You are in the Villa del Parque neighborhood of Buenos Aires, all set to hop on the 168 bus so you can meet up with your friend across town in Retiro Park.
However, as soon as you get on the bus you can see the bus driver and all the passengers are glowering at you, their hatred runneth over. You look around in horror. What's going on here?
This happens to Clara, the tale's protagonist, and she feels as if she's been plunged into a hell realm. Oh, yes, once she takes a window seat next to the emergency exit, everyone continues to stare arrogantly at her, the conductor and driver included.
Clara notices all the passengers are holding a bouquet of flowers. At one stop, a boy enters the bus and, like Clara, he's flowerless. The bus rumbles on and, other than Clara and the boy, all the passengers exit the bus at the Chacarita Cemetery.
Now that the flowerless pair are the only passengers, the driver's attitude becomes threatening bordering on violent and he's barely restrained by the conductor. At the Retiro stop, Clara and the boy exit, narrowly escaping the wrath of the driver. They walk to a flower stand and both purchase a bouquet.
What are we to make of this story? Some critics suggest Julio's tale is classic horror. There's certainly strangeness and something more - threat and danger loom throughout.
Several philosophical questions present themselves -
Is Julio commenting on our modern urban life as 'around the day in eighty worlds'; in other words, city life as a continual shifting between levels of social reality frequently worlds apart? Take a simple example: a classical musician leaves the concern hall where she played the cello as part of a string quartet and enters at street level where rock music blares from a vendor's stereo. She then jumps in a taxi, the driver playing traditional Middle Eastern music, and heads for a restaurant featuring breezy piano jazz. Thusly our cellist experiences city life as world hopping with the threat of danger and/or violence forever present.
Also, is Julio addressing the power of groupthink and the pressure to conform? Carrying flowers and going to a cemetery hardly qualify as necessary rational behavior but perhaps that's the point - when the group demands you behave according to accepted patterns it doesn't matter if those patterns are bizarre or irrational.
Lastly, are the passengers judging Clara in terms of class by the way she dresses, her makeup, her mannerisms or the way she holds herself? How much tension exists when individuals from different social and economic strata mix in public spaces like a subway or bus?
Julio has done it again! He's written a tale of the fabulous that's, well, fabulous.
Omnibus can be read in Spanish via the below link or in English as part of Bestiary published by Vintage/Penguin Random House (second link below).
Ómnibus in Spanish: https://www.literatura.us/cortazar/om...
Omnibus in English: https://www.amazon.com/Bestiary-Selec...
Julio Cortázar, 1914-1984
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