From the Observatory
Julio Cortazar
Monday, January 16, 2012 9:42 AM

A densely written essay, only 78 pages including many photographs of Jai Singh’s observatory (Jantar Mantar
observatory in Delhi India). The essay speaks of the migration of eels, as a image of a “many eyed serpent” invading the rivers of Europe as a “phallus, questing and probing”, while Jai Singh watches the sky, attempting to understand the night. The essay was triggered by a scientific article on the migration of the eels, and the theme is that there are forces and experiences outside the scientific realm, experienced as a whole, not analyzed, like love making. “Jai Singh presumably had his observatories built with the elegant disenchantment of a decadence that could no longer expect anything of military conquest, maybe not even of the seraglios where his elders had preferred a sky of lukewarm stars in a time of fragrances and music …” Difficult to understand, the language complex (it is translated from Spanish), and the sentences long and convoluted, I nonetheless read it in one hour, waiting for a car repair. My impression is that it is more poetry than sense. ( )

This prose poem was written by Cortázar in 1973, after his 1968 visit to the Jantar Mantar, a collection of 14 geometrical instruments built in the 18th century by Maharaja Jaipur Singh in Jaipur, the capital of the Indian state of Rajasthan. During his visit, Cortázar took approximately 300 photos of these instruments, some of which are included in the book.

Cortázar employs imagery from these instruments in a poem about the cosmos, man's place in it, and the brutal and unforgiving lives of eels.

This poem went completely over my head, as I didn't understand what Cortázar was getting at, and I felt as confused as if I was reading it in a completely foreign language. Even worse, I read a recent review of the book, and I didn't understand it, either! I didn't like or dislike From the Observatory, so I'll give it 3 stars because I have no idea how to rate the book. ( )

From the Observatory by Julio Cortazar is the first book I received from Archipelago Books that I'm completely puzzled by. I'm not sure what the point to the book is. There are pages of black and white photographs of observatories interspersed between the text, while the author writes about the life cycle of eels, the imaginary observatory of a local sultan.

What I do like, however, is the way it's written. The flow is very poetic even though they're not written in standard poetry formats, and the words just flit and float as if they were on a rippling brook.

I don't even know how to rate this. I can't say I liked it, and I can't say I disliked it. i just found it odd. ( )