FL 380: Latin American Prose Fiction: An Archaeology
of the "Boom"
Some Essential Notes on Hopscotch
Horacio's quest
- A search for an alternative order that would transgress:
a. Accepted notions of reality
i. values
ii. social organization
iii. knowledge & understanding (reason)
iv. language
v. family
vi. city
vii. nation
b. A search motivated by an intellectually derived certainty
i. 17 A certainty: "The only thing certain
was. . ."
ii. EXPENDABLE CHAPTER 71: On innocence lost
and the search for the millenary kingdom:
379 "Let us say that the world is a figure, it has
to be read. By read let us understand
generated."
iii. 70-71 Jazz and the roads not taken:
"that perhaps there have been other paths. . ."
c. A search impeded by an intellectually articulated self
i. 79 Self as fiction: "When he had
been a student.. ."
A. A linguistic
unity and a premature sclerosis of character
ii. 80 Language: "Man's rape by word,
the masterful vengeance. . ."
iii. 80 An impossibility: "To arrive
at the word without words"
d. Thus a CATCH 22: For the reader: a similar quest
e.EXPENDABLE CHAPTER 79: A pedantic -but important- note by Morelli on
two sorts literature and two types of readers.
i. A choice: but no salvation is available
anyway!
f. An intimation for both:
i.. 101 "Only by living absurdly is
it possible to break out. . ."
ii. 115 "I really have nothing to do
with my own self"
iii. 123 "That was so nobody could tell,
with his face all wet in the rain nobody could tell".
iv. 123 "he said to himself that he
had really not been such an idiot. . ."