A Kiss — A New Year’s Resolution
Argentine writer Julio Cortázar wrote his novel Rayuela (Hopscotch) in Paris (he had gone there in the beginning of the 50s on a self-imposed exile as he did not like Juan Domingo Perón). It was published in 1963. I read it in the conventional manner (from beginning to end and more on that below) in 1966. My memory has failed me and I have forgotten most of it. But there is no week that passes by where I don’t find and read an excerpt (almost always in Spanish) from the book.
I have resolved then that there is one New Year’s resolution that I plan to initiate as soon as I can get my hands on a copy in Spanish.
Of Rayuela Wikipedia has the following:
Hopscotch (Spanish: Rayuela) is a novel by Argentine writer Julio Cortázar. Written in Paris, it was published in Spanish in 1963 and in English in 1966. For the first U.S. edition, translator Gregory Rabassa split the inaugural National Book Award in the translation category.
Hopscotch is a stream-of-consciousness novel which can be read according to two different sequences of chapters. This novel is often referred to as a counter-novel, as it was by Cortázar himself. It meant an exploration with multiple endings, a never ending search through unanswerable questions.
“Table of Instructions” and structure Written in an episodic, snapshot manner, the novel has 155 chapters, the last 99 designated as “expendable.” Some of these “expendable” chapters fill in gaps that occur in the main storyline, while others add information about the characters or record the aesthetic or literary speculations of a writer named Morelli who makes a brief appearance in the narrative. Some of the “expendable” chapters at first seem like random musings, but upon closer inspection solve questions that arise during the reading of the first two parts of the book.
An author’s note suggests that the book would best be read in one of two possible ways, either progressively from chapters 1 to 56 or by “hopscotching” through the entire set of 155 chapters according to a “Table of Instructions” designated by the author. Cortázar also leaves the reader the option of choosing a unique path through the narrative. Several narrative techniques are employed throughout the book, and frequently overlap, including first person, third person, and a kind of stream-of-consciousness.
The three portraits have varied connections. The two Russians, Mitislav Rostropovich and Yevgeny Yevtushenko both kissed me. The former twice on each cheek, the latter only once. On the other hand the latter and I both drank vodka from a woman’s black pumps.
The third portrait of Gene Simmons from Kiss is here simply because of his name. Why my present interest in a kiss? Below I will place in English and in Spanish a section from Rayuela’s Chapter 7 called The Kiss:
Hopscotch — Chapter 7 -The Kiss
“I touch your mouth. I touch the edge of your mouth with my finger. I am drawing it as if it were something my hand was sketching, as if for the first time your mouth opened a little, and all I have to do is close my eyes to erase it and start all over again, every time I can make the mouth I want appear, the mouth which my hand chooses and sketches on your face, and which by some chance that I do not seek to understand coincides exactly with your mouth which smiles beneath the one my hand is sketching on you.
You look at me, from close up you look at me, closer and closer and then we play cyclops, we look closer and closer at one another and our eyes get larger, they come closer, they merge into one and the two cyclopses look at each other, blending as they breathe, our mouths touch and struggle in gentle warmth, biting each other with their lips, barely holding their tongues on their teeth, playing in corners where a heavy air comes and goes with an old perfume and a silence. Then my hands go to sink into your hair, to cherish slowly the depth of your hair while we kiss as if our mouths were filled with flowers or with fish, with lively movements and dark fragrance. And if we bite each other the pain is sweet, and if we smother each other in a brief and terrible sucking in together of our breaths, that momentary death is beautiful. And there is but one saliva and one flavor of ripe fruit, and I feel you tremble against me like a moon on the water.”
Rayuela — Capítulo 7 — El beso
Toco tu boca, con un dedo toco el borde de tu boca, voy dibujándola como si saliera de mi mano, como si por primera vez tu boca se entreabriera, y me basta cerrar los ojos para deshacerlo todo y recomenzar, hago nacer cada vez la boca que deseo, la boca que mi mano elige y te dibuja en la cara, una boca elegida entre todas, con soberana libertad elegida por mí para dibujarla con mi mano por tu cara, y que por un azar que no busco comprender coincide exactamente con tu boca que sonríe por debajo de la que mi mano te dibuja.
Me miras, de cerca me miras, cada vez más de cerca y entonces jugamos al cíclope, nos miramos cada vez más de cerca y nuestros ojos se agrandan, se acercan entre sí, se superponen y los cíclopes se miran, respirando confundidos, las bocas se encuentran y luchan tibiamente, mordiéndose con los labios, apoyando apenas la lengua en los dientes, jugando en sus recintos donde un aire pesado va y viene con un perfume viejo y un silencio. Entonces mis manos buscan hundirse en tu pelo, acariciar lentamente la profundidad de tu pelo mientras nos besamos como si tuviéramos la boca llena de flores o de peces, de movimientos vivos, de fragancia oscura. Y si nos mordemos el dolor es dulce, y si nos ahogamos en un breve y terrible absorber simultáneo del aliento, esa instantánea muerte es bella. Y hay una sola saliva y un solo sabor a fruta madura, y yo te siento temblar contra mí como una luna en el agua.
