We would eat lunch at noon, always punctual then there was nothing left to do outside of a few dirty dishes. We cleaned in the morning, getting up at 7, and at 11 I would leave Irene the last bedrooms to go over and I would go the kitchen. Irene and I became used to persisting alone in it, which was a fortune as in that house eight people could live there without getting in each other’s way. We liked the house because apart from its spaciousness and antiquity (today old houses succumbed to the more advantageous sale of their materials) it kept the memories of our great grandparents, our paternal grandfather, our parents and our childhood. The noises are never directly revealed, leaving the reader only to wonder at possible causes for the event.The following is an English translation of Casa tomada. Hurriedly, the siblings leave empty handed, locking the front door and tossing the key into the sewer. The narrator happily points out that there is less cleaning to do, but regrets that once “they’ve taken over”, neither he or his sister can retrieve their personal belongings.Įventually, the narrator hears “them” take over the section him and Irene have been forced into. The noises restrict them to smaller sections of the house in which they can reside. When the siblings hear noises in the various parts of the house, they grow frightened and solemn. Inheriting their parent’s house and wealth, they live a quiet, usually mundane, domestic existence.Īfter describing the estate and their morning routine of chores in great detail, the narrator develops their interests Irene knits all day, unraveling her work the moment it does not please her, while the narrator collects French literature and buys Irene wool during his visits to the bookstores.

Each have faced difficulties in their adult lives, the brother (the narrator) having lost his fiance long ago, and the sister (Irene) having denied many suitors who sought her hand in marriage. It starts in a realist manner and it slowly introduces a scene in which natural laws are distorted. The inspiration for my series “casa tomada” is based on the 1946 short story by Argentine writer Julio CortázarĬasa tomada tells the story of a brother and sister living together in their ancestral home which is being “taken over” by unknown entities.

Casa tomada julio cortazar english