Chekhov’s Mistess

Letter to Greg re: Cortazar

Greg, I mailed your copy of Cortázar’s Autonauts of the Cosmoroute: A Timeless Voyage from Paris to Marseille. Sorry it took so long but it seems like everything is slipping through the cracks these days.

So I’ve started Hopscotch again for the third time. I get farther each time (probably three hundred pages now all total) and am now just as intrigued by my interest and inability to get through it as I am with the book. It seems like the key is rhythm, which owing to competent translation, gives the book a force of presence that I love. It’s present right here in the opening pages:

How was I to have suspected that what seemed to be a pack of lies was all true, a Figari with sunset violets, with livid faces, with hunger and blows in the corners. I came to believe you later on, later on there was reason to, there was Madame Léonie, who looked at my hand which had gone to bed with your breasts, and she practically repeated your exact words: “She is suffering somewhere. She has always suffered. She is very gay, she adores yellow, her bird is the blackbird, her time is night, her bridge is the Pont des Arts.” (A must-colored péniche, Maga, and I wonder why we didn’t sail off on it while there was still time.)

I’ve been reading it in “hopscotch” manner, flipping to the back with each chapter. That might be how I lose focus, I’m not sure, but I enjoy it that way. I think those “expendable” pieces in the back take on more meaning when interjected between chapters rather than read linearly, so I’m reluctant to abandon that way even if it means never actually finishing. Besides, a part of me thinks I might never read them unless they mingle with the rest of the book.

I’m also drawn to it because this new book sits before me – the title alone begs me to read it – but I think I would feel it would be an incomplete reading if I didn’t finish Hopscotch first (that can’t be entirely true because I never finished Gravity’s Rainbow and my mind let me read Against the Day just fine). I read these days in hopscotch manner anyway, catching a few minutes when I can, on a train, waiting in line, the occasional coffee shop or very late at night when the kids are asleep and I just can’t stand working any more. The book deserves more than that, but there’s no waiting.

So I haven’t forgotten that I invited you to discuss Hopscotch here on the blog and I’d still like to do that and maybe even extend that to Autonauts of the Cosmoroute. Let me know what you think.

Best,
Bud

comments

Hi there, I was searching the web for blogs I would like about books when I stumbled upon yours, and Cortazar beckoned - it was like running into an old friend! I’ll keep an eye on your blog. I blog about art, design and also books, you can check it out at
http://mary-laure.blogspot.com/

    – Mary-Laure (01/17  at  05:44 AM)

I stumbled on your blog from somewhere on the atlantic.com. I’m in the middle of reading Autonauts right now. I found it a little tough to get into, even though the writing (and this translation) are beautiful. But once I fell into their world, it’s going much smoother right now. In some ways, it reads like the pace of their journey, one step at a time, but in a way out of the flow of time altogether. It’s a really delightful, refreshing book. I can’t get over their descriptions of Fafner (their VW bus). It’s just so much fun, with some great observations and reflections on the modern condition.

    –  (02/03  at  03:55 PM)

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About this Post

• Posted by: Bud Parr
• Date: January 16, 2008
• Filed Under:
  Wise Men Fish Here: Literature

• Comments:2
• Links to this Post: Technorati

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