Customer Reviews
Not a novel - it's a poem - By: molondas, 29 Nov 2006 
I have to admit to being a Cortazar fan, & he definitely won't appeal to everyone. Cortazar is not bothered about plot & characterisation as time/place-bound contstructs that enable you to follow a story from beginning to end. Time, personality & events are fragmented through shifting 3rd/1st person point of view, flashback, forward projection & alll manner of other devices which make the characters & events he writes about inherently unstable - you never quite know who is speaking, where they are, which bit of the plot is being narrated.
It's an anti-novel. What holds it together is Cortazar's magnificent prose. Even in this English translation (Rabassa - superb), what might otherwise be pretentious & dull is sheer pleasure because of Cortazar's superb linguistic ability. This is what his novels are alll about - the traditional staples of the novel (character & plot) are subverted & fragmented in favour of beauty, wit, puzzles & the sheer pleasure of Cortazar's linguistic pyrotechnics.
If you want things to happen, then don't read Cortazar (go for Stephen King, or maybe Charles Dickens). But if you want writing stripped of any pretence at realism in character or events, & reduced to pure prose, then Cortazar is your man.
62: a Model Kit - By: Mr. John Clifton Hooper, 06 Aug 2003 I brought this book having read 'Hopscotch', 'Blow-up & Other Short Stories' & 'All Fires The Fire'. The truth was, I had become adicted to Cortazar & his unique style - what I can only describe as a wonderful contradiction of melancholy & humour. I believe 62: a Model Kit, has the same magical ingrediants that make Hopscotch so special. The dialogues, soul searching & games the characters play with each other create a completely original world between Paris, London & Vienna, complete with an Argentinian perspective. I find Cortazar expands the world as we know it by breaking routines & rules & creating new worlds without borders that effortlessly & refreshingly join the world as we know it. I fully recommend this book.
