Winners

by Julio Cortázar

Book Overview

Cortozar had a seminal influence on postwar Latin American fiction, and he was as significant for Garcia Marquez, Fuentes, and Vargas Llosa as his Argentine compatriot, Borges. In The Winners, a mixed group of Buenos Aireans, a cross-section of Argentine society, who have won a trip on a luxury cruise in the lottery, find themselves mysteriously adrift. Cortozar's first novel is a fantastic fiction that is also a parable of social paralysis exploring...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0394723015
• ISBN13: 9780394723013
• Release Date: March 1984
• Publisher: Pantheon Books
• Length: 374 Pages
• Weight: 0.95 lbs.

Customer Reviews

Novel proves that the most exciting voyage is inside one's own mind

After reading Cortazar's The Winners (1960), I've decided that what makes a novel a classic is that the author writes about the worst of human behavior in a style that assumes every reader is a genius. This novel called on me to use all of my perceptions and knowledge as a person, as a reader. By now, you will have learned that this novel is about a group of people who win a lottery and the prize is an ocean voyage, and that once settled onboard, several of the passengers behave badly, and the ship's crew is such--well, I won't give it away--that the voyage comes to an end only three days after it began. You will also have read from other reviewers or the publisher's notes that the character Persio has clairvoyant abilities; in a way, Persio is the higher consciousness of the novel; his thoughts lead the reader into self-examination (or not). For me, this novel was not a simple, summer read--but don't let me stop you. The Winners is highly metaphorical: is the ship life itself? I think so. But the writing is more beautiful than life: many of the characters have the most sensitive, humane, and literate conversations, like Claudia and Paula, or Paula and Carlos. Surely, if this novel is Argentina, then people from Buenos Aires are living among the gods of culture and human potential. In that regard, this novel is hardly the Argentina I've heard about: breathtaking landscape, and women and men who love culture, but every now and then a dictator who murders people. The ship's crew is secretive and cunning like that. Read and see. Appropriately, there is a sinister feeling about this novel from page one; something terrible impending, something beneath the surface of these polished people. I was totally fascinated, intrigued by many of the "characters": Claudia Lewbaum and Gabriel Medrano, Raul Costa, Carlos Lopez and Paula Lavalle, and Don Galo and Dr. Restelli, and the unforgettable Felipe Trejo, the 16-ish student, passionate for life, but without parental guidance, "lured" into the depths of the ships lower cabins where the crew seem alien and unpredictable. What a textual voyage--one in which the characters had to learn so much about themselves!

Discreet Charm of The Lottery Winners

I read and enjoy Cortazar in the same way I enjoy Luis Bunuel films, in fact I think Bunuel could have made a wonderful film of THE WINNERS. Like Bunuel, Cortazar finds the things we accept as normal to be quite absurd but also like Bunuel he has a certain affection for those he makes fun of. All those on board the Malcolm are guilty of some sort of petty prejudice or limited world view but they all mingle and tolerate one another to a point. When things go absurdly wrong the lottery winners begin to wonder what it is they've actually won. Cortazar is an existential comic. A book which succeeds because it never forgets that despite our differences we are all bound together by our not knowing exactly what is going. With a little help from Cortazar we can see that knowing is just a pretense.Perhaps the novel like Camus Plague is a parable with many possible levels of meaning. Not the least of which is the political level. After all Cortazar left Argentina under Peron to live and write in exile.

Ducks and Eagles

Cortazar places his characters in categories I've found people all fit--one or the other--like it or not--we are each either a duck or an eagle. Ducks follow of course and eagles set new paths. Ducks may have easier less lonely lives. Unless of course they inherit wealth and power--in which case they must be very confused and inflict chaos on the less entitled. Eagles succeed in endeavors against all odds and are therefore resented by those they seek to please. None of us has an easy time co-existing with others. No one wants to admit this of course! This book encourages reflection that may have social value, but it doesn't offer much in the way of a hopeful outcome for the social redemption of mankind--at least not in this generation. Therein lies its depth. We must expect less from our companions in life. We're all horrifyingly flawed. Somehow we must find the path to honesty and forgiveness. The book--?--I couldn't put it down. Now I can't get it out of my mind. If you want to live in denial don't read it.

Seductive

To be known, to fit in, to be understood, to see reality, to share that reality and therefore validate it...this would be the ultimate in seductive offers...this must be the search that blinds us all...this may be the epitaph for the human race as we know it. We sought--we failed to find. We came, we never saw, we conquered ourselves. Cortazar manages to not only explore these Dostoevskian themes, but also manages to seduce the reader with his words, into believing they may find themselves answered by this book. Do they? Well, to start things off, have a drink. Then look at the boat on the cover every half hour and decide and re-decide if it APPEARS to be a boat that would float, or if it IS a boat that would float, or if it is a boat at all. Prepare to question your truths and to take a long look at the person in bed beside you. They may not look the same after you read Cortazar.