The Game of the World
A novel without an instruction manual. Or worse, with two contradictory manuals. It can be read from cover to cover or in fragments, as the author suggests. The result? A literary experience that crushes the reader's passivity and forces them to enter the game (of the world). Horacio Oliveira and La Maga cross paths in love and loss which, like this novel, are neither linear nor civilized. Absurd.
Reading O Jogo do Mundo is like wading through a swamp: it is not pleasant.
I think to myself that, despite everything, it is comforting to think that the straight line, the shortest path, the most obvious choice, what makes the most sense, are still (and for now) a viable option.
Júlio Cortázar (1914–1984), born in Brussels and raised in Argentina. One of the greatest names in Latin American literature. An incendiary figure, in literature as well as in Philosophy or Politics. He lived in Paris for much of his life. He built an essential body of work, ranging from short stories to novels.
