El examen

the long version

"Final Exam, one of Julio Cortazar's early novels, is his allegorical, bitter, and melancholy farewell to an Argentina from which he was about to be permanently self-exiled. (Cortazar moved to Paris the following year.)". "The setting of Final Exam is a surreal Buenos Aires, dark and eerie, where a strange fog has enveloped the city to everyone's bewilderment. Juan and Clara, two students at a Faculty called "The House" (the Great Books are read aloud there by so-called Readers), meet up with their friends Andres and Stella, as well as a journalist friend they call "the chronicler." Juan and Clara are getting ready to take their final exam, but instead of preparing, they wander the city with their friends, encounter strange happenings in the squares and ponder life in cafes. All the while, they are trailed by the mysterious Abel, apparently a former lover of Clara's."--BOOK JACKET.