El guardagujas

Beautifully illustrated and provocative, the author’s most famous short story is a puzzling tale about a man who wishes to take a train to a certain location but upon arrival at the station is told by the switchman that his chances of ever seeing a train�let alone of ever arriving at his intended destination�are very slim. The switchman tells how in some places the train tracks are nothing more than chalk lines and how elsewhere no bridge exists so that passengers must take the train apart and carry the pieces to be reassembled down the line. The passenger eventually becomes so confused that he forgets where he intended to go, at which point the switchman and his toy lantern disappear into the distance. Whether it is interpreted as an allegory of the pitfalls of the Mexican train system or as an existential horror story of life's absurdities and human limitation, readers will enjoy this classic tale of Mexican magical realism.