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4.02 AVERAGE
4.02 AVERAGE
Sometimes you're in the mood for a quirky modernist anti-novel about Argentinian bohemians lurking around Paris listening to jazz, drinking yerba mate, philosophizing and arguing over pseudo-intellectual ideologies. If you're not, well, have no fear, at some point they return to Argentina to run an insane asylum, drink more yerba mate, care for a counting cat in a circus, try to kill each other and yes, drink more yerba mate. Oh yeah, written in 1963, it's also hypertextual, with chapters that 'hopscotch' in a variety of ways that allow the reader to choose whether to read linearly or follow a much much more meandering path.
I have no idea how it could ever have been translated, but i believe the translator won a Pulitzer for doing it. One of those books that demands time, but rewards the reader with stellar passages of brilliant writing.
Q: 5
E: 3
I: 4
QxE= 15 + 4 = 19
I have no idea how it could ever have been translated, but i believe the translator won a Pulitzer for doing it. One of those books that demands time, but rewards the reader with stellar passages of brilliant writing.
Q: 5
E: 3
I: 4
QxE= 15 + 4 = 19
challenging
reflective
slow-paced
Este libro es mi ultimate frenemy y mi gran conquista del año.
(tip: esta edición por los 50 años de la primera publicación incluye algunas cartas de Cortázar que aclaran muchísimo sus intenciones e ideas al escribir el libro que me parecen una joyita esencial para la lectura)
(tip: esta edición por los 50 años de la primera publicación incluye algunas cartas de Cortázar que aclaran muchísimo sus intenciones e ideas al escribir el libro que me parecen una joyita esencial para la lectura)
adventurous
challenging
dark
tense
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
slow-paced
the greatest of all time imo so i figured i'd start my goodreads account with this and then go sequentially with books i've read recently. ironic as this book can famously be.... nonsequential. but in my life? consequential!
i have read it in the recommended order ("accomplice-reader") 2x and start to finish ("female-reader") 1x and in an somewhat backwards order i found recommended online 1x. this year i'm gonna finally try to read it in a totally random (like rng) order (robot-reader?!) with 55 tacked on i think
obviously everyone talks about the brilliance of this book's construction and diction but i have to take a moment for the characters. it has been many years but i still think oliveira is one of the greatest and most flawed and most tragic protagonists i've ever come across and i could fix him. la maga you are my white whale and the manicest pixiest dreamiest of girls.
i read this for the first time in high school but then after studying literature and literary criticism at a college level, metafiction and experimentation and postmodernism whatever whatever started to feel less groundbreaking to me. but this book was never just about that! it was about me realizing that books existed wherein every single page could have a sentence that destroyed me.
my favorite chapters: 17, 34, 93, 105 (and a lot of the quotations out of morelli's mania)
i have read it in the recommended order ("accomplice-reader") 2x and start to finish ("female-reader") 1x and in an somewhat backwards order i found recommended online 1x. this year i'm gonna finally try to read it in a totally random (like rng) order (robot-reader?!) with 55 tacked on i think
obviously everyone talks about the brilliance of this book's construction and diction but i have to take a moment for the characters. it has been many years but i still think oliveira is one of the greatest and most flawed and most tragic protagonists i've ever come across and i could fix him. la maga you are my white whale and the manicest pixiest dreamiest of girls.
i read this for the first time in high school but then after studying literature and literary criticism at a college level, metafiction and experimentation and postmodernism whatever whatever started to feel less groundbreaking to me. but this book was never just about that! it was about me realizing that books existed wherein every single page could have a sentence that destroyed me.
my favorite chapters: 17, 34, 93, 105 (and a lot of the quotations out of morelli's mania)
adventurous
challenging
dark
emotional
funny
hopeful
informative
inspiring
lighthearted
mysterious
reflective
relaxing
sad
tense
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
N/A
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
challenging
reflective
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Loveable characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
challenging
Plot or Character Driven:
N/A
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
N/A
Reading this is a wonderful experience. Paging through the book to find the next chapter is satisfying in itself. The storyline starts off with a bit of fragmentation but sort of disintegrates as the novel moves forward. Lots of things about this novel are intriguing. Very intellectual, well worth reading again (and again).