A young girl spends her summer vacation in a country house where a tiger roams . . . A man reading a mystery finds out too late that he is the murderer’s intended victim . . .
Originally published in hardcover as End of the Game and Other Stories,the fifteen stories collected here—including “Blow-Up,” which was the basis for Michelangelo Antonioni’s film of the same name—shows Julio Cortázar's nimble capacity to explore the shadowy realm where the everyday meets the mysterious, perhaps even the terrible.ONE Axolotl 3 House Taken Over 10 The Idol of the Cyclades 28 Letter to a Young Lady in Paris 39 A Yellow Flower 51
TWO Continuity of Parks 63 The Night Face Up 66 Bestiary 77 The Gates of Heaven 97 Blow-Up 114
THREE End of the Game 135 At Your Service 150 The Pursuer 182 Secret Weapons 248Praise forBlow-Up and Other Stories:
[Cortázar] is a unique storyteller. He can induce the kind of chilling unease that strikes like a sound in the night. —Time
Julio Cortázar is a stunning writer. It is difficult to imagine how he could improve as a writer of short stories. —The Christian Science Monitor
A glittering showcase for a daring talent . . . Julio Cortázar is a dazzler. —San Francisco Chronicle
A first-class literary imagination at work. —The New York Times Book Review
Cortázar displays throughout his stories the ability to elevate them above the condition of those gimmicky tales which depend for effect solely on a twist ending. His genius here lies in the knack for constructing striking, artistically 'right' subordinate circumstances out of wlc”