‘The Southern Thruway’ (‘La autopista del sur’) was collected in ‘All Fires the Fire’ (‘Todos los fuegos el fuego’) by Julio Cortázar.
It’s a searing hot Sunday afternoon in the 1960s and twelve lanes of cars are heading towards Paris, when traffic practically grinds to a halt. About forty-five miles from their destination and focused solely on reaching it, a group of neighbouring drivers and passengers interact. Rumours and speculation abound regarding the cause of the hold-up.
Night falls and another day begins. Cooperation leads to the efficient distribution of food and water. There is no sign of a police helicopter or motorcycle. As the days turn into weeks and then months, symbiotic relationships and micro-communities develop.
The following spring, with no explanation, the traffic begins to move and the cars continue their journey at speed to Paris.
Cortázar invites the reader to suspend belief and enter into the world of the stranded. Removing yourself from the logic of their world immediately launches a barrage of questions: why not push your car off the road and risk the fifteen-hour walk to Paris? Why does heating the cars through the winter not exhaust the batteries and petrol? After months without washing, isn’t hygiene a serious issue? Why are they travelling with so much cash that they can afford to buy food and drink to last for months?
It’s sometimes difficult to get a foothold in this strange new world, as the boundaries between reality and the realistic (even absurd), comic and tragic, utopian and dystopian, are blurred.
Support bubbles are formed and the lockdown is accepted. Everybody throws themselves into the new normalcy. Time becomes irrelevant. When they stop asking when or why, they are freed from the constraints of normal life. The travellers flourish when relieved of the limits imposed by logic, reason, time and space.
Within this microcosm of society, the members stop asking when lockdown will end. They become totally immersed in the lockdown itself. It’s easier to accept it than to struggle against it or try to understand it.
Relationships within the impromptu communities develop according to need. As the cars finally speed off towards Paris, you ask yourself whether they will ever make contact again. Does the time they spend together mean nothing? Were the relationships illusory?
The characters are stripped down to human nature. They lose their names and are referred to by the make and model of their car and by their former position in society, e.g. engineer, boy, nun, farmer, doctor. Having no name is symbolic: each character represents a type rather than an individual.
The travellers soon forget the past, stop planning for the future and live in the present. Fulfilment as a human being is achieved by effecting positive actions in the here and now — philosophically, an existential approach to life. Without the preoccupation of reaching a goal, the characters embrace the ability to stand and stare.
As the story ends, the old normal returns and the new normal evaporates. The idea of communal living, as opposed to the selfish individualism of being caged in a car, is rendered fragile, disappears and becomes nothing more than a treasured memory.
I see the story as a celebration of existential values. Yet, at the same time, it’s a jaundiced recognition of their impermanence. Selfish individualism usually wins and takes over.
The ending was sudden for the driver, but not for the reader who is left wondering how the situation could have occurred. The nightmare is over only for the real nightmare to begin. Utopia can only exist in micro-communities; the bigger the community, the smaller its chance of success.
The story is beautifully written without direct speech, and the economy of the style is superb. It can be enjoyed as a simple narrative, as a humorous fantasy reality adventure or as an exploration of society and human nature with different layers.
With thanks to Glenn Russell for yet another gem of a recommendation.