I Was Right When I Was 24. Once
I read Cortazar's 'Hopscotch' at 24 and found it mediocre, standard Modernism-lite. A few years later, I sat in on a girlfriend's Latin American lit class in Paris. The teacher touted 'Hopscotch' over 'One Hundred Years of Solitude.' I called her on it and she grew defensive (I think she'd been Cortazar's lover).
A few weeks ago I picked up 'Hopscotch' again. It was even worse than I remembered. His big technique is to add all the dross of his research - the stuff a writer normally cuts out - and stick it to the end of the book, then have the reader jump back and forth from the story to the dross, following a note at the bottom of every chapter (The 'Hopscotch'). The narrative is so fragmentary and lazy anyway, that it's barely a novel at all, more a collection of journal entries. Pretentious twaddle.
The sex scenes are also among the ridiculous in literature.
I'd just like to savor that rare moment of having been right, all those years ago.
A few weeks ago I picked up 'Hopscotch' again. It was even worse than I remembered. His big technique is to add all the dross of his research - the stuff a writer normally cuts out - and stick it to the end of the book, then have the reader jump back and forth from the story to the dross, following a note at the bottom of every chapter (The 'Hopscotch'). The narrative is so fragmentary and lazy anyway, that it's barely a novel at all, more a collection of journal entries. Pretentious twaddle.
The sex scenes are also among the ridiculous in literature.
I'd just like to savor that rare moment of having been right, all those years ago.