Final Exam (novel)

Final Exam is a novel by Julio Cortázar that was initially released in Spanish under the title El examen in 1986. Alfred MacAdam's English translation was published by New Directions Publishing in 2008. Written in 1950, it was rejected by the Losada publisher and remained unpublished during the writer's lifetime, and was finally published in 1986.^[1][2][3][4]

The novel is divided into eight chapters, and narrates the night walk of a group of friends who are about to take an exam at the department of humanities at their University the next day, which ultimately gets suspended. During their trip, the group wanders through a surreal Buenos Aires covered in a pestiferous fog or perhaps smoke, where possibly poisonous fungi proliferate and where the dogs sleep in the subway.^[5][6][3]

The characters include two couples, Andrés and Stella, and Juan and Clara. Other characters included are Abel and the chronicler. Juan is a poet, Andrés an essayist; the chronicler a journalist, Clara an intellectual elitist, while Abel is enigmatic and different from the rest. Stella is the only one in the group who is uneducated. The rest of the group feel superior to her because she sympathizes with the masses. As the group roams through the spooky city, they discuss profound topics, including their disdain for the uneducated masses.^[7][8][6]

The group encounters strange happenings.^[3] There is a rumor of a civil breakdown, and a description of a wake in Plaza de Mayo, which is attended by the masses and where a bone is displayed inside a tent.^[9][6] That is how Cortázar alludes to Peronism. The group encounters other nightwalkers, including the chronicler, who is a gossipmonger, and Abel, who stalks Juan and Clara for an unknown reason, and may be a ghost.^[10][6][4] The following day, Juan and Clara go to see a concert of a blind violinist with Clara's vulgar bourgeois father, Mr. Funes. At the concert, Funes gets into an altercation in the men's bathroom. There is an open ending in which Andrés, nobly and suicidally, confronts Abel, as both are in love with Clara.^[10][6][4]

The book demonstrates Cortázar's immense literary knowledge, with references to writers ranging from Poe to André Malraux.^[6]

Cortázar wrote about his novel:

[...] The subject matter is absolutely fantastic: the story of the destruction of Buenos Aires, the city is seen as a body that becomes sick and begins to rot. There are a series of strange signs; for example, in bookstores in downtown Buenos Aires, fungi begin to sprout in the books, sections of sidewalks and streets can be seen falling apart, subway stations fill with wild dogs looking for something to eat [...]^[11]

Cortázar facilitates the reader’s understanding of the anti-populist sentiments of many middle-class individuals in 1940s and early 1950s Buenos Aires, while also explaining their frustration with the upper classes.^[12][7][8]

The novel is an example of the 'melancolía porteña' (Buenos Aires melancholy) and a farewell to Argentina, which Cortázar left behind for France.^[3][4]

The fog serves as a metaphor for Cortázar's dissatisfaction with Argentina's government in the 1940s and early 1950s.^[7]

The skull beneath the skin or possibly rotting corpse is a metaphor signifying the mood in Buenos Aires caused by an apocalyptic decay.^[4]