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Hopscotch

by Julio Cortazar
Hopscotch

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ISBN13: 9780394752846
ISBN10: 0394752848



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Staff Pick

Pablo Neruda has famously said, "People who do not read Cortázar are doomed. Not to read him is a serious invisible disease." Cortázar is an elixir; Hopscotch is precise and brilliant and disturbing as hell. Reading Hopscotch is a visceral, architectural experience. Although at times Cortázar delves into irony, the questions of truth and of relevance in fiction — of how to look at the absurdity of our own lives and find both despair and enlightenment — are absolutely sincere. This book is frustrating and necessary and true. Recommended By Jill O., Powells.com

Synopses & Reviews

Publisher Comments

Horacio Oliveira is an Argentinian writer who lives in Paris with his mistress, La Maga, surrounded by a loose-knit circle of bohemian friends who call themselves "the Club." A child's death and La Maga's disappearance put an end to his life of empty pleasures and intellectual acrobatics, and prompt Oliveira to return to Buenos Aires, where he works by turns as a salesman, a keeper of a circus cat which can truly count, and an attendant in an insane asylum. Hopscotch is the dazzling, free-wheeling account of Oliveira's astonishing adventures.

Review

"A work of the most exhilarating talent and interest." Elizabeth Hardwick

Review

"Cortazar's masterpiece...the first great novel of Spanish America." Times Literary Supplement

Review

"The most brilliant novel in years....And if it does not render every other novel written about a search for meaning obsolete, Hopscotch certainly emphasizes their inadequacy....The most magnificent novel I have ever read, and one to which I return again and again." C. D. B. Bryan, The New Republic

About the Author

Julio Cortazar was born in Brussels to Argentinian parents in 1914, was raised in Argentina, and in 1952 moved to Paris, where he continued to live for the rest of his life. He was a poet, translator, an amateur jazz musician as well as the author of several novels and volumes of short stories. Ten of his books have been published in English: The Winners, Hopscotch (which won the National Book Award), Blow-Up and Other Stories, Cronopios and Famas, 62: A Model Kit, A Change of Light, We Love Glenda So Much, and A Certain Lucas. Considered one of the great modern Latin American authors, he died in Paris in February 1984.

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Average customer rating 3 (2 comments)

`
Cheshires Meow , August 27, 2012
An experimental novel, which, truthfully, is as boring as reading a book on the history of philosophy. For the average reader, the book's value is in the postmodern discussions, the insider view of intellectual Paris in the 1950's, and deciphering it chapter by chapter. I found Wikipedia and Google to be my best friends in the reading of the novel because I needed to look up the literally hundreds of famous intellectuals, artists and philosophers that the author name-drops. I think every reader who finishes it can proudly give themselves several merit badges for an accomplishment many will applaud, and others will think you as mad as a postmodern philosopher It's a very famous book few actually read except as a challenge. It is worth it. It's most famous attribute is that it is two novels - in one version, you can read it from chapter 1 to chapter 56 in order. The rest of the book, with chapters numbered 57 to 155 for convenience, are actually 'extra', not necessary, chapters, paraphrasing the author, which the author recommends reading in a certain, numerical order that is not consecutive along with the first 56 chapters again. In doing so, some depth is added and the ending is changed to a small degree. But he also says the reader can also choose to read the chapters in any order you want. The result is a lot of flipping back and forth, 'hopscotching'. The chapters are printed at the top of the pages, so it's not as difficult as it sounds to hopscotch. What I think it's about: the 'hero' (not really) Oliveira wants a reality that makes abstract sense, but instead keeps coming up against a reality that is stitched together in moments of time that has no sense or reason except what the mind mediates from the information, and he keeps rotating around the circumference of his mental circle (and milieu, and circus, and insane asylum) trying to grasp it, while the women (muses) are there already, in the center, where Oliveira thinks he wants to reach, on his good days. Despite his efforts, he feels he cannot bridge the gap between reality and himself, for 564 pages. In confronting death, twice, the postmodern philosophies do not sustain him, but he is unable to 'be' in the world to save his life, so to speak. In the end, it's a comical book, full of sly jokes and intellectual nonsense (in my opinion). I think from reading between the lines that the author may once have believed postmodern thought of value, but later, not so much. While I think it's a joke novel, it is not written in the manner of a comedy, but rather as a deadly serious literary fiction. You can decide for yourself what it's about, naturally.

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`
Chazley , July 08, 2007
As do so many other works of social and literary importance, the novel contains so much philosophizing and the characters perform so much needless, endless self-analysis that the novel becomes unreadable for all but the most dedicated. The few redeeming qualities include the novel's wittiness, two or three unexpected twists, and the delight of the persistent hope that each character will meet his or her demise by the novel's end.

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Product Details

ISBN:
9780394752846
Binding:
Trade Paperback
Publication date:
02/12/1987
Publisher:
PENGUIN RANDOM HOUSE
Series info:
Pantheon Modern Writers
Pages:
576
Height:
1.20IN
Width:
5.23IN
Thickness:
1.00
Series:
Pantheon Modern Writers
Number of Units:
1
Copyright Year:
1987
Series Volume:
0000
UPC Code:
2800394752848
Author:
Julio Cortazar
Author:
Gregory Rabassa
Author:
Gregory Rabassa
Author:
Julio Cortazar
Subject:
Literature-A to Z
Subject:
Fiction

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$18.00
New Trade Paperback
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