"We were without looking for us but knowing that we were to meet".
Guess! No, this quote is not from the Venezuelan hip hop singer Canserbero, it belongs to Cortázar and is among the pages of this wonderful book.
We have all read Hopscotch at some point in our life (or at least tried) and then we have read it again (I’m sure we are many, I include myself) a few years later, where we realize not only the importance of this book in the history of literature but in what is different from the majority.
Hopscotch is formed by 155 fragments that the reader can combine at will. In addition to the linear order, Cortázar - who started the book by writing the current fragment 41 - included in the first pages a "direction board" that starts in 73. That is, the book can be read in different ways, and this, I will explain later.
Published in 1963, it’s a fundamental reference of Spanish-American literature, to what we knew at the time as the Latin American Boom. With this way of reading, Cortázar wanted to represent chaos, the chance of life and the indisputable relationship between the created and the hand of the artist who does it.
Synopsis
The first part takes place in Paris, it is deduced that in the decade of the 50, and exposes its relationship with Lucia, nicknamed La Maga, a young Uruguayan who lacks Horacio's knowledge, but who brings a particular warmth and vitality.
The relationship between Horacio and La Maga is complicated and reaches its climax when her son, whom he called Rocamadour, dies. La Maga disappears, and Horacio unleashes a tireless search for her love.
In the course of his trip in searching for Lucia, Oliveira is reunited with an old childhood friend, Traveler, and his wife Talita, is here when this "second period" of Horacio's life begins.
As I mentioned at the beginning, Hopscotch offers different books for their reading modalities, even so, two are known as the main ones.
The first book of Hopscotch we will read it in a linear order, ending in chapter 56 (Yes, it is read only until this chapter) it’s formed by two parts: "On the side of there" and "On the side of here". In both, the essential plot or story of the book is presented.
In the second book we have the second reading alternative and it begins in chapter 73. In essence we will find new landscape incorporations, the "expendable chapters", to the argument structure delineated above. It is made up of "other sides".
It’s a classic of Latin American literature and deserves to be read. For its innovation, for its characters (Who did not want to ever be La Maga? Who has not wanted to be loved in such a way?), for their reflections on life, death, art and love. For its enriching dialogues, for its different plots, for its depth and pleasant reading.
My favorite chapter: Chapter 7: The kiss,
I touch your mouth, with one finger I touch the edge of your mouth, I draw it as if it came out of my hand, as if for the first time your mouth was parted, and it is enough for me to close my eyes to undo everything and start again, I give birth each time the mouth that I want, the mouth that my hand chooses and draws you in the face, a mouth chosen among all, with sovereign freedom chosen by me to draw it with my hand for your face, and that by a chance that I do not seek to understand exactly matches your mouth that smiles below which my hand draws you.
You look at me, up close you look, closely each time and then we play the cyclops, we look at each other closer and closer and our eyes get bigger, they approach to each other, they overlap and the cyclopes look each other, they breathe confused, the mouths find each other and fight warmly, biting each other with their lips, barely supporting the tongue between the teeth, playing in its enclosures where a heavy air come and go with an old perfume and a silence. Then my hands seek to sink in your hair, to slowly caress the profoundness of your hair while we kiss like if we had our mouths full of flowers or fishes, living movements, dark fragrance. And if we bite each other the pain is sweet, and if we drown in a brief and terrible simultaneous breath’s absorb, that instantaneous death is beautiful. And there is one single saliva and one single mature fruit flavour, and I feel you tremble against me like the moon in the water.
Recognized authors say…
«No other writer gave to the game the literary dignity that Cortázar, nor made the game an instrument of creation and artistic exploration so ductile and useful. Cortázar’s work opened unpublished doors. »
«Cortázar has left us a work perhaps unfinished but as beautiful and indestructible as his memory. »
About the author
Son of Argentine parents. His father was assigned to the Embassy of Argentina in Belgium. His family took refuge in Switzerland during the First World War until 1918, returning to Buenos Aires (Argentina). He obtains the title of teacher in 1932.
It’s identified with Surrealism through the study of French authors. His works are recognized for their high intellectual level and for their way of dealing with feelings and emotions. He was a great follower of Jorge Luis Borges.
Despite having made different publications during all these years, it is not famous until the publication of Hopscotch (1963), his masterpiece that recasts the genre.
Cortázar stands out for its miscellanies or the genre "almanac", where it mixes narrative, chronicle, poetry and essays, as for example in the return to the day in eighty worlds (1967) and 62, model to arm (1968).
Shortly before passing away, he published his book of poems Salvo el Crepúsculo (1984) and the articles Argentina, years of cultural barbed wire (1984).
On February 12, 1984 he died in Paris because of leukemia.
In 1996, his essay Image of John Keats is published posthumously and in 2009 appears Unexpected Papers, a miscellaneous work found by his first wife, Aurora Bernárdez.
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I decided to make a top 5 of books that I have read, books that I mentioned in my previous post:
Knowing me | Collage about my life | Final design evaluation I invite you to take a look!
Hopscotch is the first and I hope that the reading of this brief review has been liked.
Here, I share with you an interview with Cortázar where he talks about the book in question.
