FL 380: An Archaeology of the "Boom":
Modern Latin American Prose Fiction
Reading Guide to Cortázar #2
Hopscotch
- 125 "Raised to the level of literary skill..."
a. Happiness v. Good literature
- 127 Horacio's quest: "He thinks that he is doing what he wants..."
- 128 "It was a world of wigs."
- 128 A strange hiccup.
- 131 "I don't think that fish ever want to..."
a. Of fish and (women &) men
b. EXPENDABLE CHAPTER 141: On Morelli and his literary project
- 132 "Paris is one big metaphor."
- 132 Sleeping??? Rocamadour and La Maga
- 133 Horacio's quest: a madman in search of "a key"
a. Intellectual v. animal
b. Looking for "the black light"
c. EXPENDABLE CHAPTER 109: On Morelli and his literary project
i. photography v. cinema
ii. literature & life
- 135 La Maga on the quest: "we almost always get swindled..."
- 135 Love and/or sexuality
- 137 La Maga, Pola, the little green wax doll, and Horacio
- 139 Rocamadour's "soft snores"
- 143 "But La Maga was right..."
- 145 "I suppose the reason that we're uncomfortable..."
a. Irony
- 146 "Rocamadour, who had been sleeping for more than an hour..."
- 147 Horacio's discovery
a. "To be" or not "to be"?
b. "If I call out it will be Berthe Trépat all over again..."
- 149 Gregorovius: "We've got to do something..."
- 149 Guy Monod's attempted suicide.
- 154 "What's most likely is that he's alive..."
- 157 The Bardo: "a book for dead people".
- 158 Il faut tenter de vivre.
- 158-159 East and West: Madras v. Heidelberg
a. The "indescribable mistake at the very beginning of things..."
b. "in order to define and understand something one would have..."
c. The Logos: "a perfect fraud"
- 159-160 Etienne and painting: A "definition of Homo sapiens"?
- 160-161 On the nature of reality: "The only thing that matters
is the business of each understanding it in his own way..."
a. "...you would understand that your cheap egocentrism would not
afford you any valid reality"
- 162 "What means of comparison do you have to think that we've
done well"?
- 163 Absurdity: "No one denies that (. . .) what's so absurd."
- 163 "Reason is only good to mummify reality..."
- 164 "But these crises are like metaphysical outbursts..."
- 165 A proposal: "By renouncing intelligence? (. . .) Using it
in other way."
- 165 An accusation: "what bothers you is legality in all its forms."
- 166 A response: "You refuse to see that action, just like..."
- 167 On art: "Painting is an art form like so many others..."
- 170-171 "Oliveira told himself that..."
- 171 An observation: "Tics don't go well with the cynical air".
a. EXPENDABLE CHAPTER 152: A fragment to relate to the whole.
b. EXPENDABLE CHAPTER 143: An advance on Traveler and Talita, friends of
Horacio living in Buenos Aires.
- 179 On order and mix-ups: "It had been sometime since..."
- 179 Horacio: a specialist in lost causes
- 180 "You are hiding your cards."
a. What cards?
- 180-181 Horacio's quest: "You . . . have an imperial notion in..."
- 181 "I simply do what I can so that things renounce me."
- 182 A premonition: "You're crazy, Horacio..."
- 187 A letter: "they don't understand and they really don't care..."
- 187 On life in Paris: "No one can stand it here..."
- 188 A heroic proposal: "because the world doesn't matter anymore..."
- 191 On reading traditional realist fiction: "I can see how ..."
- 191-192 "I wonder how much time she spent..."
- 195-196 "Listen, this is just for you, don't mention it to anyone..."
- 196-197 Brownian movements: "and all of this is drawing a picture..."
- 199 An accusation: "to affirm in her teary way that..."
a. Inquisitor
- 203 The kibbutz of desire
- 204 "that his vague search had been a failure (. . .) other names."
a. desire
- 207 Pity revisited: "His hand on her shoulder after..."
- 209 An exercise: "Untrain the senses..."
- 211 "But even though he put all his anger..."
- 215 A way to the kibbutz: "you had to turn it around with the
help..."
a. LOOK THROUGH THE PEEPHOLE AND YOU'LL SEE...
- 216 A desideratum: "to walk along with the pace of a man through
a land of men..."