This is a long post, so before I bore you with my endless ramblings, I have some fun things to share. Firstly, for all my fellow Potterheads out there who still mourn the end of the Harry Potter series, I have some consoling news: J.K Rowling is coming out with a new book! Not part of the Harry Potter series, quite far from it, actually, this new book will reach out to adults. Titled The Casual Vacancy, the book will be released on September 27 (to my friends: my birthday is September 22 and I wouldn't mind a slightly belated gift! ) and deals with a vacant spot on the parish counsel of a small English town. I am a little late to this news, considering she revealed this in February, but better late than never. Visit Rowling's website for a more complete preview of the novel!
I first want to start with The Meaning of Night. Since last time I wrote, I have only become fonder of this mystery novel. The narrator has since then divulged important information about what is driving him for revenge: he is really the heir to a barony of extreme importance and wealth. This definitely adds believability to the whole "Victorian era" theme; in those times, inheritance was a huge deal. The story is now finally beginning, it seems, as he is giving accounts of the years and events he purposefully withheld from revealing in the earlier parts of the novel. It might not be a novel that I think much about when not reading (though I think it was partly a cause for an intense nightmare I had…), but whenever I pick it up it is hard to put down. The writing is very fluid, leading you from one discovery to the next, keeping you turning the pages. I also love how the copy feels, which always makes reading better. Here are some quotes that I found that were shareable (regardless of the good writing, the book isn't necessarily one which yields many quotes):
"Links, always links; forged slowly in the mould, accumulating, entwining more subtly and stronger still under the Iron Master's hand; growing ever longer and heavier until the chain of Fate - strong enough to hold even Great Leviathan down - becomes unbreakable. A casual act, a fortuitous occurrence, an unlooked-for consequence: they come together in a random dance, and then conjoin into adamantine permanence." p. 125
"We stopped, and I looked out across the dancing waves to where the vault of heaven met the shimmering horizon.
'No, Tom,' I replied. 'I am not happy, and indeed, cannot say where happiness can be found in my life. But I am resolved.' I turned to him and smiled. 'This has done me good, Tom, as you knew very well that it would. You are right. I have immured myself here for too long. I have another life to lead. Oh, I intend to make a mark on the world, Tom, have no fear. From this moment I am reborn.'
It was true. I had felt a surge of energy as I gazed out at the mighty rolling ocean, alive with sunlight- a new consciousness that my life now had purpose and definition. I had made my decision. I would go to London, and from there I would begin my great enterprise.
My restoration." p. 196
There's much more to discuss in regards to Hopscotch. This novel is beyond recommendations. Sometimes sentences are extremely difficult to understand but, really, the novel as a whole is actually quite easy to follow along with. The chapters, so far, have gone in chronological order; a pretty conventional plot, even, has been laid out (or at least one event properly follows another). This is more than I can say for many other "complicated" or "difficult" novels I've read. Overall, it is mostly Oliveira's thought-proccess that can sometimes get confusing, and even then, I don't think the reader is necessarily supposed to follow along with his philosophical musings. Take his girlfriend, La Maga, for example. By far my favorite character, she represents all that is sentimental and intuitive, the complete opposite of her lover, who is stoic and thoughtful to the extreme. There relationship is a strange one, with La Maga being very much in love with Oliveira, but Oliveira getting more caught up in feelings of exasparation with her lack of knowledge and understanding. He is blind to her type of reasoning and truth, which the author gets a few glances of in sections where her perspective is given. The point I am trying to make is I often find myself feeling like La Maga when reading the discussions of Oliveira or the Club (as their group of bohemian friends who love to discuss "timeless things" call themselves): always a little behind, wanting to ask for clarifications, needing to understand ideas with examples.
The book has been mind-blowing since it started, but there is a chapter that, all by it itself, deserves some sort of prize. Important because a climactic event occurs in it, the chapter has value way beyond that. Cortazar is a master, it's as simple as that. The chapter starts with La Maga and a friend from the Club in an apartment belonging to La Maga and Oliveira, who has left that night, maybe even for good. Another presence in the room: Rocamadour, La Maga's terribly sick baby. Eventually Oliveira returns, only to find that the child has died. Here is the catch: he does nothing about it (an echo of musings he had earlier in the novel about action and non-action). As the night progresses, La Maga fails to realize her child has passed away (trying not to disturb what she thinks is his sleep) and more members of the club start filling in, bringing more death with them (another friend has tried to commit suicide and failed). They begin discussing as they usually do about death, the meaning of reality, the use of words, the changing and unreal properties of words that fail to bring light to any situation; the problem of not being able to understand something you are a part of, thus not being able to understand yourself. All this conversation and dialogue is occurring and the whole time the reader and Oliveira are aware of the death lying not six feet from where everyone is. He starts telling the visitors slowly about the situation, who, in turn, do not know how to react and stay passive.
"And these crises that most people think of as terrible, as absurd, I personally think they serve to show us the real absurdity, the absurdity of the ordered and calm word, with a room where different people are drinking coffee at two o'clock in the morning, without any of this having the slightest meaning…"(p. 164) This is Oliveira speaking, and it is irony at its best. He is speaking to his friends who, at this time, are largely unaware of the baby's death. Only the reader, speaker and a character named Ossip know they are facing the most absurd crisis (a dead baby in a cramped room) and the rest sit around, drinking and discussing, unknowingly part of the "absurdity of the ordered and calm world" Oliveira refers to. Eventually the baby's death comes to light, of course, and the "ordered and calm world" transforms to the tumultuous, instantaneous world of a crisis.
I will say one last thing about Hopscotch before I put up some pictures and finally end this post. There is one more chapter that I absolutely loved, that again demonstrates Cortazar's impressive style and mind. I read the first line of the chapter--all good. I read the second line... immediately I am confused. The lines did not really follow one another, and the confusion only got worse when a word cut-off from the end of the sentence (swa-) did not continue on the next line (llow..), but on the line two after it. Thus, I began to realize that the chapter was really two different story-lines. In the first story Oliveira is thinking about La Maga, about novels she used to read; in the second, a very random, bland story was taking place that seemed very out of context. Interestingly enough, words and phrases of the second line would seep into Oliveira's thoughts. It was extremely confusing to the eye; not only would I have to skip every other line, now my eye was jumping around the repeated phrases and words. It turns out the second story line seeping in was a novel of La Maga's that Oliveira had found and was reading as he was thinking. The repeated phrases were him thinking about what he (and I!) was reading. Perhaps this all sounds silly, but, to me, it was brilliant to read.
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