Julio Cortázar and the terrorist novel

I didn't invent the term 'terrorist novel'. I heard it used by J. G. Ballard in this excellent documentary which can be watched here.


While I'd say that Julio Cortazár's best writing can be found in his perfect short stories, he proved himself to be among the most original and ground-breaking novelists emerging from the latin-american literary boom of the '60s and '70s. He wrote 4 novels where he vigorously experimented and kept re-inventing his style. Each of his novels created furores amongst the latin-american literary establishment; each of his novels were terrorist bombs designed to re-define and broaden the horizons and possibilities of this literary medium.

Hopscotch (known in spanish as Rayuela) transgresses the literary conventions of the novel by giving the reader an option. This means that the reader's contribution is not passive as he/she is taking decisions on the direction the book takes in the same way that the writer took decisions when he wrote it. The open-ended structure leads to either a linear or non-linear reading of the book. You can either hopscotch your way through it or you can read it from beginning to end. One of the controversies Cortázar created with this book was how he infuriated feminists by calling the passive reader el lector hembra (the effeminate reader). Ultimately, this book was a terrorist novel in the way it questioned the role of the reader and its attempt to cramp as much as it possibly could into the smallest container.

62: A Model Kit disappointed many readers as it did not turn out to be a second part of Rayuela, but instead proposed an entirely new way of approaching the novel as a genre. This time Cortázar gives absolutely no instructions of how to approach the book: everything is up to the reader. The book this time follows another group of intellectuals in various european cities but, unlike Rayuela, is pessimistic in its tone as there's not the faintest trace of hope on 'the other side of the wall'. Its abrasive experimentalism turned out to be a huge failure in terms of sales, and its critics and its audience were completely perplexed by it.

Cortázar's final novel, El Libro De Manuel (which I've yet to read), caused a giant furore by upsetting both the left-wing and right-wing communities of latin-america. It was Cortázar's first political work, and it's also where he first made explicit his recent relationship with socialism and communism. The right-wingers were upset as it didn't correspond with their ideological views and opinions. Meanwhile the left-wingers found it morally wrong to write a book about the political prisoners of Argentina.

If you've yet to read this excellent writer who is not very well-known in either Europe or the USA, I suggest that you purchase the wonderful short-story collection Blow-up. They are so good, in my opinion, that they are to be put beside Poe and Borges.