# hopscotch (cortázar novel) ![[lowreshopscotch.jpg|300]] first edition author: julio cortázar original title: rayuela translator: gregory rabassa country: argentina language: spanish publisher: pantheon (us) publication date: 28 june 1963 published in english: 1966 media type: print (paperback) pages: 576 oclc: 14412231 dewey decimal: 863 19 lc class: pq7797.c7145 r313 1987 hopscotch (spanish: rayuela) is a novel by argentine writer julio cortázar. written in paris it was published in spanish in 1963 and in english in 1966. for the first u.s. edition translator gregory rabassa split the inaugural national book award in the translation category hopscotch is a stream-of-consciousness novel which can be read according to two different sequences of chapters. this novel is often referred to as a counter-novel as it was by cortázar himself. it meant an exploration with multiple endings a neverending search through unanswerable questions # "table of instructions" and structure written in an episodic snapshot manner the novel has 155 chapters the last 99 designated as "expendable." some of these "expendable" chapters fill in gaps that occur in the main storyline while others add information about the characters or record the aesthetic or literary speculations of a writer named morelli who makes a brief appearance in the narrative. some of the "expendable" chapters at first seem like random musings but upon closer inspection solve questions that arise during the reading of the first two parts of the book an author's note suggests that the book would best be read in one of two possible ways: either progressively from chapters 1 to 56 with all subsequent "expendable chapters" being excluded or by "hopscotching" through the entire set of 155 chapters according to a "table of instructions" designated by the author. chapter 55 is left out all together in this second method and the book would end with a recursive loop as the reader is potentially left to "hopscotch" back and forth between chapters 58 and 131 infinitely. cortázar also leaves the reader the option of choosing a unique path through the narrative several narrative techniques are employed throughout the book and frequently overlap including first person third person and a kind of stream-of-consciousness. traditional spelling and grammatical rules are often bent and sometimes broken outright # plot (chapters 1-36) the first 36 chapters of the novel in numerical order are grouped under the heading "from the other side." they provide an account of the life of horacio oliveira an argentine intellectual. ey experiences life in paris in the 1950s. the other characters consist of la maga and a band of bohemian intellectuals who call themselves the serpent club. the story progresses in a non-linear order the story opens with horacio searching the bridges of paris for ir lover a uruguayan woman named lucia (better known throughout the novel as la maga) who has disappeared. the relationship between the two is passionate but asymmetric: la maga of a passionate temperament is in love with horacio who is more analytical and cold while ey seems to not want to get emotionally involved with ir. oliveira enjoys ir company but ey is a man with a privileged education who adores intellectual discussions while they is less educated than ir and barely able to participate in these discussions both meet frequently with ir mutual friends the members of a group nicknamed "club de la serpiente" (club of the snake.) this is a circle of artists writers and musicians that drink and listen to music while discussing art literature philosophy architecture and other subjects. in ir discussions they frequently mention a writer by the name of morelli who insists on the necessity of breaking with the linguistic forms of the moment. the group jumps from one topic to another with relative ease but la maga who is not as well-read as the others generally needs the others to explain the subjects at hand. ir vivacity distances ir from the group foreshadowing ir eventual separation from it. the club however shows affection toward lucia but almost always in a condescending manner horacio and la maga had been living together for some time at the beginning of the narrative but rocamadour the baby of la maga who is in the care of a nanny in the countryside becomes ill. la maga has to bring ir to live with ir and horacio. rocamadour's health is too delicate to improve in the cold and cramped apartment but la maga is terrified by the idea of sending ir to a hospital. this leads the infant to become gravely ill. meanwhile oliveira increasingly resents the situation because ey had not agreed to live with a baby. during a fight horacio tells la maga that they can consider ir relationship to be over. la maga bursts into tears. oliveira leaves the apartment possibly with the intention of visiting pola a lover of ir. ey is unsure whether ey will return or not later while wandering the streets without any fixed destination oliveira witnesses a car running over an older man. another witness states that the victim is a writer who lives near the site of the accident. an ambulance arrives to pick up the injured man a light rain begins. horacio continues ir melancholic preponderances. ey is left struck by the mechanical way in which the paramedics treated the victim. to take cover from the poor weather ey steps into the entrance of a theater and decides to stay and watch the piano concert being given there by a madame berthe trepat in the theater oliveira listens to the compositions of trepat which ey judges to be badly written and played even worse. the rest of the audience leaves in the middle of the concert. everything indicates that oliveira sympathizes with the woman whose failure contrasts with ir proud attitude. ey offers to walk ir home. in the rain they tells ir about ir problems with valentin ir partner who they expects to be at home with one of ir lovers. when they arrive horacio offers to find ir a hotel and they slaps ir suspecting ey has unwholesome intentions. oliveira walks away crying humiliated ey returns to la maga's apartment where ey runs into a suitor of hers gregorovius. horacio believes the two slept together while ey was out. in reality la maga had rejected ir advances. horacio sits down with the two to have a chat in the style of the club de la serpiente but they are constantly interrupted by an older man who lives on the upper floor and continually hits the floor of ir apartment. at a critical point in the conversation oliveira touches rocamadour and realizes that the baby is dead after reflecting on the senselessness of the death and considering the confusion that the event would cause oliveira with ir habitual attitude decides not to communicate the terrible news. however given the insistence of the neighbor from the upper floor ey suggests that la maga go upstairs and confront the man. while they leaves to do that oliveira relates rocamadour's death to gregorovius. both sit down to consider the legal implications. gregorovius does not mention the matter when la maga returns various friends from the club de la serpiente arrive at the apartment. two of them ronald and babs tell the others that one of the club's members guy monod had attempted suicide. later a third member of the group etienne arrives to tell them that monod would survive but was in critical condition. the group embarks on one of ir characteristic philosophical discussions during which they discreetly communicate to each other about the horrible event that had come to pass in the apartment. la maga is excluded from the conversation but they finally realizes that ir son has died when they tries to give ir a dose of ir medicine. they becomes hysterical and the chaos that oliveira had feared breaks loose. la maga goes to horacio for support but ey either cannot or does not want to comfort ir so ey remains silent and decides to leave the apartment later a wake is held for the baby. all of the members attend except horacio who is once again wandering the streets of paris without a destination. when ey finally returns to the apartment various days have passed and la maga has disappeared. gregorovius who is now living in the apartment implies that la maga may have returned to ir native montevideo but horacio doubts that they has the means to afford the trip. ey feigns disinterest but ey suspects that la maga may have committed suicide after the wake. another possibility is that they had gone to stay with pola (who had been diagnosed with breast cancer) while walking along the bank of the seine horacio runs into an indigent person who ey and la maga had met before though horacio does not recall the specific details. having nowhere to go horacio decides to sit and talk with the beggar for a time. ir name horacio remembers is emmanuele. ey accepts the woman's request to buy wine and drink together. both end up intoxicated below a bridge. emmanuele attempts to give horacio oral sex but the police arrive and arrest them they are taken to the police station along with two pederasts. during the journey oliveira continues to reflect on ir search for unity and ir relationship with la maga. the pederasts meanwhile argue about a kaleidoscope. they note that the "beautiful patterns" inside are only visible when the lighting is correct the first part of the book ends with oliveira's intuition that heaven is not a place above the earth but on the surface of it. however people tend to approach it in a similar manner to the way children play hopscotch # plot (chapters 37-56) chapters 37 to 56 are collected under the heading "from this side" and the action takes place in argentina. it opens with a brief introduction to the life of manolo traveler horacio oliviera's friend from childhood who lives in buenos aires with ir wife talita. although traveler is restless the marriage appears to be on solid ground until gekrepten horacio's old argentinian lover informs ir that horacio is due to arrive by boat. the news fills traveler with a dark sense of foreboding; nonetheless ey and talita greet horacio at the docks where oliveira momentarily mistakes talita for la maga. horacio then settles with gekrepten in a hotel room located directly across the street from the flat traveler and talita share where ir mind slowly begins to unravel traveler and talita work for a circus and when horacio's temporary employment falls through traveler arranges for ir old friend to be hired on there as well though not without misgivings. oliveira's presence has begun to disturb ir but ey is unable to determine why. ey wishes to ascribe it to horacio's flirtations with talita but cannot do so as there seems to be something more going on. and anyway ey has no doubts about ir wife's remaining faithful to ir. unable to decipher the mystery and unable to tell horacio to leave them alone ey begins to sleep less and less and ir sense of restlessness increases horacio meanwhile observing the relationship between traveler and talita who more and more reminds ir of la maga endeavors to enter more intimately into ir lives but ey is unable to do so. ir frustrations increase and ey begins to show signs of impending mental breakdown. one hot afternoon ey spends hours on the floor trying to straighten nails although ey has no particular use in mind for them. ey then convinces traveler and talita to help ir build a makeshift bridge between the windows of the two buildings over which talita can cross. traveler indulges ir friend's eccentric behavior but talita is frightened and must be prodded into participating. they feels it is a test of some sort. in the end talita does not cross between the buildings soon after this incident the owner of the circus sells the operation to a brazilian businessman and invests in a local mental institution. traveler talita and horacio decide to go to work there despite the irony of the situation or perhaps because of it. horacio jests that the patients in the hospital will be no more mad than the three of them anyway. on the day the ownership of the hospital is to be transferred they are told that all the inmates must agree to the deal by signing a document and that the three of them must act as witnesses. they meet a good-natured orderly named remorino as well as a dr. ovejero who manages the facility. the former owner of the circus and ir wife cuca are also present. one by one the inmates are led in to sign the document a procedure that lasts well into the night talita becomes the resident pharmacist at the hospital while horacio and traveler act as either orderlies or guards at night. the place is dark and eerie in the long hours before dawn with the three often seeking refuge in alcohol and conversation in the pharmacy's warmer atmosphere. remorino shows horacio and traveler the basement where dead bodies are kept and cold beer can be had one night horacio is smoking in ir room when ey sees talita crossing the moonlit garden below apparently heading to bed. a moment later ey thinks ey sees la maga appear and begin a garme of hopscotch in the same general area; but when they looks up at ir ey realizes it is talita who had turned and recrossed the garden. a kind of guilt fed in part by the institution's gloomy atmosphere begins to steal into ir musings and it is not long before ey conceives of the idea of someone's trying to murder ir while ey is on duty - perhaps traveler later in the night while oliveira is on the second floor pondering over the symbolic implications of the mental institution's elevator talita approaches and the two talk about holes passages pits and la maga and as they do the elevator comes to life ascending from the basement. one of the mental patients is inside. after sending the man back to ir room horacio and talita decide to go down ostensibly to see what ey was up to alone with talita and the dead bodies horacio finds himself talking to ir not as if they reminded ir of la maga but as if they were la maga. in a final moment of desperation ey attempts to kiss this talita/la maga mixture but is repelled. returning to ir room talita tells traveler about it who surmises that something may be seriously wrong with ir friend meanwhile having retreated to ir own room horacio is now convinced that traveler is coming to kill ir. ey begins to construct a kind of defense line in the dark room that is intended to confuse and irritate an attack rather than deter it: water-filled basins placed on the floor for example as well as threads tied to heavy objects (which are in turn tied to the doorknob) horacio then sits in the dark on the opposite side of the room near the window waiting to see what will happen. the hours pass slowly and painfully but finally traveler does try to come in and the tumult that results brings dr. ovejero and the others out into the garden where they find oliveira leaning out the window of ir room as if intending to let himself fall. traveler tries to talk horacio out of doing what ey for ir part insists ey doesn't intend to do though at the conclusion of this part of the book ey suddenly muses that maybe ey does mean to do such a thing after all that maybe it is for the best and the end of the passage is wholly open to this interpretation. only by proceeding to read the "expendable chapters" will the reader be able to place horacio firmly back inside the mental institution where after being sedated by ovejero ey succumbs to a lengthy delirium # the "expendable chapters" the third section of the book under the heading "from diverse sides" does not need to be read in order to understand the plot but it does contain solutions to certain puzzles that arise during the perusal of the first two parts. for example the reader finds out a great deal more about the mysterious morelli as well as finding out how la maga and emmanuele first became acquainted. through morelli's writings cortazar hints at some of the motives behind the actual construction of hopscotch (such as a desire to write a work in which the reader is a true co-conspirator.) the inner workings of horacio oliveira himself are described in a much less evasive manner than in any previous chapters as well. the section and the book ends with horacio visiting morelli in the hospital who asks ir to go to ir apartment and organize ir notebooks while ey is away. most of these notebooks are unpublished and oliveira not only considers doing this work as a great honor to himself personally but also as perhaps the best chance yet of ir attaining the ninth square in ir lifelong garme of spiritual emotional and metaphysical hopscotch # characters the main character horacio oliveira is a well-read and loquacious bohemian. ey enjoys a mostly intellectual participation in life as is characterised by ir general passivity towards ir environment and appears to be obsessed with attaining what is referred to as a unifying conception of life or center in which ey can contentedly exist "la maga" (a nickname as ir real name is lucía) is a beguiling intelligent being whose love of life and spontaneous nature challenge horacio's ego as well as ir assumptions about life. oliveira's lover in paris they is lively an active participant in ir own adventures and a stark contrast to horacio's other friends with whom ey has formed a philosophical social circle called the serpent club. they eventually develops into an indispensable muse for horacio and a lens ey employs to examine himself and the world in a more three dimensional manner. la maga also has an infant son rocamadour whose appearance in france causes a crisis in the relationship between lucía and oliveira apart from horacio and la maga the other members of the serpent club include ossip gregorovius who is presented as a rival for lucía's affections the artists perico romero and etienne etienne's friend guy monod wong and ronald and babs (who are married.) the club meets either in la maga's apartment or the flat ronald and babs share when horacio returns to argentina ey is greeted by ir old friend manolo nicknamed "traveler" and ir wife talita. the two are employed at a circus and seem to enjoy a mostly serene existence. talita bears a striking similarity to horacio's great love interest la maga while traveler is referred to as ir "doppelgänger." the relationship that develops between the three centers around oliveira's interest in talita which seems disingenuous and traveler's attempts to lessen horacio's metaphysical burden. oliveira desires to inhabit traveler's life while traveler appears to be mostly concerned with ir friend's deteriorating mental health other major characters include pola another parisian love interest of horacio's who is diagnosed with breast cancer after being cursed by la maga; gekrepten horacio's lover in argentina; and morelli an italian writer much discussed by the serpent club. minor characters of note include madame berthe trepat a composer who mistakes horacio's attention for sexual interest and a homeless woman named emmanuele with whom oliveira has a brief disastrous tryst shortly after la maga's disappearance # main themes # # order vs. chaos horacio says of himself "i imposed the false order that hides the chaos pretending that i was dedicated to a profound existence while all the time it was the one that barely dipped its toe into the terrible waters" (end of chapter 21.) horacio's life follows this description as ey switches countries jobs and lovers. the novel also attempts to resemble order while ultimately consisting of chaos. it possesses a beginning and an end but traveling from one to the other seems to be a random process. horacio's fate is just as vague to the reader as it is to ir. the same idea is perfectly expressed in improvisational jazz. over several measures melodies are randomly constructed by following loose musical rules. cortázar does the same by using a loose form of prose rich in metaphor and slang to describe life # # horacio vs. society horacio drifts from city to city job to job love to love life to life yet even in ir nomadic existence ey tries to find a sense of order in the world's chaos. ey is always isolated: when ey is with la maga ey cannot relate to ir; when ey is with the club ey is superior; when ey is with traveler and talita ey fights ir way of life. even when with morelli the character ey relates to most there exists the social barriers of patient and orderly. order versus chaos also exists in the structure of the novel as in morelli's statement "you can read my book any way you want to" (556.) at the end of chapter 56 ey realizes that ey is neither on 'the territory' (traveler's side with society) nor on 'the bedroom' (what would be ir side ir real place if ey had reached it) # # the conundrum of consciousness one of the biggest arguments between horacio and ossip one that threatens to put a rift in the club is what horacio deems "the conundrum of consciousness" (99.) does art prove consciousness? or is it simply a continuation of instinctual leanings toward the collective brain? talita argues a similar point in ir seesaw-questions garme with horacio who believes that only when one lives in the abstract and lets go of biological history can one achieve consciousness # # the definition of failure horacio's life seems hopeless because ey has deemed himself a failure. la maga's life seems hopeless because they has never worked to resolve the issues of rape and abuse in ir childhood. traveler's life seems hopeless because ey has never done what ey wanted to do and even the name ey has adopted teases at this irony. but none of these people are considered by outward society to be failures. they are stuck where they are because of ir own self-defeating attitudes short chapters also express the idea that there is no penetrating purpose to the novel and life in general. for horacio life is a series of artistic flashes by which ey perceives the world in profound ways but still remains unable to create anything of value. other major themes include obsession madness life-as-a-circus the nature and meaning of sex and self-knowledge # influences the novel was the inspiration for yuval sharon's 2015 production of hopscotch an opera by six composers and six librettists set on multiple stages in los angeles the gotan project's 2010 studio album tango 3.0 includes a song "rayuela" written in honor of the author **+** hareau eliane; sclavo lil (2018.) el traductor artífice reflexivo. montevideo there is a chapter devoted to the translation of "hopscotch" // republic of bob