The best of both worlds

When Julio Cortazar published Hopscotch June 28, 1963 he hoped that the novel, as he had told a friend by letter, would be “An atomic bomb on the stage of Latin American literature.” The book did indeed generate a huge shock (it went “boom”) but, above all, it consolidated an internal change that Cortázar himself had anticipated with the writing, years before, of a long story called “El perseguidor”. It was more than a change of skin. There is, as he himself confessed, a Cortázar before “El perseguidor” and another after. And today, sixty years later, readers continue to debate which of them is the one that survives the best.

The story would be more or less like this: Cortázar publishes his first book of short stories, Bestiary, in 1951, when he already has one foot on the ship that will take him to Paris, the city where he will live ever since. Despite the fact that the volume includes today famous texts such as “Casa taken”, “Letter to a young lady in Paris” and “Circe”, it sells 65 copies and hardly attracts attention. So much so that Final del juego, that second book of “Torito”, “Axolotl” and “La noche face up”, appeared in 1956 in Mexico and was published in Buenos Aires only in 1964, after the outbreak of Hopscotch. This first stage, which we could define as that of Cortázar, the author of fantastic stories, closes with the secret weapons, from 1959, which contains “El perseguidor” and edited by Francisco “Paco” Porrúa in the Sudamericana publishing house. the tales of All fires the firefrom 1966, already have another aspect, which will be noticed in later books.

In the middle, of course, is Hopscotchthat total novel that will transform both his literature (62/Model to arm, Last round y Manuel’s book are later) and his physical appearance: the delicate Cortázar with short hair, shaved cheeks, suit and tie will give way to the giant with long hair, a reddish beard, flared pants and olive-green shirts. The ascetic translator of Poe and Unesco will abdicate, like that character in Stevenson’s novel, in favor of his double, the committed writer who discovers the liberating power of politics and sex and gets involved in the causes of the Third World. World.

We are, neither more nor less, than in the convulsed decade of the 60s. And Cortázar, a writer who has passed the age of 50, is the one who, without looking for it, offers many young people in Latin America a novel that will become a kind of model to experience love, art, friendship, the bohemian life: “To my great surprise I thought, when I finished Hopscotch, who had written a book by a man my age for readers my age. The great wonder was that when this book was published in Argentina and became known throughout Latin America, it found its readers among young people, whom I had never thought of when writing. I find it a wonderful reward and it continues to be the justification for the book for me. Cortázar is no longer that mere writer of fantastic literature. He has thrown off the shadow of Borges, he occupies the center of the scene, he has a wide reading public. The transmutation has been consummated.

But let’s go back to the beginning. If since the appearance of Hopscotch there is a break in the work of Cortázar, what is the part of his literature that has aged best? Many devotees of his stories claim not to have been able to return to Hopscotch without blushing And fans of the novel believe that some stories, especially those that depend on the effect of the final surprise, lose effect with each reading. And if there is no single answer? Can we perhaps avoid the crossroads that Cortázar himself designed for us, his readers? For my part, I’ll take the best of both worlds: Hopscotch it is a beautiful novel to read as a young person; and some of the early accounts of him, four or five, are among the best written in the twentieth century.