Rayuela

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Rayuela (1963), translated into English as Hopscotch, is the most famous novel by the Argentine writer Julio Cortázar.

Hopscotch is a dazzling literary experiment that ranks among the most important novels written in Spanish in the 20th century. It has been highly praised by other Latin American writers including Gabriel García Márquez, Mario Vargas Llosa or José Lezama Lima. The novel, which loosely recounts the story of Argentine expatriate Horacio Oliveira's exile in Paris and his subsequent return to Buenos Aires, has an open-ended structure that invites the reader to choose between a linear reading or a non-linear one that interpolates additional chapters. Cortázar's employment of interior monologue, punning, slang, and his use of different languages is reminiscent of Modernist writers like Joyce, although his main influences were Surrealism and the French New Novel, as well as the "riffing" aesthetic of jazz.

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Structure

Written in an episodic, snapshot manner, the novel has 155 chapters, the last 99 being designated as "expendable." The book can be read either in direct sequence from chapter 1 to 56 or by hopscotching through the entire set of 155 chapters according to a table provided by the author. Some of the "expendable" chapters fill in gaps in the main story, while others add information about the characters or record the aesthetic and literary speculations of a writer named Morelli (possibly a stand-in for the author) who makes a brief appearance in the narrative.

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Plot

The book relates episodes from the life of Horacio Oliveira, an Argentine expatriate. In the first half of the story, he lives in Paris with his Uruguayan girlfriend, "la Maga," and Rocamadour, her baby. After Rocamadour dies and la Maga disappears, Oliveira returns to Buenos Aires, where he meets an old friend known as "Traveler" and Traveler's wife, Talita, whom he eventually comes to believe (or affect to believe) is La Maga.

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