Cronopios Tomados
In the summer I found myself laughing again with Julio Cortázar's "Cronopios and Famas". I like the spontaneity with which he writes, and besides, the texts are very brief, as if they were designed to be read in 2026, where people's attention span is increasingly limited to Instagram Stories.
Everything related to the world of literature has always given me anxiety. Enormous bookstores with walls made of books, with so many letters, possible combinations, smells, silences, suggestive or hidden messages, red carpets, COVID floating in the air, and in some cases they even sell Coca-Cola. It is the act of choosing a book among so many and starting to read it without knowing how it's going to end that paralyzes me. Will I understand what the writer meant to communicate? Or will I interpret it my own way, and is that precisely what the writer wants to happen? These are some of the questions that sprout while I walk into El Ateneo on Santa Fe Avenue, wondering if it's better to take the stairs to relieve stress, or go for the collapsed elevator full of humans to increase it. I choose the stairs and try once again to resolve the deluge of potential information within my reach that is inhabiting a bookstore.
It is a challenge to invest several days reading a book—or rather, letting someone else's message filter into my world—only to finally realize that it wasn't a pleasant thing, or perhaps it was. It's like investing in the stock market or buying crypto dollars; it can go up, down, or sideways. Everything is energy, and if I eat a flower I want to make sure it's in good condition for my organism, right? I don't understand what the difference is between that and devouring a book. But anyway, returning to the topic of bookstores and the challenge of inhabiting them, over time I matured and guided myself by my instinct until I understood which books were compatible with my mental operating system. That day at El Ateneo, I walked slowly toward a corner to meet this little book by Julio Cortázar that had been waiting for me since September 30, 1966. So I picked it up, and the title caught my attention because I didn't understand who these characters—"The Famas" and "The Cronopios"—were, or what their stories would be about. Without thinking about anything else, I opened the book at random and read "Instructions on How to Wind a Watch", then "The Famas' Ball", and then I started laughing in the middle of the bookstore while simultaneously forgetting about the whole gray cloud I was telling you about paragraphs earlier. Right then and there I felt the impulse and realized that this book and I could have a healthy relationship. I went to the checkout and paid for it with a Mercado Pago QR code without asking the price, and went home feeling like a true cult reader, someone respectable... an out-of-date intellectual.
Today I was inspired by some of his writings to illustrate what Julio Cortázar described in a 1977 interview about his own characters called Cronopios—those indefinable, green, bristly, damp objects, a sort of amicably floating balloons were cronopios, cronopios, cronopios...
Pencil on paper
11x9cm
"A Cronopio finds a solitary flower in the middle of the fields. At first he is going to pluck it, but he thinks that is a useless cruelty and kneels down beside it and plays happily with the flower, to wit: he caresses its petals, blows on it so it will dance, buzzes like a bee, smells its perfume, and finally lies down beneath the flower and falls asleep wrapped in a great peace. The flower thinks: 'It's like a flower'."
— Julio Cortázar, Cronopios and Famas (1962)
Pencil on paper
13x13cm
"A tiny Cronopio was looking for the street door key on his night table, the night table in his bedroom, the bedroom in his house, the house in the street. Here the Cronopio stopped, because to go out into the street he needed the street door key."
— Julio Cortázar, Cronopios and Famas (1962)
Pencil on paper
24x21cm
"An Hope built himself a house and put a tile in it that said: Welcome all who arrive at this home.
A Fame built himself a house and didn't put very many tiles in it.
A Cronopio built himself a house and following custom put various tiles on the porch that he bought or had made. The tiles were placed in such a way that they could be read in order. The first said: Welcome all who arrive at this home. The second said: The house is small but the heart is big. The third said: The presence of the guest is soft as the grass. The fourth said: We are poor indeed, but not in will. The fifth said: This sign cancels all previous ones. Beat it, dog.
— Julio Cortázar, Cronopios and Famas (1962)
Pencil on paper
15x23cm
"A Cronopio walking through the desert runs into a lion, and the following dialogue takes place:
Lion.— I'm going to eat you.
Cronopio (deeply distressed but with dignity).— Oh well.
Lion.— Ah, no. None of that martyr stuff with me. Start crying, or fight, one or the other. I can't eat you like this. Come on, I'm waiting, aren't you going to say anything?
The Cronopio says nothing, and the Lion is perplexed, until he gets an idea.
Lion.— Good thing I have a thorn in my left paw that bothers me a lot. Take it out and I'll spare your life.
The Cronopio takes out the thorn and the Lion leaves, grumbling reluctantly.
Lion.— Thanks, Androcles.
— Julio Cortázar, Cronopios and Famas (1962)