---
product_id: 42343610
title: "Autonauts of the Cosmoroute: A Timeless Voyage from Paris to Marseilles"
brand: "archipelago"
price: "KSh10471"
currency: KES
in_stock: true
reviews_count: 5
category: "Book"
url: https://www.desertcart.co.ke/products/42343610-autonauts-of-the-cosmoroute-a-timeless-voyage-from-paris-to
store_origin: KE
region: Kenya
---

# Autonauts of the Cosmoroute: A Timeless Voyage from Paris to Marseilles

**Brand:** archipelago
**Price:** KSh10471
**Availability:** ✅ In Stock

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- **What is this?** Autonauts of the Cosmoroute: A Timeless Voyage from Paris to Marseilles by archipelago
- **How much does it cost?** KSh10471 with free shipping
- **Is it available?** Yes, in stock and ready to ship
- **Where can I buy it?** [www.desertcart.co.ke](https://www.desertcart.co.ke/products/42343610-autonauts-of-the-cosmoroute-a-timeless-voyage-from-paris-to)

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## Description

Autonauts of the Cosmoroute: A Timeless Voyage from Paris to Marseilles

## Images

![Autonauts of the Cosmoroute: A Timeless Voyage from Paris to Marseilles - Image 1](https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/51hHeKkGKiL.jpg)
![Autonauts of the Cosmoroute: A Timeless Voyage from Paris to Marseilles - Image 2](https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/310cGHRBYpL.jpg)
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## Customer Reviews

### ⭐⭐⭐⭐ 







  
  
    Slightly zany, sly and witty, and utterly sui generis
  

*by R***N on Reviewed in the United States on September 27, 2011*

The "autonauts" are Argentinian writer Julio Cortázar and his third wife Carol Dunlop.  In May 1982, they embark on an expedition down the L'Autoroute du Sud, the freeway from Paris to Marseilles.  Most drivers manage that trip in a day.  But not "el Lobo" and "la Osita" (their pet names for one another).  The trip takes them over thirty days - because, by design, they visit each and every rest area along the way, staying the night at every second rest area (except when forced by exigencies to make small exceptions to that rigid routine).  They therefore drive only about twenty minutes per day and they complete the Paris-Marseille journey without ever leaving the freeway.  Their vehicle is a red Volkswagen Combi Van, which they dub "Fafner" ("the Dragon").  Fafner carries a fridge and provisions and libations, their typewriters and lawn chairs, as well as a bed where they can sleep and make love.AUTONAUTS OF THE COSMOROUTE is their joint documentation of their madcap expedition.  It consists largely of reports on what they discovered at the various rest stops along the Autoroute, as well as numerous flights of fancy conjured up during their trip.  There also are brief logs for each day of the expedition; black-and-white photographs, most of which were taken by Carol and almost all of which, at least as reproduced in this edition, are sadly blurry; and charming drawings of the rest area layouts ("ex post facto cartography") supplied by Carol's fourteen-year-old son based on the autonauts' reports and photographs.A propos of a work by Julio Cortázar, AUTONAUTS OF THE COSMOROUTE is slightly zany, sly and witty, and utterly sui generis.  Originally published in 1983 (in simultaneous French and Spanish editions), it was the last of Cortázar's works published during his lifetime.  He died in 1984.  Carol Dunlop died in November 1982.  At the time of their trip, both Julio and Carol were suffering from what turned out to be terminal leukemia, so the "Cosmoroute" of the title takes on a poignant extra dimension.  The book, shot through and through with a zest for life, is a valediction like few others.There are many brilliant notions and conceits in the book.  A recurring one is a series of five letters from a mother to her son, reporting on her curmudgeonly husband, the death of Aunt Héloïse, and the bizarre coincidence of repeatedly encountering this strange couple camped out in and around a red van at different rest areas along the freeway over a three-week span.  Another one is a brief adult fairy tale about motel sex.  And there are many stunningly original passages, of which the following one about being surrounded and buffeted by trucks while driving on the freeway is representative:"Up till now we've always been David against Goliath:  What can a Renault 5, or even a tremendous Porsche, do when a tractor-trailer precedes it, and another follows ten metres behind and sticks its enormous threatening giant's face in the rear-view mirror, while a third overtakes, making space itself tremble and letting out horrendous snorts?  This is how users of the freeway soon develop a complex little studied by Freud, acute truckophobia, which can only be cured by buying a truck to join the enemy's ranks (this is known as transference in psychoanalytic terms) or by taking the train."That paragraph, incidentally, is also indicative of what surely is a brilliant piece of translating by Anne McLean.Alas, like every long-distance expedition faithfully recorded, there are more than a few boring stretches.  And some of el Lobo's and la Osita's fancies don't tickle my intellectual funny bone.  Though to do so might have violated the spirit and structure of the original undertaking, judicious editing or abridgement by the authors would have made for a more consistently enjoyable book.

### ⭐⭐⭐ 







  
  
    A New View of the Ordinary
  

*by F***D on Reviewed in the United States on July 22, 2010*

Fantasy.  A dream expedition.  All that, but a still a fresh look at the ordinary.  The autoroute from Paris to Marseille that is never seen--just traveled.  It's stimulating to inspect the details.  And the relationship between El Lobo and La Osita is endearing.For me though, the whole thing was simply a little too "cute."  So cute that the humor seemed tiresome.  Like a child telling the story of a movie over and over with details that make you want them to get on with it.  Sorry, despite his fame, I've never been a Cortazar fan.

### ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ 







  
  
    An exuberant journey!
  

*by P***K on Reviewed in the United States on July 31, 2013*

This adventure log, as full of the joy of travel as Kerouac's On the Road yet written with the air of a Victorian voyager's journal, will charm any reader who possesses even the merest semblance of a sense of wonder.  It's a complete delight and a perfect reminder that travel is just as much about the process of the journey itself as what you find at your destination.  Bring this on any road trip!

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*Product available on Desertcart Kenya*
*Store origin: KE*
*Last updated: 2026-03-08*