A review by readingoverbreathing
Hopscotch by Julio Cortázar

2.0

"I describe and define and desire those rivers, but she swims in them. I look for them, find them, observe them from the bridge, but she swims in them."

It's been a while since I've read a classic, or honestly any book, that I have felt as disconnected from as I did Hopscotch.

I've had such luck with other little-known translated classics that I've read this year, namely Temptation by János Székely, so I was so excited to dive into this. The author's note at the very beginning, explaining the option to literally hopscotch your way between chapters, only intrigued me even more.

As a first-time reader, however, I personally chose to read this straight through. It's possible that was a mistake and may have altered my reading experience, but in my defense, the note does make clear that the hopscotching is merely an option.

And, honestly, I don't think reading this in a different order could have done much to change my mind, as unique and creative as the experience might have been. I didn't care about the characters, could hardly keep track of what was going on even within the shortest chapters, and thought the prose just droned on and on. It's quite possible this was due to the translation I read, which did seem to be struggling to keep up with Cortazár's apparent lyricism, but I'm not so sure.

At any rate, though I made it through, I honestly had very little motivation to do so other than to get this over with. The writing, though sometimes beautiful and profound, otherwise did very little for me beyond confuse, the characters were all deeply self-absorbed and uninteresting, and I just never saw any point to any of it beyond the experimental framework. I'm sure there's all kinds of context I'm missing, all kinds of insights in Latin America and Paris in the 1960s that have gone straight over my head, but I never found this engaging enough to really care.