plot of the novel in which the two adulterous lovers plan the murder of the woman’s husband. This is the moment of utter immersion, and therefore it is no surprise that it’s also the point where the narrative switches to focus on the hero and the heroine of the novel the protagonist is reading.

“The woman arrived first, apprehensive; now the lover came in, his face cut by the backlash of a bough.”

The scene of the lovers in the cabin emphasizes their physicality and emotions. The first appearance of the man draws attention to his wounded flesh. The first appearance of the woman notes her anxiety about this plot to kill her husband. This is in stark contrast to the reader-protagonist, who lacks any defining physical or emotional characteristics.

“Admirably, she stanched the blood with her kisses, but he rebuffed her caresses, he had not come to perform again the ceremonies of a secret passion, protected by a world of dry leaves and furtive paths through the forest.”

This sentence gives information about the relationship between the couple in the cabin. They are having a “secret” affair, and this has been going on for some time. The sensuous, physical aspect of this relation is highlighted by the woman’s immediate kissing of the man’s face. The narrative comments that, while physical passion is customary in their relationship, the man has other things on his mind this particular afternoon. The couple feels protected from prying eyes by the isolation of the cabin in the woods just as the reader-protagonist feels protected from intrusion by the isolation of his house in the park.

“The dagger warmed itself against his chest, and underneath liberty pounded, hidden close.”

The man rebuffs his lover’s caresses because he is preoccupied with carrying out the murder of her husband. At this moment, the closest thing to his heart is the knife he will use to commit the murder. This crime is motivated by the passion he feels for the woman, but also an urgent desire for “liberty” from the impediment of the husband who gets in the way of the free pursuit of the lovers’ relationship.

“A lustful, panting dialogue raced down the pages like a rivulet of snakes, and one felt it had all been decided from eternity.”

The language here calls attention to itself. It is figurative and dramatic. The lovers’ conversation is represented through the simile “like a rivulet of snakes.” This points to the poisonous betrayal of the woman plotting to kill her husband and the phrase calls up a kind of fantastic picture of a small stream of serpents. The metaphorical stretching required to make sense of this image parodies the overwrought, exaggerated language of popular sensationalist novels.

“Even to those caresses which writhed about the lover’s body, as though wishing to keep him there, to dissuade him from it; they sketched abominably the frame of the other body it was necessary to destroy.”

The woman’s apprehension, noted on her arrival, reemerges. The verb “writhe” carries associations to the snake figure of the previous sentence. The woman’s caresses “writhe” like snakes across her lover’s body, almost as though she were a boa constrictor wrapping herself around him in order to restrict his movement and detain him. As they outline and define the body of the lover, these caresses call to the narrative’s attention the absent presence of “the other body it was necessary to destroy.” That is, this gesture evokes the figure of the husband, once caressed and embraced by the woman just as she is now caressing and embracing her lover.

“Nothing had been forgotten: alibis, unforeseen hazards, possible mistakes. From this hour on, each instance had its use minutely assigned. The cold-blooded, twice-gone-over re-examination of the details was barely broken off so that a hand could caress a cheek.”

The couple has planned this murder down to the last detail, going over every point twice and checking for any possible mistakes. In a sense, they have drafted the narrative of the husband’s death. The narrative voice relating this scene comments on this scene critically: The couple’s review of their murder plot is “cold-blooded.” They are simultaneously “hot-blooded” in their passion for one another and “cold-blooded,” cruel and heartless, in their calculated murder of the husband. While motivated by the couple’s erotic desire, the murder of the husband is elaborately premeditated; it will not be a crime committed in the blinding heat of passion.

“It was beginning to get dark.”

This simple statement establishes the blurring of time between the two narrative levels in the story, and thus underlines the key theme of continuity of worlds. As the protagonist of the frame narrative sprawls in his armchair with his novel, afternoon is advancing on the park outside: “the air of afternoon danced under the oak trees in the park” (63). By the time the couple in the cabin have finished going over their plan, the afternoon has further progressed, and dusk starts to fall.

“Not looking at one another now, rigidly fixed upon the task which awaited them, they separated at the cabin door.”

This first sentence of the last paragraph initiates the movement of the novel’s characters into the world of the reader-protagonist. At this moment, the woman has come to share the man’s exclusive focus on “the task that awaited them,” the murder of her husband. Her apprehensions and misgivings have been resolved or at least suppressed.

“He ran in turn, crouching among the trees and hedges until, in the yellowish fog of dusk, he could distinguish the avenue of trees which led up to the house.”

The assassin-lover crosses into the park that surrounds the estate house of the reader-protagonist. This sentence reinforces the Continuity of Worlds theme by affirming the continuation of place and time between the two narratives. At this point, the novel blends into the frame narrative. “The avenue of trees” the man sees leading up to the house is the same scene of “oak trees in the park” visible from the window of the study where the reader-protagonist has settled with his novel. The surprise twist ending of the story starts to come into view.