Hopscotch painting from Temple Parker's Fine Art Gallery, © Temple Lee Parker. Image from cover of Hopscotch.
ORIGINAL TITLE: Rayuela
TRANSLATED BY: Gregory Rabassa, © 1966
PUBLISHED: New York, Avon Books; New York, Pantheon; New York : New
American Library
ISBN: 0380003724, 0394752848
LCCN: 66010409, 86025347
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Probably Cortázar's most famous book, Hopscotch has been called "fiendishly esoteric" by Salman Rushdie. The book is separated into 155 chapters with the last 99 collated under a section called "expendable chapters".
Hopscotch ('Rayuela' rolls gently off the tounge, while 'Hopscotch' realizes the jerky landing on another numbered square) "consists of many books, but two books above all". The book can be read straight through or by jumping between chapters in either the order Cortázar has set, or any other the reader wishes to create. Due to its meandering nature, Hopscotch has been called a Proto-hypertext novel. It was probably Hopscotch that Cortázar had in mind when he said "If I had the technical means to print my own books, I think I would keep on producing collage-books".