Julio Cortázar is one of the most charismatic writers of the XNUMXth century. His image, like that of Roberto Bolaño, is already an icon of XNUMXth century Spanish literature.
His great contribution to world literature is Rayuela, a work difficult to define and that the website Flavorwire has included among the 50 most difficult works for readers.
Under the title 50 books for extreme readers the page takes a tour through fifty works that for different reasons pose a challenge for readers.
It can be the number of characters, the length of the book, the narrative style, the overlap of stories and plots, etc. All readers have one or more books that pose a personal challenge.
I recognize that Rayuela it is among my frustrated readings. Actually I have nothing against the work, but I think it was not the best choice for that especially hot and windy summer of 2008.
Is Rayuela a read for extreme readers? What I got to read I liked, although I have to admit that the parts in which he talks about music, mainly jazz, made me particularly tedious. And the grace is that now I read that part of the charm of the book is that Cortázar shows all his musical wisdom in these pages. Quite a gift for readers, they say.
This reminds me of The pillars of the earth, by Ken Follet, and to those people who have confessed to me that they have read it but that the parts in which the author describes the cathedral and that kind of thing, directly skipped them.
Beyond those passages that I personally found boring and even expendable (excuse me for the fans of the work), Rayuela it's a classic to take it easy. Not only because it can be read in two ways, but because it is a deep and subtle work that offers passages such as the well-known phrase:
We walked without looking for us but knowing that we were to meet.
Or the famous chapter seven, that of the kiss, a narrative exercise that is the object of study and dissection in many creative writing classes.
Is Rayuela a read for extreme readers? I think that if the book is taken at the right time, no reading is difficult.
A book that fascinated me, for a while all subsequent reading seemed simple and boring. I compared it to going to the park and riding the roller coaster first, all the other games afterwards make no sense!
Hi Roxie,
Something similar happened to me when I read some of Cortázar's stories when I was a teenager. "House Taken," for example, strikes me as one of the most puzzling stories I have ever read.
However, as I point out in the post, I have not been able to finish reading "Hopscotch", I suppose because it was not the right time to immerse myself in such a fascinating reading.
I read hopscotch twice, it puzzled me, but when you think about it and reread it, one is fascinated. It is good, it makes you think.