Paper short abstract:

My reading of Rayuela has revealed a Neo-Plastic figura that is formed out of resonances, tensions and intersections between opposite elements in the novel, mirroring Piet Mondrian’s use of the grid.

Paper long abstract:

The concept of the figura has fascinated critics in their study of not only Rayuela (1963) but of the entire cortazarean body of work. For many, the figura has proved to be mysterious and indecipherable. Others have successfully identified some of its constitutive parts such as 'reciprocity' and 'resonance'.

In Rayuela, the author, Julio Cortázar, explicitly extends an invitation to the reader to 'trazar imaginativamente [las líneas] que [cierran] la figura' (Cortázar 1996, 383). He suggests that in the novel there are already present 'ciertas líneas' that carry 'una incitación' for the reader to complete the figura. Cortázar stresses that 'las líneas ausentes son las más importantes' (Cortázar 1996, 386). Taking this as a basis, we can affirm that the figura is the result of a collaboration between Cortázar and the reader. Not only this, the figura is something unfinished, a 'work in progress' that depends on the creative abilities of the reader (read here as 'intentionality'). This means that the figura is an element of interpretation and therefore we can say that in Rayuela there is not one but many figuras.

This paper investigates one of the figuras of Rayuela by firstly identifying the lines that are already present, and secondly, by finding the missing ones. This is done by looking into the 'clues' of the novel and into Cortázar's ideas and beliefs about reality (what I call 'crystallization').