62 / model kit
62 / Modellbaukasten ( Spanish 62 / Modelo para armar ) is a 1968 (German 1993) novel by the Argentine writer Julio Cortázar .
Title, structure and style
The novel and title go back to an idea that Cortázar had formulated in the 62nd chapter of his novel Rayuela , which appeared five years before 62 / Modellbaukasten . A novel is conceived that radically breaks with traditional narrative patterns such as linearity and causality as well as with the psychological motivation of its characters. Therefore, 62 / model kit consists of narrative strands that repeatedly break off suddenly and without explanation; instead of one central protagonist, there are many characters whose actions and behavior can change abruptly and flow into one another, just as the settings - London , Paris and Vienna - alternate again and again. This makes 62 / Modellbaukasten “the most complex and radical of Cortázar's writing”.
action
Due to its experimental character, a table of contents of 62 / model kit is difficult and makes little sense. The novel is about a group of friends. While the interpreter Juan is in Vienna with his girlfriend Tell and is spying on an alleged vampire in the Hotel König von Ungarn , another part of the group is in London and visits the Courtauld Institute art museum there ; In Paris, the anesthetist Hélène seduces the young Celia. “My city” also plays an important role, an imaginary place, perhaps to be equated with the subconscious to which the protagonists have access.
expenditure
- Julio Cortázar: 62 / Modelo para armar. Buenos Aires: Sudamericana 1968
- Julio Cortázar: 62 / model kit. Novel. German v. Rudolf Wittkopf. Frankfurt a. M .: Suhrkamp 1993, ISBN 978-3518405635
Individual evidence
- ↑ Boldy, Steven: The novels of Julio Cortázar. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1980, p. 97