4 It is at this point that estrangement may intervene, in order to bring about the “removal of this object from the sphere of automatized perception”. We know it’s there but we do not see it”. 3 Or rather: “After being perceived several times, objects acquire the status of ‘recognition’. Clearly, this is a reference to Shklovsky and what he termed ostranenie: “If we examine the general laws of perception, we see that as it becomes habitual, it also becomes automatic”. 2 The act of waking up has something animal-like about it: it makes one turn one’s head ( meter la cabeza) like a listless bull ( toro desganado), it makes one wish for hot drinks ( tomamos café con leche) and fresh news ( abrimos el diario) this time, however, the earth has a glass-like quality: it is a transparent mass ( masa transparente), or a crystal block ( ladrillo de cristal). In addition: “Meter la cabeza como un toro desganado contra la masa transparente en cuyo centro tomamos café con leche y abrimos el diario para saber lo que ocurrió en cualquiera de los rincones del ladrillo de cristal”. Waking up is like a task: softening ( ablandar) something hard, opening up a passage ( abrirse paso), and tripping up ( topar) the world is an unwieldy object: maybe a block ( ladrillo), a sticky mass ( masa pegajosa), or a parallelepiped ( paralelepípedo). For this reason, he presents waking to us as if he were observing it for the first time, and as such lacks suitable words to define it. 1 It is immediately obvious that Cortázar’s aim is to make the daily experience of waking in the morning seem ‘strange’.
To appreciate this, it is sufficient to read (or re-read) the programmatic opening of the book: “La tarea de ablandar el ladrillo todos los días, la tarea de abrirse paso en la masa pegajosa que se proclama mundo, cada mañana topar con el paralelepípedo de nombre repugnante”. Shklovsky, Theory of Prose ( O teorii prozy, 1929 1 st edition 1925), translated by Benjam (.)ġThe most frequently-found technique in Julio Cortázar’s Historias de cronopios y de famas, which is characteristic of this work more than any other, is estrangement. 1 Julio Cortázar, Historias de cronopios y de famas (1962), in Cuentos completos, t.
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