1
From Julio Cortázar, «Diario para un cuento», in Deshoras (México: Editorial Nueva Imagen, 1983), p. 135; my translation.
2
Jorge Luis Borges, in his preface to Adolfo Bioy Casares's La invención de Morel (Buenos Aires: Losada, 1940). I quote from Ruth L. Simms's translation in Adolfo Bioy Casares, The Invention of Morel and Other Stories (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1985), p. 6; page numbers of quoted passages follow this edition. Although on the whole this is an apt translation, there are places where I have changed it slightly to follow my sense of the original text. I prefer Morel's Invention for the title, and I refer to the novel by that title in this chapter. Suzanne Jill Levine explores the relationship between texts by Borges and by Bioy Casares in this early period in «Adolfo Bioy Casares y Jorge Luis Borges: La utopía como texto», Revista Iberoamericana 43 (July-December 1977): 415-32. See also her Guía de Adolfo Bioy Casares (Madrid: Fundamentos, 1982).
3
See «Tlon, Uqbar, Orbis Tertius», in Borges's Ficciones. Mention is made there of Bioy Casares's house and the role he plays in the scrutiny of the encyclopedia at issue in the story. Some of the works by Borges and Bioy Casares were published under pseudonyms: H. Bustos Domecq is the one chosen for Seis problemas para don Isidoro Parodi (1942) and Dos fantasías memorables (1946); Suárez Lynch is given as the author of Un modelo para la muerte (1946). Under their own names they jointly published Los orilleros: El paraíso de los creyentes (1955), Crónicas de Bustos Domecq (1967), and Nuevos cuentos de Bustos Domecq (1977) as well as an anthology of gauchesco (cowboy) literature. These works are collected in Jorge Luis Borges, Obras completas en colaboración (Buenos Aires: Emecé, 1979).
4
Juan Carlos Onetti is evoked because Cortázar is working in a neighborhood of Buenos Aires closely related to the atmosphere of prostitutes and sinister stories favored by Onetti. See Juan Carlos Onetti, Obras completas (Madrid: Aguilar, 1970), La muerte y la niña (Buenos Aires: Editorial Corregidor, 1973), Tan triste como ella y otros cuentos (Barcelona: Lumen, 1976), Dejemos hablar al viento (Barcelona: Bruguera, 1979), and Cuentos secretos (Montevideo: Marcha, 1986).
5
See Jacques Derrida, La vérité en peinture (Paris: Flammarion, 1978).
6
Daniel Martino in his ABC de Adolfo Bioy Casares (Alcalá de Henares: Ediciones de la Universidad, 1991) gives a detailed listing of the works of Bioy Casares that have been adapted for film. These films add an interesting dimension to the themes discussed in this book. Borges and Bioy Casares wrote screenplays with Hugo Santiago for Invasión (Buenos Aires, 1969) and Les autres (Paris: Bourgeois, 1974).
7
See E. T. A. Hoffmann, «The Sandman», trans. L. J. Kent and E. C. Knight, in Victor Lange, ed., Tales (New York: Continuum, 1982). Alain Robbe-Grillet is a longtime admirer of Morel's Invention, whose influence on his work is visible in both his cinematic and his written work. See Alain Robbe-Grillet, «Adolfo Bioy Casares: L'invention de Morel», Critique 69 (February 1963). For a study of Bioy Casares's narrative strategies in his early period, consult Maribel Tamargo, La narrativa de Bioy Casares: El texto como escritura-lectura (Madrid: Playor, 1983).
8
Adolfo Bioy Casares, Plan de evasión (Buenos Aires: Galerna, 1969), trans. Suzanne Jill Levine, Plan for Escape. For further analysis of this work, see my «Plan de evasión de Adolfo Bioy Casares: La representación de la representación», in Donald Yates, ed., Otros mundos, otros fuegos: Fantasía y realismo mágico en Iberoamérica (East Lansing: Michigan State University, Latin American Studies Center, 1975).
9
This story is included in the English translation of La invención de Morel.
10
See Louis Auguste Blanqui, Instructions pour une prise d'armes: L'éternité par les astres et autres textes (Paris: Société Encyclopédique Française et Éditions de la Tête de Feuilles, 1972).