Hopscotch (Cortázar novel)

Hopscotch (originally *Rayuela*) is a novel by Argentine writer Julio Cortázar. It was written in Paris, first published in Spanish in 1963, and then in English in 1966. Gregory Rabassa, the translator of the first U.S. edition, shared the inaugural National Book Award in the translation category for his work.

The book is widely considered one of the greatest, most innovative, and most influential Latin American novels. It is a stream-of-consciousness work that can be read in two or three different chapter sequences; the third option allows the reader to take the chapters in any order. Cortázar himself called it a counter-novel. It explores multiple endings and a never-ending search through unanswerable questions.

An author’s note lays out two main reading methods: read chapters 1 through 56 in order, skipping all later “expendable chapters,” or follow a “Table of Instructions” that hops through all 155 chapters. In the second method, chapter 55 is omitted, and the book ends in a recursive loop, potentially sending the reader back and forth between chapters 58 and 131 forever. Cortázar also leaves the reader free to choose their own unique path. The narrative uses several techniques that often overlap, including first person, third person, and stream-of-consciousness, and it does not always follow standard spelling and grammar.

The first 36 chapters, grouped under “From the Other Side,” cover Horacio Oliveira’s life in Paris during the 1950s. Other characters include La Maga and a group of bohemian intellectuals called the Serpent Club. Chapters 37 to 56, under “From This Side,” take place in Argentina. The third section, “From Diverse Sides,” is not necessary for understanding the plot but contains solutions to puzzles from the first two parts. For instance, the reader learns more about the mysterious Morelli and how La Maga and Emmanuele first met. Through Morelli’s writings, Cortázar hints at his motives for the novel’s structure, such as a desire to make the reader a true co-conspirator.

The novel has been called both a great existentialist work, comparable to those of Sartre and Camus, and a highly innovative postmodern text that offered deconstructionist critics a story already deconstructed. It has been described as the Latin American equivalent of James Joyce’s *Ulysses*, and its groundbreaking features influenced writers like Mario Vargas Llosa, Carlos Fuentes, and Manuel Puig. Some consider it the greatest Latin American novel of the 20th century. The book inspired Yuval Sharon’s 2015 opera *Hopscotch*, created by six composers and six librettists and performed on multiple stages in Los Angeles. Gotan Project’s 2010 album *Tango 3.0* includes a song titled “Rayuela” in honor of the author.