The following passage from Continuity of Parks by Julio Cortazar reveals that the man reading the book and the character in the book are one and the same. This passage also has many symbolisms suggesting that not only was his death was inevitable but that as the man is reaching the end of his book, his life is also reaching its end:

He tasted the almost perverse pleasure of disengaging himself line by line from the things around him, and at the same time feeling his head rest comfortably on the green velvet of the chair with its high back, sensing that the cigarettes rested within reach of his hand, that beyond the great windows the air of afternoon danced under the oak trees in the park. Word by word, licked up by the sordid dilemma of the hero and heroine, letting himself be absorbed to the point...