Rosser is a professor at Boston University In the following essay, he examines the theme of transformation in "Axolotl," relating it to the psychology of Carl Jung.

In the narratives of Julio Cortazar there is an intense preoccupation with the unexplainable phenomena which invade individual and collective experience. This restless, self-exiled Argentine rejects the rational, convenient, and limiting interpretations of the every-day world He defies man-made formulae and simplistic explanations of reality. Cortazar believes that human beings can change and act upon their limitless potential for self-realization, for spiritual fulfillment, for a totality of life.

Cortazar uses the word "fantastic" in defining his fiction and his own special way of understanding reality. By "fantastic" he means the alternative to what he calls "false realism" or the view that "everything can be described and explained in line with the philosophical and scientific optimism of the eighteenth century, that...