Hopscotch: A Novel (Pantheon Modern Writers Series) Kindle Edition

This novel by Argentine author Luis Cortazar is a masterpiece that comes with a Set of Instructions which includes several different ways to read the novel. I highly recommend reading it following Cortazar’s “Hopscotch” pattern of moving through the chapters before reading it “straight through.” Hopscotch offers up worlds of delight in any kaleidoscopic pattern the reader chooses.

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In the narrative of Cortázar’s Hopscotch, he analyzes the game of hopscotch after the main character, Oliveira, engages with a clocharde named Emmanuéle on the streets of Paris: “One day you learn how to leave Earth and make the pebble climb into Heaven…the worst part of it is that precisely at that moment…no one has learned how to make the pebble climb up into Heaven.”Cortázar continues this idea about failing to reach Heaven in the game: “Childhood is all over…you’re into novels, into the anguish of the senseless divine trajectory, into the speculation about another Heaven that you have to reach too…And since you have come out of childhood…you forget that in order to get to Heaven you have to have a pebble and a toe.”The concept of hopscotch is practical, but Julio Cortázar’s book, Hopscotch, is anything but practical—it is profound. Some of the characters in the story understand the idea to play, most do not. Hopscotch is a set of two books, as told by Julio Cortázar in his Table of Instructions in the beginning of the book. Theses books are a tendril of timelines for Oliveira, because Heaven, according to the game and his actions and desires, becomes elusive to him. La Maga, the other main character, is Oliveira’s lover in Paris: She is an ever-present and formidable force to Oliveira, but this is not enough to for him to stay with her. Once more, the concept of the game of hopscotch is chalked on a Bohemian playground with La Maga, Oliveira, and a group of friends pushing, and some not pushing, the pebble. Eventually, Oliveira moves on to Buenos Aires, his homeland.In Buenos Aires, the playground (in due course) becomes a battlefield for Oliveira. Julio Cortázar’s meticulous sequence of events is portrayed with a party of three: Oliveira, Traveler and his wife, Talita. Arriving in Buenos Aires, Oliveira meets his old friend Traveler, who had been informed by Oliveira’s girlfriend Gekrepten that he was arriving. There is some resentment from Traveler with having Oliveira around at times; some of this is because Oliveira looks at Talita as if she is La Maga. In the course of the narrative, Traveler gets Oliveira a job in the circus, and then they decide to buy a mental hospital. Over time, the strain of his past terrain of failings and misfortunes manifest into a battle—a battle that Oliveira will not win.A notable mention about Hopscotch is Chapter 34: The poetic and artistic method that Cortázar employs in this chapter is ingenious. Oliveira relays two different articles of prose, line by line with a clear separation of thought.Hopscotch is a literary examination by Julio Cortázar that vanquishes the norm of novels. Thus, Cortázar’s poetic prowess to tell a story about a man, his desires and disappointments, and a childhood game of hopscotch is extraordinary.Julio Cortázar was a novelist, poet, musician, and a short story writer. (August 26, 1914 – February 12, 1984)Book Review OrangePostman .com

Why hasn't anyone employed the term "Nouveau Roman" to describe this odd, meandering book? I suppose the fault may, in part, lie in the fact that it was originally penned in Spanish and is considered part of the Latin American canon. But Cortazar wrote much of it whilst working for UNESCO in Paris. And there are vast sections of both French and Spanish left untranslated here. - The French posed no problem for me, though the Spanish did. - The reason I stress the "Nouveau Roman" aspect of this crazyquilt work is that you'll not have any idea of why Cortazar writes as he does here unless you have an idea of what those 1950s writers were all about in this literary movement, because, for my literary capital, Cortazar's Hopsctch is the Nouveau Roman work par excellence. But this ends up being rather a backhanded compliment, perhaps.So, yes, the novel can be read in several different modes of succeeding chapters, but I'm not going to dwell on this aspect here, because I have now read it in all the different sequences, and it really doesn't matter a hair's breadth of difference in the end as to the general import of the novel. I do agree with the reader who says that if you're reading it linearly, the book will have much more force if you put it down after the Second, or Argentine, section and eschew the "Expendable" chapters. But, if you do, you'll miss out on what Cortazar is all about here - which may not be a bad thing.A brief description of the three sections (linearly, that is):The first part amounts to an extremely high-brow, intellectualised to the nth degree, version of La Vie Boheme set in 1950s Paris. Brush up on your knowledge of jazz and, while you're at it, on any high-brow author, from Muesli to Lowry, of note in the early to middle part of the 20th century. You'll need them all for the third part, if you choose to read it.The second part is set when Oliviera/Horacio (or whatever you want to call him) returns to Argentina and becomes a circus worker, salesman and employee at a madhouse. But, more importantly, he becomes involved in a psychic ménage a trois with a couple that brings him to the edge of madness and leaves the reader hanging. This part is, indeed, a masterpiece. It brings the whole question of consciousness and the meaning of "reality" to the fore, the goal of the Nouveau Roman movement. To cite from the book, this description of a prelude to a kiss:"It was if they were coming together from somewhere else, with some part of themselves, as if they were paying or collecting something for others, as if they were the golems of an impossible meeting between their masters."The third part of "expendable" chapters consists, for the most part, of notes by and about Cortazar's stand-in, the author Morelli, which are identical with what the Nouveau Roman authors were attempting to do.It's rather hard, of course, to pass judgement on all this. But for me, most of it had a very dated feel, almost amounting to a caution against terming any movement in the arts "new" as it is bound to grow old. A quote from the book sums up the dated, elegiac feel of it for me:"And when the feast is over, why are we so sad, brothers of nineteen hundred and fifty something?"Footnote: Admirers and aficionados of Malcolm Lowry - such as myself - will be glad to see an entire chapter (118) devoted solely to a one line quote from Under The Volcano. But they may be mystified by another reference to him in chapter 99: "It's almost stupid to repeat that life is sold to us, as Malcolm Lowry said..." This comes from, I think, a letter of his. In any event, I've long had it memorised in full. Lowry says, "The real cause of alcoholism is the baffling sterility of existence as sold to you."

HOPSCOTCH by Julio Cortazar is more of a maze exploration than simply a good read, yet I became entranced with the prose.Initially I was attracted to the non-linear format of HOPSCOTCH. Cortazar wants us jumping in and out of the plot line in the main "novel" with seemingly off-the-wall interruptions, but they turn out to be connected after all by the "end." And then some of the juxtapositions are less sublime but equally effective, such as in chapter 14 when Oliveira is looking at Wong's series of pictures depicting an execution in China. As gruesome as the descriptions are, skipping next to chapter 114, I couldn't help but to internalize the absurdity of the "civilized" treatment in the San Quentin prison gas chamber.Anyway, HOPSCOTCH has in fact been a wonderful read but I think this is the kind of book that readers have to give at least fifty pages (even if that happens to be page 210) before the story grabs hold.

Very Good ..........

A1

Un clásico atemporal, traducido al inglés.

As described and fast delivered, many thanks!

It will be a challenge to add anything new about this classic of Spanish literature other than I loved this book. Six months ago I tried reading the book in English in a chronological order and lost interest. Then I noticed some comments about how boring this book was on my Mexican blog on Goodreads. So how can a pivotal book that inspired the Latin American New Wave not work? I had to give it a try in Spanish.This time I took Señor Cortázar's suggestion to read the book using his "Table of Directions". Believe me it works. The chapters follow a pattern of a Hopscotch Game. You move forward linear, then jump ahead, maybe a little back, some more ahead and then back to the main storyline. This was a brilliant idea and even though the book is over 50 years old, I felt it could have been written today. Perhaps those young Mexicans didn't relate to all the "jazz talk" of the late 50s-60s. Come to think of it, nor did I but the feeling, the mood and the language pulled me in so much that sometimes I just read along for the plain pleasure of reading. It was really that good. The added benefit of the "jumping ahead-back" into these little vignettes, stories, asides, whatever were always so unexpected but if you thought about that passage, there was some thread back to the story. Even the storyline is challenging but enjoyable.His language is full of play. Chaper 52 about wool (lana): lana, lanada, lanagnorisis, lanatúrner, lannapurna, lanotomía, lanata, lanatalidad, lanacionidad, lanaturnidad, la lana hasta lanáusea..... Lana Turner? Wool right up to nausea? Marvelous. Chapter 133 relates the story of "The Light of the Peace of the World" and makes silly connections to various government departments based on skin colour. Then he makes a connection to Mondrian paintings. There is a chapter where two trains of thought go on in every alternating line (that was amazing)! On and on it goes. Never boring. What were those Mexicans thinking?I was reminded of reading Ulysses by James Joyce by the scope and literary knowledge (and I loved that book). Cortázar goes further with his play of French, English, German, Italian among others along with his native Argentinian "che" and his play with the gutteral "h". That was fun to read aloud!WOW!