De autonauten van de kosmosnelweg By Julio Cortázar
Julio Cortázar ï 2 Read
In mei/juni 1982 maakten Julio Cortázar en zijn vrouw Carol Dunlop in een rood Volkswagenbusje een reis langs de parkeerplaatsen, restaurants en motels van de Autoroute du Sud, van Parijs naar Marseille, met de afspraak er drieëndertig dagen over te doen, de weg geen enkele maal te verlaten en alle parkeerplaatsen te bezoeken. Het werd een ware expeditie en Cortázar en Dunlop doen als ' wetenschappers' op minitieuze en aanstekelijke wijze verslag van hun bevindingen. Zo ontstond een uniek reisjournaal vol geestige schetsen en dagboekfragmenten, geïllustreerd met foto's en tekeningen.
Tegen de achtergrond van de ernstige ziekte van Carol Dunlop, die de speelse toon kleurt met melancholie groeide dit dagboek tegelijkertijd uit tot een grootse hommage aan de liefde, met de hoofdpersonen als een moderne Adam en Eva in hun asfaltparadijs. De autonauten van de kosmosnelweg
Sebbene scritto da un romanziere famoso, questo libro non è un romanzo ma una cronaca. La cronaca del viaggio di Julio e della giovane moglie Carol a zonzo per le stazioni di servizio dell'autostrada Parigi-Marsiglia, alla ricerca degli affascinanti angoli di panorama che sfuggono ai viaggiatori normali, che nella loro nevrotica foga di arrivare dimenticano di dare valore al viaggio in sè.
Il recupero della dimensione del viaggio e della sua componente romanzesca e favolosa, che diventa occasione di un ritorno ad un modo fanciullesco di vedere le cose, è il tema di tutto il libro. Duramente impegnati nelle lotte politiche ed idelogiche dei primi anni ottanta (dalla guerra delle Malvinas alle dure repressioni dei regimi centroamericani), Julio Cortazar e la moglie Carol Dunlop (di trent'anni più giovane, ma così grande è lo spirito del romanziere che la differenza non si vede) con il sorgere delle malattie che uccideranno entrambi in pochi anni scoprono la necessità di ritrovare se stessi un'ultima volta uscendo dalla strozzatura delle vite e dei grandi impegni che si sono costruiti: decidono che il solo modo possibile è un viaggio che abbia qualcosa di magico e di giocoso, che trovi in se stesso un valore che solo tornando bambini si possa riconoscere.
Queste le regole del gioco: truffando la polizia stradale il lupo (Julio) e l'orsetta (Carol) permarranno con l'aiuto logistico degli amici per un intero mese nell'autostrada, fermandosi in tutte le aree di servizio almeno mezza giornata e quindi pernottando in almeno la metà di esse. Laddove possibile in motel, molto più spesso nel loro sgangherato furgoncino wolkswagen, che la magia fa diventare un simpaticissimo drago rosso da usare come cavalcatura e come compagno, che affronterà con grande coraggio i pericoli e le avversità dell'avventura.
Il lettore si troverà rinfrescate tutte le fantasticherie dell'infanzia, perchè i meccanismi del gioco e del sogno sono vissuti con gioia da Julio ma anche proposti con grande maestria letteraria. Dalla personificazione degli oggetti più amati ( il furgoncino diventa fafner il drago rosso, le sdraio diventano gli Orrori fioriti) al simpatico egocentrismo dei bambini (ogni aereo che passa è una spia da cui nascondersi!)
Quanto ho amato il bislacco drago Fafner! Anche io da bambino ho cavalcato un drago, ma era grigio. Certo agli ingenui occhi dei grandi appariva come lo sgangherato furgone del cappellano della parrocchia, che avevamo soprannominato Beccia: anche il piccolo drago grigio lo avevamo chiamato cosi. Certo il piccolo vecchio Beccia non aveva il ruggito del fratello rosso fafner, ma riportarlo alla memoria è stata una emozione speciale.
La ricca documentazione fotografica che affianca ogni capitolo ci mostra come ogni stazione di servizio sia in realtà un'isola che nasconde un tesoro, che sfugge agli altri automobilisti assatanati dall'idea dell'arrivo. ed anche i disegnini Naif che le rappresentano sono molto piacevoli.
Una menzione particolare al racconto noir-erotico che Cortazar dedica a Chandler e soprattutto al motel di bassa lega in cui per le regole del gioco si trova a dover pernottare in provenza. Per poche pagine l'atmosfera cambia radicalmente, grondante di lugubre sensualità. Il vecchio lupo getta la maschera da cucciolo affascinato, ci mostra le nere fauci del romanziere d'alto livello, strizzarci l'occhio e tornare a giocare alla settimana.
Questo libro non sarà mai un pilastro della letteratura. Ma chi ama leggere per il piacere di sofnare un tesoro in più, troverà queste pagine cosi sfolgoranti di voglia di vivere da sembrar di vedere in esse il lupo e l'orsetta che, mentre in groppa a fafner camminano verso la morte, ci strizzano l'occhio sorridendo e ci dicono che in fondo non abbiamo nulla da temere.
Paperback This is another book that makes me want to go back through and knock down all my five-star ratings, so it can be in a class all its own. Honestly and truly one of the most astonishingly beautiful things I've ever read.
Autonauts of the Cosmoroute is a memoir of sorts. Cortázar (the most devastatingly brilliant author of modern times, if you didn't know) and his wife Carol decide to spend thirty-odd days living on the highway connecting Paris to Marseille (for a local reference, it seems rather like the New Jersey Turnpike), in their red Volkswagen van named Fafner, going to two rest areas each day. They set up camp (as it were) at each one, finding the best picnic table at which to write, eat, talk, and lounge in the sun, taking time to explore the wilds of each locale. It's written as a travelog, with a list of how many shops, bathrooms, trees, waste bins, etc., etc., etc. can be found in each, and they include things like the temperature, which direction Fafner faces, and what they eat each day.
If this sounds a little childish and silly, that's exactly the point. Cortázar is a literary icon, an undeniable genius, but here we see him only as a man, a boyish man at that, impish and gleeful and silly, and his wonderful wife the same. It is just these two people, relishing the strangeness of the world in which they've decided to live, and the sheer joy of one another's company. It is absolutely stunning to witness the immense sense of wonder that they bring to even the most mundane endeavors, how much joy and love suffuses each of their days. This book encompases so much more than insipid handles like memoir or essay; it is a love story to each other, to friends, to every day, to the amazement that is the world. I realize I may have hazed into corniness here, but this book is like nothing else. It's like spending a month in a van with two of the most fascinating, happy, brilliant people you'll never be lucky enough to meet.
If I could, I would send a copy of this book to everyone I have ever loved, and everyone who needs to be reminded of how thrilling the world can be.
I beg you, read this book. Paperback When I was about 14, or between that age and 17, I used to carry around a green pocket folder filled with railway maps of the United States. Also included in my green folder were essays, lists, and advice by wannabe-Beat-poet types (God help them) on the subject of train-hopping. This was my obsession. I had every intent to head out to the train yard in central Austin one day with a knapsack full of the essentials -- a warm jacket, a sewing kit, some beef jerky, a couple of dollars -- and swing myself aboard a moving train. There were only the details -- when, where, how, how not to get my fool self killed by the railyard bull -- to hammer out.
On the front of this folder, in scribbled Marks-A-Lot, was a giant anarchy symbol. The circle around the A was slightly oblong, and there were hash marks where I had scribbled outside the lines, but it got the job done.
Now what, one might ask, had anarchy to do with train-hopping?
(And more importantly, perhaps, why would I scribble a 10-inch anarchy symbol on the outside of a folder that I didn't want anyone to find --? since it's discovery, presumably, would have derailed my plans, excuse the pun.)
To the first question at least I can answer only that perhaps both train-hopping and anarchy (whatever that is) held in my mind (at that age) similar connotations of the antisocial, the rebellious, and a sort of creative freedom that I found lacking in my suburban, white high school. The writings the folder held further indicate the truth of this assertion, since these were precisely the motivations to which the Beat Generation bore witness: rebellion, deviancy, creative expression originated in the illicit. Indeed, I can not help but think of the motivations of the Beats as a sort of cultural adolescence of America. The post-WWII morality stimulated this kickback to hedonism, and the congealing of the middle class and suburban ideal to an infatuation with wandering, and with the sexuality of aimlessness.
But God forbid that I should call Cortázar a beatnik. I could call him contemporaneous, and some of the same themes are there, but ultimately Cortázar is infinitely more in control of himself, more self-assured, and more purposeful than Burroughs or Ginsberg or Kerouac, for whom I hold no great brief. Or indeed any brief at all.
No, I bring this all up not to talk about the Beats, but to point out that it is precisely at this age -- 14 to 17, the prime years of lust deluded -- that I would have given this book five stars.
Reading it today -- reading the great reviews of it here on Goodreads before getting to the book itself -- oh, how I wanted to love it. I felt certain I would be inspired by the romance of wanderlust yet again. (And wanderlust, here, apt. The lust of the wanderer, the sexuality of aimlessness.)
But I wasn't. I even tried for several months after finishing this book to convince myself that I was. But I wasn't. That part of me is dying.
Something has happened between adolescence and today -- my imposture with the world, my varied and variously dissatisfying relations with women -- to render Cortázar's fancies fallow. I am not trying to be a cynic. I am young around here, and there's nothing the elder more eagerly ridicule in the younger than cynicism. It's just that Cortázar's and Dunlop's mock-heroic voyage down the French autoroute from Paris to Marseille strikes me as skeletal. It holds back the flesh from the reader and results disingenuous, if intentionally fanciful.
If there's any one thing to which I can attribute this sensation of incompleteness (besides, perhaps, the excruciatingly obvious -- that only a 15 year-old could believe that a relationship could attain significance by riding a camper van up and down the highway), it's the absence of sex as motivation in the telling. This is not to say that sex does not appear. There are some touching and vivid images of tangled-in-the-sheets in the camper van in pouring-pattering-rain which are, if not sui generis, then perhaps some of the best of their kind.
But sex in adulthood strikes me as a much more devious agent. It's not just a sequence of images within the backdrop of a story. It permeates people's conceptions of what a story even is. There are the men who believe sex is romance, and the men who believe sex is sex and there is no romance. And there are the women who believe romance is romance and sex a simple function of it. And there are the women who call you at 4 am and believe only in sex but their real desires only as obvious as that they will never be attained as long as they call you at 4 am. And there are the women who believe only in sex, and the men there, too. And the men that believe they believe only in sex and those that believe they do not believe. And there are the men who tell themselves stories about love and the women who listen to those self-recitations on a bed pillow and both sides believing without believing and then a lifetime of silence. And there are the men who tell themselves stories about love into the blank pages of a sexless journal and then feel the emptier for it having been writ and continue to write until it's all been emptied and they can't possibly know anything else. And there are the women who never knew anything at all. And the women who seem to know everything, and the men who tell themselves there are women who seem to know everything. And the men who tell themselves they know everything.
And there is Cortázar, who writes so many pages of happy images, of frivolity as a method itself, of a voyage down the autoroute. Here and there, there is sex.
When the truth is so fraught, his omissions left me somewhat untrusting. I felt unsettled. Paperback What a wonderful book. Part essay, part travelogue with a smattering of fiction, it's an indescribable blend of humor, sadness, quirk and love. Author Julio Cortázar cooked up a plan with his second wife Carol Dunlop to drive from Paris to Marseilles in their VW bus nicknamed Fafner, the dragon. The catch is, they stopped at every single rest-stop along the way at the count of two per day, sleeping over night at the second one. This book chronicles their thoughts and notes throughout the journey. It really is a wonderful book, demonstrating how despite such odd circumstances Cortázar and Dunlop found great joy escaping the world, being not utterly isolated but separated from their responsibilities and obligations. Instead, they focused on each other, on reading, writing and observing.
Their writing covers great terrain--despite the modest terrain they are actually covering in the VW--from the philosophical to the poetic, to the mundane and pseudo-scientific. Light-hearted humor arises when they treat the journey scientifically with a daily travel log in which they indicate times of departure, weather, what they ate, where the bus was parked (facing N.W.N, for example), and so on. There was also humor in a certain ironic/exaggerated paranoia they exhibit as if their journey is threatened at times by the political powers-that-be because Cortázar was not only a writer but a political activist. As, for example, a rest area was closed to sabotage their journey.
Love, and the joy of their togetherness, was a major theme expressed throughout the story. Physical and emotional love. Their affection is so gentle and so poetic, reading it is near meditative in quality.
In the end, they summarize the journey, as unintentionally a Zen expedition. They set off not knowing what they would find and what they found was the beauty of existence even in the most absurd of situations. Touring rest areas.
The only aspect of the story that didn't sit well with me was the personification of Fafner, the VW bus. Admittedly, in my own past, I did briefly personify the car I had in college, a '72 Dodge Dart that my friend Dave Fagan dubbed the Death Sled. I accused said vehicle of attempting to kill me on several occasions. Its attacks included but were not limited to: a steering system that pulled to the left, windshield wipers that gave out in the middle of a torrential downpour whilst driving from Cleveland to Columbus, Ohio, and scalding burns on the thighs occasioned by the vinyl bench seat, which could achieve temperatures that could smelt iron if left exposed to direct sunlight. But despite my own experience with personifying vehicles in my youth, I was left somewhat uncomfortable with affection expressed for a motor vehicle as charmingly and innocently as it was expressed. And with no disrespect intended to the legacy of this book or Cortázar, reading their descriptions caused me to reflect on the death penalty. You see, in the U.S., the death penalty is still legal despite the immorality of the state killing a prisoner. But a corporation can't seem to die no matter the heinous crimes it commits. No matter whom it kills or what laws it breaks. A few individuals on rare occasions can be put in jail for fraud they commit within a corporation, but the corporation goes on. It rebrands. And over time, people forget. A generation later, a brand that was once conservative can become hip. A brand that once poisoned an ocean, can be forgiven. Volkswagen was, as you can learn from a quick trip to Wikipedia, founded by the Nazi Party. And Volkswagen's formative years were spent making all sorts of vehicles for the war effort. Hitler himself took a person interest in the success of Volkswagen. Rather ironic how the VW bus and the VW beetle became symbols of the hippie movement in the sixties, isn't it? Not only ironic, but it demonstrates how brands and Capitalism can swallow up idealism and sell it back to you. Levis is one of the current brands that is trying to advertise in the spirit of the Occupy movement. As if, somehow, wearing Levis makes you more free, more independent minded and more creative. Brands want us to personify their products in order to develop an emotional relationship with them and choose to purchase them again. Generating emotion in advertising is a core trick to drive sales. A trick that often has nothing whatsoever to do with the product itself. Think of Coke. Or Pepsi. And Cortazar being an ardent Socialist, I couldn't help but wonder why he allowed himself to be seduced by this product. So...I couldn't help but not find emotional affection for a VW bus as less charming than it was intended to be.
At any rate, this is wholly my own reaction to this aspect of the book and despite the digression it sent me off in my own mind, I can none-the-less whole-heartedly recommend this book.
Paperback La Osita and el Lobo, armed with the caps of mushrooms and cuneiforms forming nightvisions by sidetracked autobahns, carrying only the sin of excess imagination, travel en route of stopped time, which is a form of brussel sprouts, as by re-routing scientific observations about skylarks at rest while gliding in rest areas, they also find a way of being explorers like ancient ships do, clear to the back of the fog, or simply, with Fafner, their VW, sounding out the silences between trucks, like the hollow in the mouth of the waves that break against it, while headlights illuminate the interior soundtrack of a jellyfish, and by morn the progress which is a mourning of movement, of passing, where the freeway becomes a habit that stings of peculiarity, each dream in its acuity bringing itself into deeper relief, like the lines in a face showing only memories, though we live in the 21st century, though we can still write a yellow book of celebration, though we can be anachronistic to the core, where a longing lurks within all its joy.
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All corny prosifying aside, and without recapping the content of the book (read the other GR reviews for that, they're good), I just want to say that there is a kind of subtext to this whole book of joy... that even though I believe their joy is genuine, I also feel like there is something forced about it. Not that they are lying, but that there is something they are fighting against, both in the world and within themselves perhaps, and that for this they must use all their imaginations. Something about this book, though deceptively casual and without consequence and completely joyful, is also kind of heavy with the weight of the real world. Paperback
This delightful account of a modern day Don Quioxite and his Dulcinea counts on the 'patient,gentle reader' to rise to the challenge of discovery. With route and itinery clearly defined,and strict rules establishing protocol,this absurd adventure nevertheless transcends any attempt at categorization. The authors come the closest when they confess (P175) It's true that this trip is an unending fiesta of life and the sense of celebration is strong throughout.
One thing that surprised and delighted me was the seamless mingling of the authors words,so that unless there is some strong indication otherwise,for most of the book it is very hard if not irrelevent to keep track of just who is writing/speaking.
But our waves form only a vast undulation that breathes to the rhythm of our madness.Light and dark passion will push us towards the end,always towards the end and further.There where I hold you as if our skin would dissolve at the contact...make of us a single invisible being. p285
Seeing as I have by now read a lot of Cortazar,and barely heard of Carol Dunlop,I was gratified at this chance at last to get to know them.I am not confident though that everyone is as thrilled as I am about this: note that the book is listed right here as authored only by JC!
But this,amongst parallel themes,is the real reason this account strikes such a sympathetic chord. Underneath the bravado and the jokes,the careful details recorded and savored,this is a love story of two people passionate about each other and the life they have conjured from their sharing.Despite vast differences in age and upbringing,the fact that they found each other is inspiring. It was really sad to read the last page,written by JC alone some months later,documenting the passing of his beloved partner.
I've rushed into the black abyss so often that I know how to walk in the dark, it says on p285
The genius of JC and CD together weave a pattern that makes room for the light.
We won't leave the autoroute in Marseille,my love,or anywhere else. There's no turning back,only a spiral. p285 Paperback It's a radical idea, really, that a freeway, a kind of road whose very existence is about getting from one place to another as fast as possible, might in fact prove worthy as a destination in and of itself.
In this lovely, charming and wonderful book, the authors decide to to make the 800 km of autoroute between Paris and Marseilles their home for one month. Their goal is to explore every rest stop along its path at the rate of two per day, camping out in their VW van and the occasional hotel, while recording their observations of those things that the rest of us miss when whizzing by at 100km an hour.
The resulting memoir/fantasy/anthropological study/love letter is a pure delight to read. The book begins with a playful, impish tone that sustains our intrepid explores throughout their journey, not only as they delight in the simple pleasures of finding the perfect picnic spot but also as they battle the forces that seek to derail them from their journey, be they torn fences that tempt them to leave the autoroute or sinister looking garbage cans that appear to be watching their every move.
I found it impossible to read this book without being yanked out of my own busy life and back into a place of discovery and wonder for the simplest of things around us. It will probably come as no surprise that the scientific conclusion the authors' draw from their mad journey is that there is no place as wonderful as where ever you are right now, but it is well worth taking this trip with them to see how they got there. Paperback More than a travelogue, this 'example of how the imagination can truly take power if we forget about routines' is a delightful invitation to encounter the world with renewed curiosity; to engage fully the imagination, the spirit and the body in celebrating the boon of living rapturously. A drawn out ode between el Lobo (Cortázar, the wolf) and la Osita (Dunlop, little bear), the collage of roadside minutiae offers a rare glimpse at the tender affection and deep respect two people hold for one another and the magical possibilities they see the world is rife with -- whimsical fantasies available to any brave soul who gives themself the time and space to wonder and explore. I don't believe I'll approach any future expedition (be it a jaunt to BoCoCa on the F train or a boating escapade among the majestic fjords of Iceland) without considering the joy these two brought to theirs.
I’ll gladly lend my copy to a trustworthy friend, because to let this book sit on a shelf would disgrace the resplendent life that lives within it. Paperback Approfittando che nel gruppo Libri dal mondo l'Argentina sia stata scelta per la lettura di gruppo di aprile, mi sono finalmente decisa di leggere Gli autonauti della cosmostrada che Curarsi con i libri consiglia a chi è allergico all'autostrada. Non mi piace molto guidare, e non mi piace guidare in autostrada, ma forse per la prima volta Curarsi con i libri mi ha guarita perché non guarderò mai più l'autostrada con gli stessi occhi. Di solito l'autostrada si fa di corsa, ci si ferma solo per un caffè o per andare in bagno, e poi di nuovo di corsa in auto per arrivare il prima possible a destinazione. Insomma, l'autostrada mette ansia perché induce ad andare veloci, non bisogna perdere tempo, ma solo correre correre e correre. Cortazar e la moglie, con questo viaggio, ci fanno vedere l'autostrada da un'altra prospettiva, molto più serena e tranquilla.
Questo libro è un diario di viaggio scritto a due mani con la moglie Carol Dunlop. Il viaggio che Cortazar e consorte intraprendono è Parigi-Marsiglia in autostrada con un furgoncino Volkswagen. Sembra un comunissimo viaggio, ma loro decidono di prendersela comoda senza farsi contagiare dalla velocità con la quale di solito si affronta un'autostrada. Ciò non significa che andavano a passo di lumaca, ma che trascorrevano le giornate nelle aree di sosta, come se fossero in vacanza. Guidavano pochissimi chilometri per fermarsi in ogni area di sosta (con massimo due soste al giorno) trascorrendoci tutta la giornata o solo pochi minuti, ma mai più di due autogrill al giorno. Dalle descrizioni queste aree non sono come i nostri autogrill (almeno quelli che conosco io), ma ci sono parchi o boschetti con zone picnic e qualche volta anche un parco giochi o un motel. Ci sono anche aree di sosta con soltanto il benzinaio e i servizi igienici, ma la maggior parte ha una zona verde e tavoli per il picnic. Dalle descrizioni e dalle foto vien quasi voglia di fare lo stesso viaggio soltanto per visitare queste aree di sosta! Cortazar e la moglie si cercavano un posto tranquillo all'ombra, il più lontano possibile dal brusio della strada e si accampavano per trascorrerci anche la notte dormendo nel furgoncino o, com'è capitato un paio di volte, in motel.
Il racconto del viaggio in sé è abbastanza noioso perché non è che possa succedere chissà che. Descrivono l'area di sosta, parlano di come trascorrono il tempo (scrivendo o leggendo), di ciò che mangiano, i loro pensieri osservando le altre persone, di come si erano organizzati per questo viaggio, dei loro amici, etc. Per ogni giorno c'è un resoconto di Cortazar e uno della moglie. Quelli della moglie mi sono piaciuti meno perché fa troppi voli pindarici per i miei gusti; spesso usa uno stile tipo flusso di coscienza che non riesco a digerire. Il libro contiene molte foto dei posti in cui si fermano e di Cortazar e consorte. Hanno aggiunto anche dei piccoli disegni di tutte le aree di sosta. Il loro viaggio, che normalmente si fa in una decina di ore, è durato circa 30 giorni.
Quello che mi è piaciuto maggiormente sono le parti in cui traspare tutto l'amore di Cortazar per la moglie. Ne fa certe descrizioni che mi facevano commuovere. Ciò che mi ha anche commosso è che dopo pochi mesi la moglie è morta. Era malata già da prima della partenza perché parlano spesso di demoni che la tormentano, ma la sua morte è stata comunque prematura. Due anni dopo è morto anche Cortazar.
Ho cercato quindi di leggere questo libro per quello che è: un diario di viaggio (l'ultimo viaggio) di due persone che si amavano profondamente e che forse sentivano che non avrebbero più avuto molto tempo da trascorrere insieme. Paperback I finally finished this last night reading it aloud, like I have slowly over the course of the last few years to my wife –we were trying to really savor it – and she woke up startled to see me in tears (she usually falls asleep as I read it). This was the most romantic book I've ever read. It's also an ethics for living, one that I am reminded of every single time my wife and I travel someplace. An ethics of living life with great seriousness, like a squirrel, I mean without looking for something beyond and above living, I mean living must be your whole occupation. But at the same time, the ability to use your imagination, and to invent games and puzzles and windmills from the mundane material of life, from trucks and rest stops and little patches of roadside forest. We're always trying to do our best Carol and Julio when we go someplace, cemetery scavenger hunts, building peeping, wringing history out of every street signs, going a hundred miles out of our way to visit the future birthplace of Captain Kirk. Read this book slowly, or keep it in the back pocket of the driver's seat when you go on road trips as a form of spiritual and aesthetic inspiration and guidance. Paperback
