The second should be read by beginning with Chapter 73 and the following the sequence indicated at the end of each chapter.Ī few months ago I mapped the second reading chart on a simple grid Īs you can see pure chaos, none of the sequential harmony seen in Georges Perec’s ‘Life A User’s Manual’. Consequently, the reader may ignore what follows with a clean conscience. The first can be read in a normal fashion and it ends with Chapter 56, at the close of which there are three garish little stars which stand for the words The End. In its own way, this book consists of many books, but two books above all. Julio Cortázar’s ‘Hopscotch’, another work with a playful theme.įor the uninitiated Julio Cortázar’s novel consists of one hundred and fifty-five chapters and comes with a “Table of Instructions” (p166)Ĭontinuing the theme of novels with an unusual structure, or in some cases written with constraints. Mr Cortazar has marked off a corner of the world singularly his own Thomas Lask, New York TimesĬortazar's masterpiece.…man only feels secure when he is on grounds that do not touch his deepest part: when he plays, when he conquers, when he puts on his various suits of armor that are products of an ethos, when he hands over the central mystery to some revelation.

The dialogue is brilliant, whether the subject is literature, love, Mondrian, jazz or the fallibility of science Donald Keene, New York Times

Here is literary cunning and accomplishment of a high order Robert Nye, Guardian marks the true possibility of encounter between the Latin–American imagination and the contemporary world Carlos Fuentes This is the first great novel of Spanish America Times Literary Supplement But a chance encounter with a literary idol and his new work - a novel that can be read in random order - sends Horatio's mind into further confusion.Īs a return to Buenos Aires beckons, Horatio's friend and fellow artist, Traveler, awaits his arrival with dread -the lives of these two young writers now ready to play out in an inexhaustible game of indeterminacy. A powerful anti-novel but, like deeply understood moments in life itself, rich with many kinds of potential meanings and intimations' Times Literary Supplementĭazed by the disappearance of his muse, Argentinian writer Horatio Oliveira wanders the bridges of Paris, the sounds of jazz and the talk of literature, life and art echoing around him. This is the first great novel of Spanish America. Julio Cortazar's crazed masterpiece, the forbearer of the Latin Boom in the 1960s - published in Vintage Classics for the first time

Hopscotch cortazar