Hopscotch (novel)
Hopscotch is the second novel by Argentine writer Julio Cortázar. Written in Paris and published for the first time on June 28, 1963, it is one of the central works of the Latin American boom and of literature in Spanish.
It tells the story of Horacio Oliveira, its protagonist, and his relationship with "la Maga". The story puts the reader's subjectivity at stake and has multiple endings. This work is usually called an "antinovela", although Cortázar himself preferred to call it an "antinovela". It meant a leap into the void that distanced him from the controlled security of the fantastic tales of his early days as a writer to delve into a search without findings through unanswered questions.
Although the style that is maintained throughout the novel is very varied, according to Cortázar himself the work "in some way is the experience of a lifetime and the attempt to put it into writing."
The novel took several years to be published in Spain due to the reluctance of the Franco regime. Franco's censors, still in 1967, recommended suppressing eight pages of the book, and it would not finally see the light of day until seven years later.
Ways to read Hopscotch
With a total of 155 chapters, Hopscotch can be read in several ways:
- By normal reading, reading sequentially from beginning to end.
- By the "traditional" reading, proposed by Cortázar, reading sequentially from chapter 1 to 56 and disposing of the rest.
- By “the order that the reader desires”—a possibility that Cortázar then explored in his novel 62/Model to assemble—.
- By the sequence established by the author on the board of directors (which is at the beginning of the book), which proposes a completely different reading, jumping and alternating chapters. That order, which includes texts from other authors and spheres, constitutes a fragmentation and gives the sense of "mosaic" novel (Julio Cortázar avoided calling it collage).
Steering Board
The address board is the first page of Hopscotch, and in it the author proposes two ways of reading. The first proposal is the usual way (starting with chapter 1, continuing with 2 and so on) until reaching chapter 56. The second way is to start in chapter 73 and follow the order proposed in each of the chapters.
Plot
Telling the plot of Hopscotch in a linear way is, surely, a reductionism that distances the reader from the meaning of the work, since it excludes the vast psychological universe of the characters and the complex relationships of these with themes such as love, death, jealousy and art, among others.
Taking this into consideration, the following is a summary of the plot of the work, which is divided into three parts:
Part One: "Over there"
The story takes place in Paris (France), where Horacio Oliveira, the protagonist, wanders the city's bridges in search of his lover, a Uruguayan woman named Lucía (better known throughout the novel as the magician). Their relationship is passionate but asymmetrical: La Maga, with a passionate temperament, is in love with Horacio, who is more analytical and cold, while he seems not to want to get emotionally involved with her. Oliveira enjoys La Maga's company, but he is a man of a privileged upbringing who loves intellectual discussions, while La Maga, less educated than him, can barely participate in them.
Both meet frequently with mutual friends, members of a group nicknamed Club de la Serpiente, a circle of artists, writers and musicians who spend their time drinking and listening to music while discussing art, literature, philosophy, architecture and other topics. In the discussions, they usually talk about a writer named Morelli, who insists on the need to break with the linguistic forms of the moment —which he feels worn out by his abuse. The group jumps from one topic to another with relative ease, but the Wizard, who hasn't read that much, usually needs the concepts discussed explained to her. The way she is so vivacious of her distances her from the group and is the harbinger of her eventual estrangement from it. The club, however, shows affection for Lucía, but almost always in a condescending way.
Horacio and La Maga have been living together for some time now, but Rocamadour, La Maga's baby cared for by a nanny in the countryside, falls ill and she has to bring him to live with them.
The infant's health is too delicate to improve in that cold and overcrowded apartment, but Lucía is terrified of sending him to a hospital. This causes the infant to become seriously ill. Meanwhile, Oliveira resents the situation more and more, since he had not agreed to live with a baby. During a fight, Horacio implies that he could end the relationship. La Maga bursts into tears. Oliveira leaves the apartment, perhaps with the intention of visiting Pola, a lover. He is not sure if he will return or not.
Then, while aimlessly wandering the streets, the protagonist witnesses an older man being run over by a car. Another witness claims that the victim is a writer who lives near the place. An ambulance arrives and takes the injured man away.
It starts to drizzle. Horacio continues in his melancholic musings. He is impressed by how the paramedics treated the accident victim in such a mechanical way. In an effort to take refuge from the bad weather, he takes cover at the entrance of a theater and decides to go in to see the piano concert announced in the place, by a certain madame Berthe Trepat.
In the theater, Oliveira listens to Trepat's compositions, which he finds badly written and poorly performed. The rest of the audience just walks out in the middle of the concert. Everything indicates that Horacio likes the woman, whose failure contrasts ironically with her proud demeanor. He offers to accompany her to her house in the rain while she tells him about her problems with Valentín, her partner, who must be in the house with one of her lovers; upon arrival, Horacio offers to find a hotel for the lady, and she slaps him; Oliveira leaves humiliated and cries.
He returns to La Maga's apartment, where he runs into a suitor of hers, Gregorovius. Horacio believes that they went to bed while he was not there, but in reality La Maga had rejected the courtships of this character. Horacio sits down with the two to have a talk like the ones in the Snake Club, but they are constantly interrupted by an elderly man who lives one floor above and continually hits the ground. At the height of the argument, Oliveira touches Rocamadour and discovers that the baby is dead.
After reflecting on the nonsense of death and considering the confusion that the event will cause, Oliveira, with his usual attitude, decides not to communicate the terrible news. However, given the insistence of the neighbor upstairs, he suggests to La Maga that she go up and confront the man. While she retires to do this, Oliveira tells Gregorovius what happened with the infant. The two sit down to consider the legal implications. Gregorovius also does not mention the matter when La Maga returns.
Then several friends from the Snake Club show up. Two of them, Ronald and Babs, arrive to break the news that another of the members, Guy Monod, tried to commit suicide. A third member of the group, Etienne, then arrives to report that Monod will survive, despite the fact that he is very ill. The group then embarks on another series of deep philosophical discussions during which, in a low voice, they recount among themselves the horrible event that occurred in that house. La Maga is excluded from the discussion, but she finally realizes that her son is dead when she tries to give him a dose of her medicine. She becomes hysterical, and the chaos Oliveira feared finally breaks loose. La Maga seeks comfort in Horacio, but he cannot or does not want to provide the required support, so she remains silent and chooses to leave.
The baby's wake is held. All the members of the club are present, except for Horace, who has once again gone wandering aimlessly through the streets of Paris. When he finally returns to the apartment, several days have passed and La Maga has disappeared. Who now lives there is Gregorovius. He insinuates that La Maga could have returned to her native Montevideo, but Horacio doubts that she has the means to pay for that trip. He feigns disinterest, but secretly suspects that she may have committed suicide after the wake. Another possibility is that he has gone to Pola's house, who has been diagnosed with breast cancer.
While walking along the banks of the Seine River, Horacio runs into a homeless woman known to him and La Maga, whose previous meeting he does not remember very well. Since he has nowhere to go, Horacio sits down and talks to the beggar for a while. Her name, as he remembers, is Emmanuele. He agrees to the woman's request to buy wine and drink it together, and they both end up drunk under a bridge. Emmanuele tries to give Horacio oral sex, but the police unexpectedly drop in and arrest them.
They are brought to the station along with two pedophiles. On the trip, Oliveira continues to reflect on his search for unity and on his relationship with La Maga. The pedophiles, meanwhile, discuss a kaleidoscope. They note that, only against the right light, the "pretty patterns" within it are noticeable.
The first part of the book ends with Oliveira's intuition that Heaven is something that is not above the Earth, but on the surface of it, but at some distance, which one approaches in a similar way as how children play hopscotch.
Second part: «From this side»
The action now moves to Argentina, where the story begins with a brief introduction about Manolo Traveler, a childhood friend of Horacio's who lives in Buenos Aires with his wife Talita. Traveler is described as a restless fellow, whose marriage to Talita is stable. But Manolo has a bad feeling when Gekrepten, Horacio's old girlfriend, informs him that Horacio, whom he hasn't seen in years, is coming back to the country. Despite the bad feeling, he and Talita go to the pier to welcome Horacio, where he momentarily confuses his friend's wife with La Maga. However, Oliveira's mind clears when he goes to live with Gekrepten, with whom he occupies a hotel room across the street from Traveler and Talita's apartment.
Oliveira works as a cloth salesman, but he doesn't do very well. Traveler, who works in a circus with Talita, finds her a job there. However, he has doubts about him. Oliveira's presence disturbs him, but he can't figure out why. At first, he thinks that maybe it's his friend's flirtations with Talita, but he feels there's something deeper. Furthermore, he does not doubt the fidelity of his wife. Unable to unravel the mystery and to ask Horatio to leave them alone, Traveler finds himself increasingly anxious and helpless, even unable to sleep.
For Horacio, meanwhile, Talita reminds him more and more of La Maga. Therefore, he sees himself in Traveler. So he tries to interfere in the intimate life of the couple, but he can't. His frustration grows to the point that he begins to show signs of an impending mental breakdown. One hot afternoon Oliveira spends hours trying to straighten some nails, even though he still doesn't know what he's going to use them for. Very soon this action triggers an episode of madness when Horacio convinces Traveler and Talita to help him build a bridge between the windows of the buildings so that she can cross it. Once finished, Horacio asks Talita to cross the bridge and bring him nails and yerba mate. Traveler is willing to agree to the eccentricities of his friend, but Talita is scared and asks not to participate. She thinks it's some kind of test; she finally throws the grass and nails at her, but she doesn't cross the bridge.
Shortly after, the owner of the circus sells it to a businessman, one Suárez Melián, and acquires a psychiatric hospital. Traveler, Talita and Horacio agree to work in this new place despite how ironic the situation is (or maybe because of it). Horacio jokes that, anyway, the hospital patients couldn't be crazier than the three of them.
Talita becomes the pharmacist on the floor, while Horacio and Traveler work as assistants or night guards. The place is creepy and dark, especially in the long hours before dawn. Often the three of them take refuge in the warm atmosphere of the pharmacy, where they drink and talk. Remorino, a clinic employee, shows Traveler and Oliveira a morgue in the basement, where the bodies of deceased patients are stored and where beer can be kept cold.
One night Horacio is smoking in his room on the second level, when he sees Talita crossing the moonlit garden on the lower floor, possibly going to her room to sleep. He then believes he sees La Maga in the same place playing hopscotch. But when she sees him, he realizes that it is Talita who is playing. A kind of guilt begins to take hold of Oliveira, who soon comes to conceive the idea that someone wants to kill him while he is on duty. Probably Traveler.
That same night, while Oliveira is on the second floor considering the symbolic implications of the elevator in that hospital, Talita approaches him and the two begin to talk about different topics, including La Maga, when the elevator starts and comes up from the basement with a patient inside. After sending the man back to his room, Horacio and Talita decide to go down to see if everything is in order in the morgue.
In the basement, next to the corpses, Horacio begins to talk to Talita as if she were the Magician. In a moment of desperation, he tries to kiss her, but is rebuffed. Back in her room, Talita tells Traveler what happened. Meanwhile, Oliveira returns to his own room and is now convinced that Traveler wants to kill him. In the dark he begins to build a kind of barricade made up of basins full of water on the ground, as well as threads tied to heavy objects, in turn tied to the doorknob.
Oliveira sits in the dark on the other side of the room, near the window, and waits for Traveler. The hours pass slowly. Traveler finally arrives and tries to get inside. The chaos and noise prompt Dr. Ovejero and the patients to go out into the garden, from where they see Horacio at the window, perhaps with the intention of jumping. Traveler tries to convince Horacio not to do it, but he ends up getting along with his friend and interceding with the rest of the staff to leave him alone, locked in his room.
At the end of the chapter, Horacio waves to his two friends who are watching him from the patio, grateful that they made the others go, and the narration implies that he throws himself out of the window.
Third part: «From other places»
Composed of the "essential chapters", this part is made up of additional materials, such as newspaper clippings, quotes from books and others, which help to understand different passages of the novel and where the personality and inner motivations of the novel are described. Oliveira in a deeper way. It is not necessary to understand the plot, but it is necessary to solve certain enigmas that arise throughout the first two parts.
For example: reading this section the reader gets to know that the story continues after Horacio jumps out of the window, being admitted to the hospital, sedated by Ovejero and cared for by his loved ones. It would also seem that the boss fires the three friends from the clinic as a result of the whole episode.
In this part it is also known how La Maga and Emmanuele (the beggar) met, and much more is known about the mysterious Morelli. Through his writings, some of the reasons behind Cortázar's construction of the novel are appreciated (such as the desire to write a work in which the reader is an accomplice who conspires with the writer).
It is revealed in turn that Morelli was the writer run over in the first part of the novel; Horacio and Etienne visit him in the hospital, and he asks them to go to his apartment and organize his notes. The Snake Club meets that night at Morelli's house, the writer about whom they have discussed so much; It is the last time, after the death of La Maga's son and the wake, that they are distanced from Horacio, who was one of the most important characters in history.
Title explanation
Julio Cortázar originally intended to title the novel Mandala, a name that alludes to the circular symbols of Hinduism and Buddhism that represent the internal (microcosm) and external (macrocosm) universes and are used in meditation to achieve unity with being - precisely the search for Horacio Oliveira, protagonist of the novel. However, it sounded pretentious to the author to title it that way, so he finally decided to call it Hopscotch , in reference to the children's game. The objective of this game is to reach the sky, that is to say the ninth square, by means of jumping on one foot. In this way, the hopscotch sky becomes the symbol of Oliveira's self-imposed chimera of always looking for something that he does not know what it is.
The reader as protagonist
In its substance and in its form, Hopscotch vindicates the importance of the reader and, to a certain extent, pushes him to an activity and a leading role previously denied by the classic novel, in which what is important was to drive this through the linearity of the story to the end. In Rayuela, on the other hand, the plot is conceived as no more than a stage in which the characters unfold in a free and profound vitality that the author grants them and of which he himself says not to be responsible.
Hopscotch raises the denial of everyday life and the opening to new realities where the most absurd situations are taken to their most tragic consequences with total lightness, even with a sense of humor. These paths that are proposed constitute a new way of getting to hopscotch heaven.
Many critics refer to this work as an "anti-novel" because of its innovative nature, since it breaks with all the pre-established canons at the time of its first publication. However, Cortázar did not fully agree with this classification, since said term seemed to him a "slightly poisonous attempt to destroy the novel as a genre", according to what he stated in an interview. For this reason, he preferred to call it a "counter-novela" because with Rayuela he sought to "see the contact between the novel and the reader in a different way": to encourage the reader to change his passive attitude towards the novel, make him an active and critical part of it and thus provoke "a kind of controversy between an author and a reader".
Relevant characters
- Horacio Oliveira. He's the protagonist of the story. Of Argentine origin, he is between 40 and 45 years old. It is characterized by knowing of countless subjects. He went to Paris to study, but he doesn't. He works to help organize correspondence. He has a brother, lawyer, who lives in Rosario (Argentina). It is in a constant search, but according to Ossip Gregorovius, another character of the novel: "One has the feeling that you already carry in your pocket what you are looking for."
- La Maga (Lucia). She's the protagonist of history. Born in Uruguay, he traveled to Paris with his son Rocamadour. It is characterized by being distracted and by not having the knowledge of his colleagues and friends, a situation that sometimes makes her feel less (“It is so violet to be ignorant”). However, their naiveness and tenderness more than once are envied by the members of the Serpent Club. What envy Oliveira de la Maga is her way of seeing things: she “nothing in the river, while he looks at it from afar”. "I don't know how to express myself," said the Wizard drying the spoon with a clean rag. Maybe others could explain it better, but I've always been the same: it's much easier to talk about sad things than happy things.
- Rocamadour. He's a baby, son of the Wizard. His real name is the same of his father, Francisco. It's taken care of by a nanny called Madame Irene, but finally the Maga takes him to live with her. In the course of history the baby gets sick and dies in the apartment that shared the Maga and Horacio, the same night Guy Monod tries to kill himself. The death of the child is a fundamental fact in the novel.
- Etienne. He is a painter and one of the best friends of Oliveira in his stay in Paris. Character inspired by a friend Cortázar met in 1955 along with Edith Aron (the Maga): Franco-Argentine artist Sergio de Castro.
- Ronald. He's an American pianist. jazz and bebop who lives in Paris. He's Babs' boyfriend.
- Babs. She's an American ceramist, Ronald's girlfriend and lives in Paris.
- Guy Monod. He's a friend of Etienne. It appears in the presentation of all the members of the club and at the end of the time of Oliveira in Paris tries to commit suicide; but it has no significance in the plot of the novel.
- Morelli. He is a consummate novelist (identified by some as Julio Cortázar's alter ego), to whom the members of the club study and admire. It is represented in the first chapters (On the side of there) as an old man who is run over and who Oliveira helps. In the dispensable chapters (third part), the identity of the character is clarified when Oliveira and Etienne are going to visit him to the hospital. Cortázar puts in Morelli’s words his idea of making literature, so he talks about making a clean literature, without many “decorated”.
- Ossip Gregorovius. He's in love with the Wizard, which is why he's not like Oliveira. He's an intellectual, just like all the members of the Serpent Club. His past history is not well known, but he himself is awarded three different mothers. It's from Romania.
- Perico Romero. Spanish, lover of literature.
- Pola. Young French, lover of Oliveira. For Oliveira to leave her, the Maga does a voodoo day with a wrist that represents her and throws a curse to get sick of breast cancer. Pola effectively acquires this ailment, which gives the Maga a great feeling of guilt.
- Wong. From Chinese origin, it is initially described in chapter 14. Charge a briefcase full of books, and on your wallet, photos related to a mythical execution in Beijing, 1905.
- Traveler. He's a youth friend of Horacio Oliveira. He lives in Argentina. He's Talita's husband. Oliveira sees himself in him.
- Talita. Traveler's husband. Oliveira sees the Maga in it.
- Gekrepten. Novia de Horacio Oliveira. Of Argentine origin, it is excessively passive: the complete opposite of the Maga. During the second part Oliveira returns to Argentina and stays momentarily with her.
Artists, musicians and authors mentioned
Julio Cortázar embodied his intellectual and cultural interests in all his work, and Rayuela was no exception. Throughout the novel, he mentions the following universal culture characters:
- San Agustín
- André Bretón
- Antoine Blondín
- Antonin Artaud (1896-1948), playwright, essayist and French novelist
- Arthur Rimbaud
- Arthur Rubinstein (1887-1982), Polish pianist of classical music
- Auguste Comte (1798-1857), French philosopher
- Baruch Spinoza (1632-1677), Dutch philosopher
- Benito Pérez Galdós (1843-1920), Spanish novelist
- Benny Carter (1907-2003), clarinetist, saxophoneist, trumpeter and American jazz composer
- Bessie Smith
- Blaise Pascal (1623-1662), a French philosopher, mentioned in his famous "I am a thinking reed".
- Carlos Gardel
- César Bruto
- Champion Jack Dupree (1910-1992), American blues pianist and singer
- Charles Baudelaire
- Charles Chaplin
- Le Corbusier
- Charlie Parker
- Christiane Rochefort
- Constantin Brancusi
- Daniel Defoe (1660-1731), British writer, mentioned through his character, Robinson Crusoe.
- David de la Signoria, by Michelangelo
- Dinu Lipatti (1917-1950), pianist and Romanian composer of classical music
- Duke Ellington (1899-1974), American jazz composer and pianist
- Dylan
- Earl Hines (1903-1983, American jazz pianist)
- Edgar Allan Poe
- Edmund Husserl (1859-1938), Czech philosopher and mathematician
- Emmanuel Kant (1724-1804), German Prussian philosopher
- Erik Satie
- Fiódor Dostoievski (1821-1881), Russian novelist
- Francis Bacon (1561-1626), English philosopher and writer
- François Mauriac
- Frank Lloyd Wright
- Franz Liszt
- Friedrich Nietzsche (1844-1900), German philosopher and musician
- Fritz Lang (1890-1976), Austrian filmmaker
- G. B. Pabst (1885-1967), Austrian filmmaker
- Gérard David (1460-1523), flamenco painter
- Greta Garbo (1905-1990), Swedish actress
- Harold Lloyd (1893-1971), American actor
- Henry Moore (1898-1986), English sculptor
- Potato (540-480 BC), Greek philosopher
- Homer
- Hugo Wolf
- Igor Stravinsky
- Jacques de Voragine (1228-1278), Italian hagiographer
- James Ensor (1860-1949), Belgian painter
- Jan van Eyck (1390-1441), flamenco painter
- Jean de Joinville (1224-1317), French writer, chronicler of the Crusades
- Jean Fautrier
- Jean Genet
- Jean Tardieu (1903-1995), French poet and playwright; chapter 152 Rayuela consists of the translation of a fragment of yours in prose.
- Jean-Paul Sartre
- Jelly Roll Morton (1885-1941), American jazz pianist
- Joan Miró
- Fichte (1762-1814), German philosopher
- John Donne (1572-1631), English metaphysical poet
- John Dos Passos (1896-1970), American novelist and journalist
- Johnny Dodds (1892-1940), American clarinetist and saxophoneist jazz
- José Ortega y Gasset (1883-1955), Spanish philosopher
- Joseph Conrad (1857-1924), Polish-British writer
- Juan Filloy
- Juan José Manauta
- Julián Marías (1914-2005), a Spanish Catholic essayist, mentioned in a mockery.
- Isak Dinesen (1885-1962), Danish writer
- Lana Turner (1921-1995), American actress, subject to a joke (“lanatúrner”).
- Lawrence Durrell (1912-1990), British writer
- Leonor de Aquitaine (1122-1204), French queen
- Leon Chestov (1866-1938), Russian existentialist philosopher
- Lewis Carroll (1832-1898), British writer and mathematician
- The Marx brothers; American comic actors, alluded without naming them through a couple of titles of their films.
- Louis Armstrong
- Louis Ferdinand Celine (1894-1961), French writer
- Ludwig Klages (1872-1956), German philosopher and psychologist
- Ludwig Wittgenstein (1889-1951), philosopher, mathematician, linguist and Austrian logic
- Luis Buñuel (1900-1983), expatriate Spanish filmmaker in Mexico
- Luis Cernuda (1902-1963), Spanish poet and literary critic
- Vieira da Silva (1908-1992), Portuguese painter
- Marilyn Monroe (1926-1962), American actress
- Martin Heidegger (1889-1976), German philosopher, mentioned as opposed to Madrás.
- Max Ernst (1891-1976), French nationalized German artist
- Max Scheler (1874-1928), German philosopher
- Meister Eckhart (1260-1328), German dominic and mysticism
- Michèle Morgán (1920-2016), French actress
- Mijanou Bardot (1938), French actress, sister of Brigitte Bardot
- Mónica Vitti (1931-), Italian actress
- Baron Montesquieu (1689-1755), French philosopher
- Nathalie Sarraute
- Nicolas de Staël
- Norman McLaren (1914-1987), expatriate British filmmaker and animator in Canada
- Eighth Peace
- Oscar Peterson (1925-2007), pianist and African Canadian jazz composer
- Pablo Picasso
- Paul Klee
- Paul Valerý (1871-1945), writer, poet, essayist and French philosopher
- Piero della Francesca (1416-1492), Italian painter
- Pierre Bonnard (1867-1947), painter, illustrator and lithograph
- Pierre Emmanuel (1916-1984), a French poet, mentioned in the phrase "live in Emmanuel".
- Piet Mondrian
- Rembrandt
- René Char (1907-1988), French poet
- René Descartes (1596-1650), a French philosopher, mentioned as "Cartesius, old fucker".
- Robert Musil
- Roberto Arlt
- Roger Casement
- Rogier van der Weyden (1399-1464), flamenco painter
- Rubén Darío (1867-1916), a Nicaraguan poet and diplomat
- San Juan de la Cruz
- Sebastián Piana (1903-1994), pianist and Argentine composer of tango
- Serge Poliakoff
- Serguéi Éisenstein (1898-1948), Soviet filmmaker
- Sören Kierkegaard (1813-1855), Danish philosopher
- T. S. Eliot (1888-1965), British-American poet
- Thelonious Monk
- Thomas Aquinas (1225-1274), Italian philosopher canonized by the Catholic Church
- Toulouse Lautrec
- Vladimir Nabokov
- Walter Pater (1839-1894), essayist, literary critic and British historian
- Wilhelm Dilthey (1833-1911) German philosopher and historian
- William Faulkner
- Witold Gombrowicz
- Wolfgang Goethe
Translations
The complex text presents great challenges to translators. However, excellent versions were achieved in other languages, such as the English translation, made by Gregory Rabassa, which was congratulated by Cortázar.