Cortázar’s Labyrinths

Opening Julio Cortázar’s collected stories at a random page seemed like a small decision. Instead, it created a reading life without a clear beginning, route, or end.

The choice felt strangely close to the game proposed by Cortázar in *Hopscotch*. Once the editorial order had been abandoned, the stories seemed to form their own labyrinth. Some have been read and reread countless times, while others remain hidden somewhere in the volumes, unreachable by chance.

The journey moves without warning from a house taken over by whispers to a home shared with a tiger, or to the surreal experience of vomiting rabbits without end. Cortázar, described as a “damned genius,” moves freely among mystery, humor, tragedy, and politics.

There is pleasure in this disorder, but also unease. It becomes impossible to remember which volume was finished, which one began halfway through, or where to start next. The only option is to accept the rules of this accidental jungle: some pages will return again and again, while others may remain unread forever. Perhaps that leaves one with the privilege of keeping an unpublished Cortázar story on the bedside table, one that may never be read, or perhaps will be.