Cortazar: Autonauts of the Cosmoroute

There is a new Cortazar title to be released this month from the excellent Archipelago Books, providers of recent titles from Duras, Musil, Michaux, among myriad others. Archipelago also released Cortazar's slim Diary of Andres Fava in 2005, which is a companion-book to Final Exam, somewhat similar to the way 62: A Model Kit functions in relation to Hopscotch. This new book, Autonauts of the Cosmoroute, is described as "a love story, an irreverent travelogue of elaborate tales and snapshots detailing Julio Cortázar and Carol Dunlop’s thirty-three-day voyage on the Paris-Marseilles freeway in 1982." The most exciting detail here is that the book clocks in at 350 pages, which is quite a gift to Cortazar readers operating only in English. It seems like Autonauts may resemble the hodgepodge style of Around the World in 80 Days, though it will probably be more unified, given the format of that volume. Anne McLean handles the translation here, continuing her earlier work on Diary of Andres Fava; McLean's other major work of translation was partial duty on Ignacio Padilla's novel Shadow Without a Name. Another appealing detail of the description is that this book was written under two years before Cortazar's death, & insight into this later portion of his life & career is welcome, given the rumors, sensationalism & nastiness that has tended to surround the accounts & commentary of that era.