It would be a naïve and predictable undertaking to show that self-referentiality occurs in Cortázar, since Hopscotch has already become a classic of self-referential writing. But it is precisely in self-referentiality that the mythology which I intend to isolate manifests itself…. [Self-reflexiveness] is a regressive movement, a circular journey back to the source. In literature self-referentiality is a return to origins in order to take away from conception its claim of originality, of constituting a single, fresh moment of beginning, an ordering principle and principium. Rather than the joyful game that it is often taken to be, self-referentiality is a deadly game in Cortázar, a violent ritual where Cortázar is at stake. Los reyes, the first book that he signed with his own name (as is known, an earlier work had appeared under a pseudonym), presents, under the guise of the Theseus myth, this...