Cortázar’s Loop

Rayuela is the last book I needed to read in order to complete a column of “read” books I once stacked beneath my bedroom window. Part of a friendly competition with a neighbor down in apartment 312. His bedroom overlooked Union Street, too. The goal was construct a column of books tall enough to reach the windowsill and provide a stuffed animal with a view of the street six stories below, the corner and the shops beyond, and tune in to the busy, humming lives of all the small sidewalk ant people. But most important, the improved vantage point would allow the stuffed animal’s line of sight to penetrate the soft glow of the insides of Krissy Zarloff’s bedroom window—a brighter, rosier square within the massive and drab bank of windows across the street.

I don’t know whose idea it was, and it doesn’t matter, I suppose. We had motivation to read, and Rayuela would be the one story, more than Fahrenheit 451 or 1984, more than Ringworld or Dune, or even more than Lord of the Rings, that would complete my goal.

Rayuela is a declarative narrative whose title translates into English as Hopscotch. And true to its name, the book’s Table of Instructions recommends that you skip around a lot. One could read the novel end-to-end, in direct and linear fashion, but what fun would that be? Way more fun to shoot rocks and see where you end up with your next toss, to pick up the next random tile of your life’s mosaic.

Also, it’s probably not right to label Rayuela a “declarative narrative.” I just like how the words “declarative” and “narrative” look, feel, and sound side by side. Which is sort of the point of Rayuela. Language is a game. Yet incredibly important. At a critical moment in the story, Talita comments how lovely the word fastigio sounds but laments its meaning—pinnacle—as she teeters perilously upon a wooden plank spanning an alley between the windows of two men competing for her love.

Rayuela brought a clarity in the abstract from the madness of the streets below. I came to understand this one day when I spotted Krissy down on the sidewalk. The way she cupped an elbow in the palm of her hand, and calmly adjusted her glasses with the other within the swirl of pedestrian chaos. The curve of her back as she listened to a friend, nodding along. The realization of who Krissy had become took my breath away. The characters at my side in Rayuela moved from Paris to Buenos Aires and back. I glanced back down at Krissy, about to make her move, too.

Depending how you read it, Rayuela ends by design in a recursive loop. You can also choose your own path. I looked down at the street the day I hit Cortázar’s loop. Krissy smiled up at me and waved, ring finger glinting as a handsome man eased her into the back of a taxi. I smiled back.