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april_does_feral_sometimes 's review for:
Hopscotch
by Julio Cortázar
'Hopscotch' is 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 think every reader who finishes the book can proudly give themselves several merit badges for an accomplishment many will applaud, and others will think you as mad as a postmodern philosopher.
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.
'Hopscotch' is 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. He keeps rotating around the circumference of his mental circle (and milieu, and a circus, and an insane asylum) trying to grasp Reality, 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, he learns the postmodern philosophies do not sustain him, but he is unable to 'be' in the world to save his life, so to speak.
Although I hopscotched, flipping dozens of pages forward, then back, per the author's recommendations, I noticed my mind insisted on stitching together the chapters into a sequential story or reality. I did not stop making a Timeline of the action. I mediated a coherency from the physical act of hopscotching around the book, per the author's recommended chapter reading. Whatever postmodern thought and experimentation explored on the nature of time in Art, it certainly cannot actually affect the natural workings of the brain to bring order to disorder. I also think that the book cannot be read in any old order, as the author claims. Some chapters must follow certain chapters in order to have any resemblance to a story of cause and effect. However, if the reader is seeking a total postmodern reading of examining chapter elements, a reading of chapters in no order is certainly called for, if I understand what postmodernism is supposed to be about; some kind of intellectual truth discovered by tearing apart objects to their basic elements, ignoring time and spacial qualities, to arrive at a true reality or at least, an understanding of the nature of reality and human perception of it.
Frankly, as I am a knitter, this is all horse manure to me, even if some really great Art has resulted. As a philosophy, it might make for a few insights, but a horrible way for a Universe to operate. Nevertheless , it's totally fun brain candy, like knitting patterns which use mathematical progressions for interesting row-by-row non-patterns (yes, they exist). http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-19208292. http://www.google.com/search?q=mathematical+knitting&hl=en&client=safari&tbo=u&tbm=isch&source=univ&sa=X&ei=uN47UKHWMo6GiQKO04DQBg&ved=0CF4QsAQ&biw=1024&bih=673
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.
Useful to read, when you're ready: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Modernism
And: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Postmodernism
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.
'Hopscotch' is 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. He keeps rotating around the circumference of his mental circle (and milieu, and a circus, and an insane asylum) trying to grasp Reality, 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, he learns the postmodern philosophies do not sustain him, but he is unable to 'be' in the world to save his life, so to speak.
Although I hopscotched, flipping dozens of pages forward, then back, per the author's recommendations, I noticed my mind insisted on stitching together the chapters into a sequential story or reality. I did not stop making a Timeline of the action. I mediated a coherency from the physical act of hopscotching around the book, per the author's recommended chapter reading. Whatever postmodern thought and experimentation explored on the nature of time in Art, it certainly cannot actually affect the natural workings of the brain to bring order to disorder. I also think that the book cannot be read in any old order, as the author claims. Some chapters must follow certain chapters in order to have any resemblance to a story of cause and effect. However, if the reader is seeking a total postmodern reading of examining chapter elements, a reading of chapters in no order is certainly called for, if I understand what postmodernism is supposed to be about; some kind of intellectual truth discovered by tearing apart objects to their basic elements, ignoring time and spacial qualities, to arrive at a true reality or at least, an understanding of the nature of reality and human perception of it.
Frankly, as I am a knitter, this is all horse manure to me, even if some really great Art has resulted. As a philosophy, it might make for a few insights, but a horrible way for a Universe to operate. Nevertheless , it's totally fun brain candy, like knitting patterns which use mathematical progressions for interesting row-by-row non-patterns (yes, they exist). http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-19208292. http://www.google.com/search?q=mathematical+knitting&hl=en&client=safari&tbo=u&tbm=isch&source=univ&sa=X&ei=uN47UKHWMo6GiQKO04DQBg&ved=0CF4QsAQ&biw=1024&bih=673
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.
Useful to read, when you're ready: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Modernism
And: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Postmodernism