Cortazar at his best. Less ambitious than Hopscotch, perhaps, but more experimental in tone and style, 62: A Model Kit, is a brilliantly conceived and beautifully executed book remarkable not only for the insight into the painful inner meanderings of the human heart and mind it contains, but also for the unique mixture of humorous, frightening, and romantic backdrops against which the action takes place. The story itself is about a group of friends whose social and intellectual antipathies have led them to contrive certain private games (often dialectical in nature), of which "The City" is the most complex. This city is a kind of mental metropolis the friends have constructed as a counter to the real world. Thus their days are spent in either attempting to disturb the placid energies of the normally disposed people around them, or trying to back get into their bizarrely proportioned, enigmatically populated City, where perhaps final solutions to their spiritual angst wait to be discovered behind certain locked and sinister doors. Dark secrets float along the swiftly moving surface of their actions, however, while in the hidden depths beneath the tumultuous waters of the narrative lurk sex, death, betrayal, and finally, murder. This is a meticulously crafted book by a master at the very top of his game, and I highly recommend it.
