This morning I was melting down about academia, and theorized about it, and erased the theorizing because first, I felt I had assimilated it well enough not to need a record of it and second, because really my issue was the idea one should like things one does not, and the case in point for the week is the novel Rayuela, which I dislike although I should not.
I have published on this novel and read it with the author, so it is not that I do not understand it at a basic level; neither is it that I do not appreciate its amusing dialogues, or its fragments of poetic prose. It is the male characters I do not like. I do not like listening to them lecture, or one-up each other. There is a woman, Talita, who squirms under the pressure she feels from both Oliveira and Traveler; I feel the same.
This time through, I am also noticing more than before the absolute sordidness of the characters’ actual lives, and I do not want to be there. I realize that these are subjective and personal reactions, but then again I wonder whether there might not be something more to them. I am going to find out whether anyone has written anything that might illuminate the matter of these terribly irritating male characters.
*
Seeing how late it was and not having had a proper breakfast, I bolted out of the house. There was not really time for lunch and I ate two tacos on the street, one of sweetbreads and beans and another of chile relleno and rice. I bought sparkling mineral water from another man and jumped on the green Parabus. The old city soon appeared in the luminous afternoon.
I missed two lectures and three exhibits because I found four new galleries I had not known about on the way, and because it was so beautiful just to walk. I surveyed the scene from a rooftop. Down on the Alameda I bought mezcal ice from some oaxaqueño boys. As the rain started I crossed Hidalgo and jumped onto another green Parabus. Dusk was falling when I jumped off.
I walked up my street and stopped in at this French bistro I have been eyeing. I do not normally go to actual restaurants but this one is not an upscale French restaurant, it is a bistrot in the old Parisian sense, and I was hoping they would have one of those salades composées you can get in France. They had several, costing $7, and they also had real baguettes. I ate one in their lovely atmosphere and then got a few groceries at the corner store, and I am quite satisfied.
*
The news is generally bad. One of the exhibits I attended this afternoon, a critical project on the bicentennial, included artistic photographs of narco-related executions. The President says all the violence is intra-narco, but events suggest otherwise.
On the Zócalo there is a large digital clock counting down the days, hours, and minutes to September 16. At the movies, there are didactic cartoons on Insurgent heroes and related events before the main feature.
Axé.
coldhearted scientist وداد 
Also: why isn’t there a hyperlinked version of Rayuela, or a big Rayuela concordance … or am I just being an unsystematic searcher (which I really am)?
And: it’s an anti-novel with an anti-hero; I keep forgetting that perhaps the anti-hero and his avatars *should* be somewhat repellent. I am a naive reader, me.
I so agree with you on Rayuela! It was one of only three books that I didn’t manage to finish for my doctoral comprehensives (I specialize in Contemporary Peninsular). I honestly started it about 6 times but always gave up somewhere around the 1st third. The machismo was daunting, and the novel just went on and on, becoming very boring.
Of course, as my luck would have it, I got asked about it during the comprehensives. So I confessed my low opinion of the novel and said that I prefer Cortazar’s short stories. The funny thing was that the committee actually agreed and we spent the next 5 minutes happily bashing Rayuela. 🙂 🙂
I’m wondering whether I should really teach it in the fall (it’s why I was rereading it, I am teaching Julio on request) or just dump it for more short stories.
Or: teach it, but divide it up. 3 committees, to read each part, and other committees, to read the “macho” way but even then skipping around, with a focus toward a particular study question.
Here’s a blog post that dislikes the novel for the reasons I do. http://unlanzallamas.blogspot.com/2009/03/relectura-de-rayuela-de-julio-cortazar.html
And: the first 20 items in the MLA bibliography don’t look directly feminist, although this book _Idling the Engine_ I had already found is interestingly critical. I wonder if Margo Glantz has said anything about Rayuela. Meanwhile I’ve turned up a good looking 2002 anthology by Ana Luisa Sierra (UPR P), _Me gustas cuando callas: los escritores del Boom y el genero sexual_.
And bingo: on page 65 of that book begins Malva Filer’s article “Leer a Cortazar como mujer.”
Filer article link: http://books.google.com.mx/books?id=iKX4aKgEXZYC&pg=PA5&dq=critica+feminista+de+rayuela&source=gbs_selected_pages&cad=2#v=onepage&q&f=false
I think the novel could be salvaged for the purpose of teaching. There could be a nice discussion about the flaneur/flaneuse aspect, which would allow to bring some Nestor Canclini in. And, of course, the very machismo of the book could be an opportunity to address many important issues. I often teach the novels I hate because I believe that any kind of passion in the classroom can be productive.
OH YEAH – Hadn’t thought of pairing it with Garcia Canclini. I’ve got this whole thing half worked up with Baudelaire, Benjamin, Marshall Berman, Situationists, and Beatriz Sarlo but Garcia Canclini will be fun and also: I’m in Mexico DF, it fits me personally! 🙂