Power Struggles in Julio Cortazar's "Blow Up"

           
             
            The writer is the supposed master of his story but in Julio Cortazar's "Blow Up" the story fights back and hanging in the balance is nothing less than Truth itself.  The narrative begins with Roberto Michel at his typewriter, attempting to recount the events of November 7, a Sunday in Paris.  Like a typical first person narrator, Michel interjects his own thoughts, uses adjectives and metaphors in an effort to capture what happened from his perspective.  Yet a third person narrator, the voice of the "story," arises and tries to deny Michel this luxury.  When he begins to muse philosophically about the limitations of the senses, the story interrupts "but Michel rambles on to himself . . . there's no need to let him harangue on this way."  Later when he goes in depth about the shape of the clouds, the story breaks in, "Cut it short."   It's as though the story believes truth is found in the strict facts and refuses to have Michel distort reality with literary artifice.
            The reader watches Michel struggle to maintain control as the primary tools of a storyteller become ineffective.  Adjectives prove inaccurate, descriptions unreliable, metaphors backfire.  He writes that the sun came out "at least twice as hard" but then repents "I mean warmer."  He constantly mismatches adjectives and nouns in oxymoronic phrases such as "terribly happy" and "delicious torture."  He can never give an absolute description of a character, someone is always "almost long" or "almost handsome."  Following one of his most absurd comparisons, writing that a woman's eyes were "two puffs of green slime," he recognizes the story has finally gotten away from him.  "I'm not describing anything," he writes. 
            When Michel arrives at the park and the climax of the narrative unfolds, the story becomes more resistant and aggressive.  The narrator and the story do seem to agree on the facts - a woman is trying to seduce a young boy - but have different interpretations of their significance.  As many narrators might, Michel attempts to romanticize such an encounter and he tells the reader that he will "set the scene [with] teasing kisses . . . [and] milky yellow light."  Yet the story won't accept his version and cuts him off again, explicitly claiming that "Michel is guilty of making literature, of indulging in fabricated unrealities." 
            Interestingly enough within the action of the narrative a parallel power struggle is being played out as Michel, an amateur photographer, tries to capture the scene on film.  Here, the reader witnesses another instance of an artist using his instrument, in this case his camera, as a way of controlling his subject.  When the seduction begins to give off "a disquieting aura," Michel believes he has the ability to right it.  He thinks that "my photo, if I shot it, would reconstitute things in their true stupidity."  As he sets up the shot, he tries to focus on the beauty of the scene and eliminate elements that upset him; in particular he wants to avoid a "menacing black car" in the background.  If the photo were to include this car it would taint the romance he has been envisioning, with all its milky yellow light and teasing kisses.  So he adjusts his aperture to a "setting which would not include the horrible black car."  Just as Michel the narrator tries to depict an idyllic story full of poetry and philosophy, Michel the photographer wants to take the perfect picture, "the one that will sum it all up."
            Finally, Michel succeeds in taking his picture.  Like the narrator, who thinks he is influencing the story through his telling of it, Michel believes his actions have changed the course of events for the better.  In the instant he snaps the picture he distracts the woman momentarily and the boy is allowed to escape.  Although, the story tells us that on the face of things the scene was innocent and it is only because "Michel is a bit of a puritan at times" that he suggests otherwise, the narrator leaves convinced that "in the last analysis, taking the photo was a good act."
            The reader is led to believe this is the end of the story and victory goes to the artist.  Apparently the reality he chooses to depict can indeed supplant the raw events.  Despite all the problems along the way and all the bickering with the story, the narrator got his version told: the ending is happy, the boy is free from whatever insidious plans the woman had for him, and Michel has his perfect picture.  Yet the story only fully completes itself after Michel develops the negative.  It is in the viewing of the photo where the true scene comes to life. 
            As Michel examines the print, he sees that he did not capture the situation as he wanted.  Despite his intentions the car appears in the final image.  Worse, the scene is not frozen in an unspoiled moment but moves freely without the artist's control. The narrator also is powerless to act; "what had to happen was going to be fulfilled."  The true scene, not as it seemed from an objective standpoint or how it was first depicted by the narrator, begins to play itself out and Michel can "do absolutely nothing."  A man steps out of the car and enacts, "the abuse" that he had secretly been planning all along.  As a photographer and a narrator Michel is helpless yet as a viewer he is able to do something.  Miraculously when he puts down his tongs, he is able to enter the photo.  Michel overcomes his doubts and fears and heroically frees the boy from the man's devious plans.
            In the end Cortazar places the ability to see the complete truth, not in the hands of the writer but in those of the reader.  From the beginning of the story, we know that an artist is inherently unable to capture reality without distorting it in some way.  As Michel writes in the very first line, "nobody knows how to tell this, if in the first person or second, using the third person, or continually inventing new forms until nothing makes any sense."  Rules of grammar as much as personal style will always interfere with accurately capturing a past event.  Cortazar, of course, is not unique in pointing out that when an artist observes his subject, inevitably, he alters it in some way.  Yet even a hyper-objective reciting of the facts, such as what the voice of the "story" offers, does not succeed in accurately capturing reality either.  The plain facts of Michel's story suggest that nothing more significant is happening than a young woman innocently flirting with a young boy.  It is only through the combination of the two, when the facts are laid down and interpreted by an artist, that the complete truth is able to be seen by an outside observer. 
            What makes Cortazar special is that he is not content with solely seeing the truth.  As Michel notes in the beginning of the story, looking alone "oozes with mendacity."  Because the viewer is in the unique position to see truth, he also has an obligation to act on his knowledge, just as Michel does at the end of "Blow Up."  This is where Cortazar adds another level to the age old question of what is reality.  The climax of the story doesn't come when that question is answered but rather when the protagonist acts upon the answer. 
            It is interesting to note the original title of Cortazar's story in Spanish is "Las Babas del Diablo" or "The Devil's Drool."  This refers to the moment in the narrative where Michel's taking of the picture allows the boy to escape, and lose "himself in the morning air like a Virgin's thread.  But a Virgin's thread can just as easily be called the Devil's drool."  Simply taking a picture and looking at it is not enough to force any lasting change.  If the newly discovered knowledge is not acting upon it will prove useless, perhaps even dangerous in that it provides the illusion that some good has been accomplished.  Cortazar suggests that an artist being an artist and a reader being a reader, is not satisfactory.   By ending the story as he does, Cortazar emphasizes that once all is said, done and recorded for prosperity, it is time for a person to step out his role as an artist or viewer and take action.  The writer should not allow himself to be so dazzled by his story that he doesn't see its greater significance nor should the viewer be content to sit back and be entertained.  Art reveling Truth, however interesting, is not an end to itself.  If these truths are not acting upon then art becomes nothing more than the devils' drool.

 
  "Marc Gold has written essays for Entrevecinos, a magazine based in Seville. His fiction has appeared in the Argentine magazines La Mujer De Mi Vida and Fundamind. He is set to receive his MFA in fiction from Antioch University and currently lives in Buenos Aires."

Marc Gold

SHELFLIFEMAGAZINE ARCHIVES: issue #001