Tristi Tropici

by Claude Lévi-Strauss, Bianca Garufi (Translator)

«Ho cercato la mia strada molto a lungo… In etnologia sono un completo autodidatta. Una prima rivelazione l’ho avuta per ragioni inconfessabili: smania d’evasione, desiderio di viaggiare.» Queste parole di Claude Lévi-Strauss riassumono felicemente il senso di Tristi Tropici, resoconto delle spedizioni compiute dall’autore nel Mato Grosso e nella foresta amazzonica. Quando Lévi-Strauss, nel 1934, arrivò a São Paulo per ricoprire la cattedra di sociologia all’università, il suo interesse per l’antropologia era ancora una passione vaga, non ancora concretizzata. Una volta giunto in Brasile, la curiosità per le culture indigene e il desiderio di visitare un paese in gran parte inesplorato spinsero il giovane studioso a organizzare una serie di ricerche «sul campo ». Entrò così in contatto con le tribù autoctone, poté conoscerne direttamente le usanze e la vita quotidiana. Di ritorno da quel lungo viaggio, Lévi-Strauss lasciò calare il silenzio su quell’esperienza: non una parola che ricordasse le difficoltà, i rischi che gli incontri con civiltà indigene gli avevano procurato. Poi, quindici anni più tardi, decise di raccontare ciò che aveva visto e vissuto. E nel 1955 uscì Tristi Tropici, un saggio che cambiò per sempre i destini dell’antropologia, ma soprattutto un racconto vivo ed emozionante dove si intrecciano descrizioni degli uomini e della natura, aneddoti, considerazioni filosofiche e narrazione dell’avventura quotidiana del ricercatore. Villaggi indigeni, piccole colonie del Vecchio mondo e accampamenti di cercatori d’oro: un’umanità multiforme accomunata dallo sforzo di sopravvivere in un ambiente estremo, che spinge al limite la capacità di adattamento della nostra specie.

Genres: Anthropology, Nonfiction, Philosophy, Travel, France, Sociology, History

416 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1955

About the author

Claude Lévi-Strauss was a French anthropologist, well-known for his development of structural anthropology. He was born in Belgium to French parents who were living in Brussels at the time, but he grew up in Paris. His father was an artist, and a member of an intellectual French Jewish family. Lévi-Strauss studied at the University of Paris. From 1935-9 he was Professor at the University of Sao Paulo making several expeditions to central Brazil. Between 1942-1945 he was Professor at the New School for Social Research. In 1950 he became Director of Studies at the Ecole Practique des Hautes Etudes. In 1959 Lévi-Strauss assumed the Chair of Social Anthroplogy at the College de France. His books include The Raw and the Cooked, The Savage Mind, Structural Anthropology and Totemism (Encyclopedia of World Biography).

Some of the reasons for his popularity are in his rejection of history and humanism, in his refusal to see Western civilization as privileged and unique, in his emphasis on form over content and in his insistence that the savage mind is equal to the civilized mind.

Lévi-Strauss did many things in his life including studying Law and Philosophy. He also did considerable reading among literary masterpieces, and was deeply immersed in classical and contemporary music.

Lévi-Strauss was awarded the Wenner-Gren Foundation's Viking Fund Medal for 1966 and the Erasmus Prize in 1975. He was also awarded four honorary degrees from Oxford, Yale, Havard and Columbia. Strauss held several memberships in institutions including the National Academy of Sciences, the American Academy and Institute of Arts and Letters, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and the American Philosophical Society (Encyclopedia of World Biography).

Reviews

[Luís · Rating 5 out of 5]

Add a review? What a funny idea! All the people said almost everything. It will, therefore, be more of a personal remark (which is more or less my specialty in this section; I do not tell the books I read but rather the effect they have had on me).
This book had been gathering dust on a shelf for years and scared the crap out of me. It is a substantial book for lovers of novels and haikus. A photo of an Amazonian Indian on a white background is challenging to interpret: hostility, exoticism? Perhaps I was waiting to visit, if not the Indians, at least Brazil, before embarking on this adventure. Because, in my mind, this book dealt solely with the Indians of Brazil, and nothing else. Monumental error. I have read a lot, but very few books that sell so masterfully and often, "in passing" (Is that how geniuses are?), a multitude of fascinating questions. The relationship between geology and psychoanalysis reveals the hidden links between sea, mountain, and forest, as well as the connections between urban planning, land management, language, writing, civilization, and the connections between the old and new worlds, men and women, groups and hierarchy, and invaders. Fabulous. It is an enriching read (because it makes you want to delve deeper into many points) and simultaneously entertaining, full of surprises and strewn with details (the menu of the Indians and the author!) and stories alongside which many novels appear even mundane. That's to read urgently as a brain-degreasing cure for lovers of Brazil, India, or Pakistan. Or for all those fascinated by sprawling, erudite, and (almost) without prejudice, logic, and full of contradictions, all written in a classical language. A big posthumous thank you!

[William2]

This is like Holden Caulfield does anthropology. Immediately bitchy.

[P.E. · Rating 4 out of 5]

'La liberté n'est ni une invention juridique ni un trésor philosophique, propriété chérie de civilisations plus dignes que d'autres parce qu'elles seules sauraient la produire ou la préserver. Elle résulte d'une relation objective entre l'individu et l'espace qu'il occupe, entre le consommateur et les ressources dont il dispose.


Cet essai de l'ethnographe français Claude Lévi-Strauss porte sur son étude de peuples indigènes, du Brésil en particulier. Plus généralement, il se donne pour objet de définir les conditions d'exercice, les ambitions et les limites de l'anthropologie, son domaine d'étude.


Peintures corporelles symétriques et asymétriques d'une femme caduveo (fin 19e siècle)



Points faibles (à mon avis) :

Une écriture par moments excessivement chargée.


Points forts (toujours à mon avis) :

L'attention portée aux menus accidents et aux 'épiphénomènes' qui entourent l'étude et la prise de notes sur les comportements des populations observées par Levi-Strauss.

Son étude des Caduveo, des Bororo et des Nambikwara en particulier.

La lucidité du regard qu'il porte sur sa propre discipline et ses aspirations personnelles.


Du reste, Claude Lévi-Strauss porte un point de vue foncièrement pessimiste, qui n'aura pas l'heur de plaire à tous, sur le devenir des sociétés humaines : surpopulation, pollution, uniformisation des modes de vie, injustice, formalisme abstrait et anachronisme de certaines formes sociales (il cite la société française et l'islam), amoindrissement universel de la liberté.

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Quelques citations ?

'Aujourd'hui où des îles polynésiennes noyées de béton se transforment en porte-avions pesamment ancrés au fond des mers du Sud, où l'Asie toute entière prend visage d'une zone maladive, où les bidonvilles rongent l'Afrique, où l'aviation commerciale et militaire flétrit la grandeur de la forêt américaine [...] avant même d'en pouvoir détruire la virginité, comment la prétendue évasion du voyage pourrait-elle réussir autre chose que nous confronter aux formes les plus malheureuses de notre existence historique ?'

'Je comprends alors la passion, la folie, la duperie des récits de voyage. Ils apportent l'illusion de ce qui n'existe plus et qui devrait être encore, pour que nous échappions à l'accablante évidence que vingt mille ans d'histoire sont joués. Il n'y a plus rien à faire : la civilisation n'est plus cette fleur fragile qu'on préservait, qu'on développait à grand-peine dans quelques coins habités d'un terroir riche en espèces rustiques, menaçantes sans doute par leur vivacité, mais qui permettaient aussi de varier et de revigorer les semis. L'humanité s'installe dans la monoculture; elle s'apprête à produire la civilisation en masse, comme la betterave. Son ordinaire ne comportera plus que ce plat.'

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'La liberté n'est ni une invention juridique ni un trésor philosophique, propriété chérie de civilisations plus dignes que d'autres parce qu'elles seules sauraient la produire ou la préserver. Elle résulte d'une relation objective entre l'individu et l'espace qu'il occupe, entre le consommateur et les ressources dont il dispose. Encore n'est-il pas sûr que ceci compense cela, et qu'une société riche mais trop dense ne s'empoisonne pas de cette densité, comme ces parasites de la farine qui réussissent à s'exterminer à distance par leurs toxines, avant même que la matière nutritive ne fasse défaut.'

'Il faut beaucoup de naïveté ou de mauvaise foi pour penser que les hommes choisissent leurs croyances indépendamment de leur condition. Loin que les systèmes politiques déterminent la forme d'existence sociale, ce sont les formes d'existence qui donnent un sens aux idéologies qui les expriment [...]. En ce moment, le malentendu entre l'Occident et l'Orient est d'abord sémantique : les formules que nous colportons impliquent des signifiés absents ou différents.'

'Par delà les remèdes politiques et économiques convenables, le problème posé par la confrontation de l'Asie et de l'Amérique tropicale reste celui de la multiplication humaine sur un espace limité. Comment oublier qu'à cet égard l'Europe occupe une position intermédiaire, entre les deux mondes ? Ce problème du nombre, l'Inde s'y est attaquée il y a quelque trois mille ans en cherchant, avec le système des castes, un moyen de transformer la quantité en qualité, c'est-à-dire de différencier les groupements humains pour leur permettre de vivre côte à côte. Elle avait même conçu le problème en termes plus vastes : l'élargissant, au-delà de l'homme, à toutes les formes de la vie. La règle végétarienne s'inspire du même souci que le régime des castes, à savoir d'empêcher les groupements sociaux et les espèces animales d'empiéter les uns sur les autres, de réserver à chacun une liberté qui lui soit propre grâce au renoncement par les autres de l'exercice d'une liberté antagoniste. Il est tragique pour l'homme que cette grande expérience ait échoué, je veux dire qu'au cours de l'histoire les castes n'aient pas réussi à atteindre un état où elles seraient demeurées égales parce que différentes - égales en ce sens qu'elles eussent été incommensurables - et que se soit introduite parmi elles cette dose perfide d'homogénéité qui permettait comparaison, et donc la création d'une hiérarchie. Car si les hommes peuvent parvenir à coexister à condition de se reconnaître tous autant hommes, mais autrement, ils le peuvent aussi en se refusant les uns aux autres un degré comparable d'humanité, et donc en se subordonnant.

Ce grand échec de l'Inde apporte un enseignement : en devenant trop nombreuse et malgré le génie de ses penseurs, une société ne se perpétue qu'en sécrétant la servitude. Lorsque les hommes commencent à se sentir à l'étroit dans leurs espaces géographique, social et mental, une solution simple risque de les séduire : celle qui consiste à refuser la qualité humaine à une partie de l'espèce. Pour quelques dizaines d'années, les autres retrouveront les coudées franches. Ensuite il faudra procéder à une nouvelle expulsion.'

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'Il faudra admettre que, dans la gamme des possibilités offertes aux sociétés humaines, chacune a fait un certain choix et que ces choix sont incomparables entre eux : ils se valent. Mais alors surgit un nouveau problème : car si dans le premier cas nous étions menacés d'obscurantisme par un refus aveugle de ce qui n'est pas nôtre, nous risquons maintenant de céder à un éclectisme qui, d'une culture quelconque, nous interdit de rien répudier : fût-ce la cruauté, l'injustice et la misère contre lesquelles proteste parfois cette société même, qui les subit. [...]

Aucune société n'est parfaite. Toutes comportent par nature une impureté incompatible avec les normes qu'elles proclament, et qui se traduit concrètement par une certaine dose d'injustice, d'insensibilité, de cruauté. [...] On découvre alors qu'aucune n'est foncièrement bonne; mais aucune n'est absolument mauvaise. Toutes offrent certains avantages à leurs membres, compte tenu d'un résidu d'iniquité dont l'importance paraît approximativement constante, et qui correspond peut-être à une inertie spécifique qui s'impose, sur le plan de la vie sociale, aux efforts d'organisation. [...]

À mieux [connaître les autres sociétés], nous gagnons pourtant un moyen de nous détacher de la nôtre, non point que celle-ci soit absolument ou seule mauvaise, mais parce que c'est la seule dont nous devions nous affranchir : nous le sommes par état des autres. Nous nous mettons ainsi en mesure d'aborder la deuxième étape qui consiste, sans rien retenir d'aucune société, à les utiliser toutes pour dégager ces principes de la vie sociale qu'il nous sera possible d'appliquer à la réforme de nos propres mœurs, et non de celles des sociétés étrangères : en raison d'un privilège inverse du précédent, c'est la société seule à laquelle nous appartenons que nous sommes en position de transformer sans risquer de la détruire; car ces changements viennent aussi d'elle, que nous y introduisons.'


Références voisines

Cosmologie, mythologie grecque :
L'univers, les dieux, les hommes

Grammaire et vision du monde portée par les langues :
Poésie du gérondif

Interpénétration des systèmes philosophiques et religieux, étude du bouddhisme Mahayana en particulier, que Lévi-Strauss évoque aussi dans la neuvième et dernière partie de Tristes tropiques :
Le Temple de l'aube : La mer de la fertilité III

Le bouddhisme Mahayana vu par Shigekuni Honda dans Le Temple de l'Aube, en bref :

Le bouddhisme mahayana affirme :
La réalité n'existe qu'au présent, il n'est ni passé, ni avenir.

L'alayavijnana ("conscience ultime"), ou conscience alayaentrepose toutes les "semences" du monde des phénomènes, qui circulent dans un flux constant.

Si la conscience alaya est pure, le pouvoir qui engendre le samsara et la réincarnation est une force extérieure à elle, karmique.

Si la conscience alaya n'est pas pure (position de la doctrine yuishiki),
les semences karmiques sont causes indirectes et c'est la conscience alaya, corps migratoire, qui est la force qui engendre samsara et réincarnation.

En d'autres termes, les semences de la conscience alaya engendrent cette conscience et forment la loi naturelle. La conscience alaya est donc le fruit de la récompense des êtres sensibles et la cause fondamentale de toute existence.

La conscience alaya façonne les illusions du monde où nous vivons. Tout se réduit à l'idéation (par l'emploi du langage, par l'attachement au moi, par l'illusion des désirs et des formes nées de l'esprit)


En conséquence :

→ La conscience alaya, garantissant la réalité et l'existance, en est simultanément mais aussi alternativement la cause et l'effet.

→ Le monde et la conscience alaya sont simultanés, alternants et interdépendants.

→ On aboutit à une conception agnostique du monde et au solipsisme.


Le rêve uchronique d'un mariage de l'orient et de l'occident, ou du moins de relations plus étroites, sur le modèle des emprunts et inspirations orientales dans la pensée mythologique, philosophique et technique grecque de l'époque hellénique (Sagesses barbares - Arnaldo Momigliani).


Quête des anomalies urbaines, recherche de l'aleph, incarnation de l'identité d'une ville dans son espace et dans sa temporalité :
Ougarit

Colonisation, décolonisation. Rapport des anciennes colonies aux anciennes métropoles.
Le Sanglot de L'Homme Blanc

Devenir des sociétés humaines :
De la Démocratie en Amérique, tome I
De la Démocratie en Amérique, tome II

Paradoxes de la société japonaise :
Les japonais


Bande son:
Metamorphosis I, collaboration du compositeur Philip Glass et du groupe brésilien Uakti

[Tijana]

Tužni tropi su jedinstvena knjiga i svakako jedan od najvažnijih putopisa dvadesetog veka; ne zbog etnografskog materijala koji je Levi-Stros sabirao i prerađivao u drugim delima već zbog toga što ovde na mnogo pristupačniji način on opisuje i svoje iskustvo putovanja i susreta s Drugim i saznanja i spoznaje do kojih je na tom putu dospeo. A istovremeno pokazuje da ume da piše sjajno, britko i zavodljivo - i ne koristeći matematičke formule (što mi je mnogo značilo, kao nekom ko se godinama probijao kroz Mitologike).
Već od prve rečenice (a kakva je to prva rečenica!) jasno je da će ovo biti rolerkoster od knjige. I jeste. Levi-Stros ide u vremenski cik-cak i opisuje najpre malo mladost, pa malo bekstvo iz okupirane Francuske, pa tek onda putovanja iz sredine tridesetih godina koja zauzimaju najveći deo teksta. I neverovatno je kako se prividno bez šavova smenjuju i teški udarci sudbine i lirski opisi oblaka nad okeanom i sasvim prizemne i konkretne pripreme za ekspediciju. Taman kad pomislite da ste uhvatili ritam i smer pripovedanja, dobijete sasvim drugačije poglavlje koje vas povede u drugom smeru. A pošto Levi-Stros nije za džabe najuticajniji antropolog dvadesetog veka (jer je uticao na mnogo šire humanističko polje), svako malo dobijete neki uvid ili saznanje koje bi neko drugi prežvakavao kroz celu knjigu (a često i jesu) i o kome vredi razmišljati par dana pre nego što se nastavi s čitanjem. Ti uvidi se posebno zgušnjavaju u poslednjem, zaključnom delu Tužnih tropa koji ne predstavlja nekakav zaokružen zaključak, ne, nego odmah sedam ili osam raznorodnih a dalekosežnih zaključaka, što o pojedinim kulturama, što o njihovim odnosima, što o samom autoru i njegovom odnosu prema etnologiji i prema sopstvenom identitetu, a konačno i o svetskim religijama i smislu života (i opet, kakva moćna poslednja rečenica! Kako bi lako bilo da se pretvori u glup motivacioni citat, a kako je skupo plaćen put do nje!).
Konačno. Čitanje se oteglo jer je zahtevalo pauze i malo sabiranja između pojedinih delova koji su umeli baš da udare i na emocije i na intelekt. Onda postaje primetno da i u samom pripovedanju postoje pauze, prekidi, ćutanja koja može da prepozna samo neko upućeniji od mene. (Ali tako, na primer, na strani 238. Levi-Stros pomene da je njegova žena dobila gadnu infekciju oka i da su morali da je vrate u civilizaciju a čitalac se zapanji: žena? tad si bio oženjen? vodio si ženu u prašumu? Gde je bila prethodnih 237 strana? E pa, čitaoče, išli su zajedno, i ona je bila etnolog, samo su se posle razveli pa je nema u knjizi.) I to sve vuče na neko novo i šire čitanje; samo, čini mi se, šta god da uzmem posle ovoga delovaće sitno i beznačajno.

[tJacksonrichards · Rating 5 out of 5]

"Every effort to understand destroys the object studied...


in favor of another object of a different nature;


this second object requires from us a new effort...


which destroys it in favor of a third,


and so on and so forth until we reach the one lasting presence,


the point at which the distinction between meaning and the absence of meaning disappears:


the same point from which we began."

[Katie · Rating 5 out of 5]

I don't think I can say it any better than SS:
"Tristes Tropiques is one of the great books of our century. It is rigorous, subtle, and bold in thought. It is beautifully written. And, like all great books, it bears an absolutely personal stamp; it speaks with a human voice."
_______________________________________

Only forty pages in and I already sense that this will be one of the best books I've read in the last five years:

I wished I had lived in the days of real journeys, when it was still possible to see the full splendor of a spectacle that had not yet been blighted, polluted and spoiled; I wished I had not trodden that ground as myself, but as Bernier, Tavernier, or Manucci did.... In short, I have only two possibilities: either I can be like some traveller of the olden days, who was faced with a stupendous spectacle, all, or almost all, of which eluded him, or worse still, filled him with scorn and disgust; or I can be a modern traveller, chasing after the vestiges of a vanished reality. I lose on both counts,...for, while I complain of being able to glimpse no more than the shadow of the past, I may be insensitive to reality as it is taking shape at this very moment, since I have not reached the stage of development at which I would be capable of perceiving it. A few hundred years hence, in this same place, another traveler, as despairing as myself, will mourn the disappearance of what I might have seen, but failed to see. I am subject to a double infirmity: all that I perceive offends me, and I constantly reproach myself for not seeing as much as I should.

[Salma · Rating 3 out of 5]

حتى أنت يا صاحب المداريات الحزينة

ما هو التحضر و ما هو التخلف؟ من الذي يقرر و ما هو المعيار؟ ما الذي يجعل تقليدا إنسانيا متحضرا و آخر متخلفا؟هل من يوتوبيا لمجتمع بشري يكون المعيار الذي يقاس عليه؟ المجتمعات الغربية التي يروج لها في عصرنا الحاضر على أنها أكثر الأشكال تحضرا، هل حقا تختلف في مضمونها عن مجتمعات قبائل الأمازون؟ هل حقا الإنسان العصري أقل توحشا من رجل الأمازون البدائي؟ هل من فرق بين عري المجتمعين، اللهم إلا أن عري البدائيين يرافقه الخفر بعكس عري الآخرين المترافق بالإثارة؟ هل من فرق بين لامنطقية كثير من عادات و قوانين كل؟ ما الذي تختلفه عمليات "تبشيع" الأنف الحالية و نتف الحواجب عن ما يفعله رجال الأمازون من ادخال العصي بأنوفهم و نتف رموشهم لأجل الجمال "التشويهي"؟

تساؤلات و أفكار، كثيرة تقافزت في ذهني و أنأ أقرأ تأملات كلود ليفي شتراوس في الكون و الحياة و الوجود البشري، شتراوس الإثنوغرافي (و هو الذي يُعنى بالدراسة الوصفية لتقاليد و أسلوب حياة شعب ما) الذي أمضى حياته متجولا في البلاد مقتحما غياهيب الأمازون و معايشا لأكثر القبائل بدائية و بعدا، يسكب نفسه أمام القارئ في كتابه هذا مع نفحات من الشجن اللاأدري و التفكر الصوفي...0

الكتاب ليس مجرد دراسة و وصف لحيوات البدائيين الغريبة، بل هو أقرب لتأملات شاعرية صوفية ملفوفة بحزن المعرفي الذي يكتشف مدى جهله كلما تعمق في الكون... و لم يكن شتراوس غربيا متعجرفا يدرس البدائيين و يشرحهم، بل كان إنسانا يكتشف مجتمعه و يشكك في مسلمات الحضارة الغربية، عبر دراسته لمجتمعات الآخرين... ليس أفضل من الإثنوغرافي ليفهم تناقضات الطبيعة البشرية و عبثية الكثير من تصرفاتها و مدى زيف ادعائاتها كلما ادعت التقدم، أو توهمت برومانسية أن الحياة البدائية الفطرية بريئة و وردية، فالبشري أينما صنع مجتمعا يفرز نفس الأمراض الاجتماعية و إن كان بصور مختلفة...0
"فالمبايا برسوماتهم الوجهية و استعمالهم الإجهاض و وأد الأطفال يعبرون عن المقت ذاته للطبيعة. إن فن الأهالي يجهر باحتقاره للصلصال الذي خلقنا منه." 0


الكتاب يحملك لأعماق بعيدة، ليست أدغال الأمازون أكثرها عمقا، بل عوالم روح بشرية متوحدة تتفكر في هذا الكون... تماهيت مع الكتاب رغم كثرة الوصف الذي لا أستسيغه، تماهيت معه رغم الترجمة التي كرهتها و حنقت عليها لأني وجدت عسارة في ابتلاعها كونها تبقي مبنى الجملة الأجنبية كما هي، تماهيت معه و كنت أحلق رغم أني في أحيان لم أكن متأكدة أني فهمت ما أقرأ أو حتى أتفق معه فيما لو فهمت، تماهيت معه حتى نسيت أين أنا رغم أصوات القصف التي كنت أحسبها تخرج من قعر الجحيم و تشعرني بعبثية كل شيء... لكن روح شتراوس المعجونة بالحزن الشفيف و عباراته الرقيقة كانت تنساب داخلي بلطف رغم كل شيء...0

يبدأ كتابه بالعبارة التالية:0
أنا أكره الأسفار و المستكشفين، و هأنذا أتهيأ لرواية رحلاتي. و لكن كم من وقت مضى حتى أحزم أمري! خمسة عشر عاما انقضت مذ غادرت البرازيل لآخر مرة، و كثيرا ما راودتني، خلال هذه السنوات، فكرة الشروع بهذا الكتاب، لكن نوعا من الخجل و التقزز منعني في كل مرة. ماذا؟ أينبغي علي أن أقص بكل دقة تلك التفاصيل التافهة و الحوادث التي لا معنى لها؟


و ينهيه بـ
إنها فرصة سانحة، حيوية للحياة و الانطلاق، تقوم ... على الإمساك بجوهر ما كانه [أي المجتمع]، و يستمر في كونه، فيما قبل الفكر و وراء المجتمع: في تأمل بلورات معدن أجمل من كل أعمالنا الفنية: و في الأريج الأكثر علما من كتبنا الذي ينبعث من جوف زنبقة، و في غمزة العين المثقلة بالصبر و السكينة و التسامح، التي يسمح تفاهم لاإرادي بتبادلها أحيانا، مع قطة.0


فهمت حينها لماذا يوسف دراج كتب مقدمة تشعر بكلماتها تقطر حبا في الكتاب... لم أقرأ مقدمة مكتوبة بكل هذا العشق لكتاب من قبل... قد أصابه سحر الكلمات مثلي... يقول:0
مداريات حزينة كتاب نبيل، يحاور فيه المعروف المجهول، و يسائل المتوقع اللامتوقع، و يواسي الشعر العلم، و تؤانس البصيرة المعارف جميعا. كتاب عن الشعوب البائدة حيث للاختصاص مكانه، و عن الحزن الإنساني الطليق، الذي يفيض على العلوم المختصة جميعها. 0

لا أدري، ربما شتراوس قد استخدم إحدى تمائم بعض سحرة قبائل الأمازون ليجعل كلماته مسكونة بروحه المنعزلة الشجية، بحيث ما من شخص يقرأها حتى تتلبسه و تمتزج فيه...0

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حين أنهيت الكتاب و أنا مسحورة به، و أنهيت مراجعتي الحالمة هذه عنه... طفقت أبحث أكثر عما قيل عن الكتاب... لأكتشف مفاجأة أشعرتني بأن خيانة ثقافية مورست علي و بفجاجة... جعلتني أشعر بالحنق و الاستياء و الجكر الشديد... 0
فالناشر قد اقتطع مقاطعا من الفصل الأخير مبينا في الحاشية أنه من شاء أن يعرف المزيد أن يعود للنص الفرنسي فيقرأها!! و كأن واحدنا استحمل هذه الترجمة العسرة لأجل سواد عينيها، و ليس مضطرا لأنه لا يتقن اللغة! تساءلت ما يمكن أن يكون اقتطع من الكتاب و هو بمثل هذا الجمال؟ لربما اختصر بعض الوصف فقد طال الكتاب كثيرا! و لكن لم أعر الأمر اهتماما كبيرا، فلم يخطر على بالي شيء سيء... لاكتشف أن ما اقتطع هي أراء لليفي شتراوس متعجرفة و عنصرية و فجة و صادمة عن الإسلام و المسلمين لا تتناسب مع اللطف و التفاهم و التعمق الذي ساد كل اختلاف في هذا الكتاب... فالصورة الاستشراقية النمطية المسفهة لحضارتنا ظهرت بشكل فاضح في كلماته...0
أليست تلك صورة الحضارة الإسلامية التي تقرن بين لطائف نادرة جدا كقصور من الحجارة الكريمة، وعيون من ماء الورد، ومآكل مغطاة بأوراق من ذهب، وتبغ للتدخين ممزوج بهشيم الدرر، استخدمت لتغطية خشونة الأخلاق والتزمت الّذي اكتنف الفكر الأخلاقي والديني؟

هذه الديانة العظيمة لم تتأسس على بداهة الوحي وإنما على عجزها عن عقد روابط في الخارج. فأمام رفق البوذية الكوني وتشوق المسيحية إلى الحوار يتخذ التعصب الإسلامي شكلا لاشعوريا عند الذين يقرون بذنبهم، ذلك أنهم إن لم يسعوا دائما، وعلى نحو فظ، إلى حمل الغير على مشاركتهم في حقيقتهم، فإنهم مع ذلك (وهذا أخطر) غير قادرين على تحمل وجود الغير بما هو غير. فالسبيل الوحيد عندهم ليكونوا في مأمن من الشك والخزي يتمثل في إفناء الغير الذي يعتبر شاهدا على عقيدة أخرى وسلوك آخر. * 0


و لم يكن استيائي من الصورة بحد ذاتها التي قد قرأت مثلها في عشرات الكتب، بقدر استيائي من السياق الذي ظهرت فيه... فبعد كتاب طويل و مسهب مكتوب بحب و شجن و تفهم عن الثقافات المختلفة و الوجود الإنساني من قبل أوروبي استطاع أن يتحرر من مركزية مجتمعه و نزعته الاستعمارية الفوقية، فجأة تنبري من بين هذه السمفونية الطيبة نغمة نشاز يطغى صريرها الكريه على كل ما سبق، ضاربة عرض الحائط كل "المثاليات" السابقة، و كأن العرق الاستعماري الأوربي لم يطق صبرا أخيرا مع منافسه اللدود، فما كان إلا أن نزع و ظهر حين أتى دور الإسلام...0
و ما جعل استيائي مضاعفا هو الخداع الذي شعرت به قد مورس علي من قبل الناشر... فقد اتضح أنه قد اقتطع المقاطع التي من شأنها أن تغير نظرة القارئ المسلم العربي نحو الكتاب... و لا حتى أنه نبه إلى ماهية ما اقتطع... فالقارئ الذي يتوجه له الكتاب سيشعر باستياء و لن يستطيع أن يفهم مدى نبل الكتاب فيما لو رأى كيف تبدو صورته في ميزان شتراوس... فدعنا نقتطعها و دع القارئ يستمتع بهذا النبل الإنساني المثالي العظيم حول البشرية، فتتمة الصورة حول الإسلام و المسلمين ما هي إلا شيء يمكن التسامح فيه، فهو الأمر المعتاد و المألوف... 0

المقطع المترجم من مقالة: الإسلام والمسلمون من منظور كلود ليفي ستراوس، تقديم وترجمة: العادل خضر.0

[AC · Rating 5 out of 5]

Hadrian has written a nice review of this fascinating book, and I will simply refer the reader to his comments (https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...).

I add only that this is not an academic book, but a memoir and reflexion - a work that will appeal primarily to the literary reader -- a hymn to Rousseau's bon sauvage (a phrase, btw, that J.-J. never actually uses), and a nostalgic ode to the vanishing simplicity and goodness of Man...a Man, not as yet corrupted by corrosiveness of civilization.

Of course, for Lévi-Strauss, the "primitive" tribes of Brazil are not actually "pure" -- they are but the shattered remnanats of a once vibrant paleolithic culture, now living like scavengers on the margins of the industrialized world. Indeed, as the translators point out, regarding the title of this work: "The possible English versions, such as 'Sad Tropics', 'The Sadness of the Tropics', 'Tragic Tropics', etc. do not quite correspond either in meaning or in implication to 'Tristes Tropiques', which is at once ironical and poetic, because of the alliteration, the taut rhythm ( - u u - u ), and the suggestion of 'Alas, for the Tropics!'"

It is this last that most of often infuses this charming and rambling book.

[Petre · Rating 4 out of 5]

Nice combination of travel memoir, anthropology and confession.

[Ratko · Rating 5 out of 5]

Тешко би било жанровски одредити ову књигу. Мало путопис, мало мемоари, антрополошко-етнолошка студија, есеј, све је то стало овде и – одлично је! Уосталом, зашто би нешто и морало да има жанровску етикету.
Леви-Строс као млади, тек свршени, етнолог одлази у Бразил како би проучавао „дивља“ племена и домороце амазонске прашуме. Схватиће убрзо да су од племена остали само малобројни припадници, сатирани годинама лошим условима живота, али пре свега истребљени у додиру са народима Европе који су им „доносили цивилизацију“. Педантно бележи све што се око њега дешава, проучава хијерархију односа, структуру насеобина, систем веровања итд, све оно што се и очекује од једног етнолога. Али, исписујући све то, он говори и о нама, „цивилизованим“ народима; веома је интересантно видети да се живот „дивљака“ суштински не разликује од живота било ког људског створења. Леви-Строс је, дакле, проницљиви посматрач, а успут и одличан путописац, каткад веома духовит. Јако занимљиво искуство.
И да, прва реченица је апсолутно М А Е С Т Р А Л Н А.

[Anna Carina · Rating 5 out of 5]

Ein außerordentliches Buch, das sich für mich wie ein Krimi des Geistes las.
Levi Strauss denkt gegen sich selbst - seine strukturalistische Analyse, das System auf dem er sein Denken begründet kämpft verzweifelt mit dem was er vorfindet und dem welche Räume seine poetische bewegende Sprache öffnen.

Er glaubt an wiederkehrende Muster, an eine Ordnung die ordnet - eine Struktur, die nicht nur Beschreibung ist, sondern auch die Prinzipien festlegt, nach denen Gesellschaften sich formen. Er glaubt an Struktur als universelles Merkmal. Er glaubt an eine gewisse Objektivität die außerhalb kultureller und sozialer Mechanismen existieren könnte und gerät in ein furchtbares Paradox.
Wenn er sagt, dass „jede menschliche Gesellschaft unter den ihr offenstehenden Möglichkeiten eine bestimmte Wahl getroffen hat“, dann klingt das so, als gäbe es eine kollektive Entscheidungsinstanz, die aktiv und bewusst agiert. Kontingenz scheint ihm fremd zu sein.

Er gelangt zum äußersten Punkt der Wildheit, um festzustellen, sie ist zu Wild um sie über den Strukturalismus analysieren zu können. Ein Volk das fragil, immer kurz vor der Auflösung im Imaginären lebt. Kriegerisch. Unverständlich.
Die Welt die er erforscht entzieht sich immer wieder seiner Ordnung.

Doch statt mir eine neue Welt zu eröffnen, Gab mir mein abenteuerliches Leben Ein seltsames Paradox- ehr die Alte zurück, Während mir jene andere, Der ich nachgestrebt hatte, Zwischen den Fingern zerrann, In dem Maße, in dem die Menschen und Landschaften, Die zu erobern ich ausgezogen war, Die erhoffte Bedeutung verloren, Sobald ich sie vor mir sah, Traten an die Stelle dieser enttäuschenden, Wie auch immer präsenten Bilder, Andere, die meine Vergangenheit vorrätig hielt, Denen ich keinerlei Wert beigemessen hatte, Solange sie noch zu der Realität gehörten, Die mich umgab.

Auf den letzten 30 Seiten zerbricht etwas in ihm. Sein Strukturalismus zerbricht an seiner eigenen Erkenntnis: dass alles, was er beschreibt, letztlich nur Entropie produziert.

[Raquel · Rating 5 out of 5]

A obra de Lévi-Strauss é uma preciosa pedra de roseta da nossa civilização. A escrita é transparente e leve, a viagem com o autor é inevitável!
É engraçado que o homem que dizia detestar "as viagens e os exploradores" fosse capaz de proporcionar-nos tais viagens com a sua escrita.

Este livro é um importante documento histórico que une palavras e umas magníficas fotografias tiradas pelo seu autor. Este livro não fala só do Homem visto pelo antropólogo ( esse Homem que no passado era catalogado como nada mais do que um macaquinho feio e pretensioso) mas a visão clara e generosa do estudioso que estudou o Homem por dentro.

É um livro que nos enobrece e que encerra um maravilhoso património histórico. Uma viagem pelo Brasil indígena e por um modo de vida que ainda pode fazer sentido.

❤

"O mundo começou sem o Homem e acabará sem ele."

[Quân Khuê · Rating 5 out of 5]

Một cuốn sách du hành - khảo cứu nhưng lại được viết bằng những câu văn thuộc hàng đẹp nhất mà một nhà văn thực sự có thể viết ra được. Một cuốn sách có thể đọc để hiểu biết về những xã hội khác nhưng cũng có thể đơn giản đọc để thưởng văn.

[Emma Roulette · Rating 5 out of 5]

Ok so let me first say, for a book that starts with the line “I hate travelling and explorers,” Tristes Tropiques gave me this intense, restless urge to travel, to see everything that’s mentioned: the 365 churches of Bahia, the slopes of the Corcovado, Jehangir’s tomb in Lahore, the Taj Mahal, the markets of Calcutta, New Delhi, Karachi, Dacca; the Pantanal, the largest swamp in the world. An urge to learn as much as I can about the creation myths of every culture in the world, their beliefs about the afterlife, their music, their food, their concepts of value and exchange, their languages, their ways of adapting (to) the environment, etc.

But even though this urge is real (I feel it so concretely, and I’m sure Levi-Strauss did too), one of the main themes of Tristes Tropiques is a skepticism towards the value of travel, in all forms. Anthropology is one of those forms. Why do we travel, why do we want to learn about other cultures more than our own?

So Levi-Strauss sets out on his mission to find humans at their most basal state. He thinks that if he can find a group of people that has never made contact with Western culture, he can find the ~~secrets underlying human nature~~ and maybe develop some sort of universal theory. But I think it is a grand error to see the Nambikwara, for example, as an example of the most elementary social structure. How could it be “elementary” if they have their own independently developed language, system of myths, rituals, taboos, etc. that have gone through thousands of years of evolution just like any other culture we see today? It just seems elementary because it is adapted for something different, their evolution was oriented toward goals very different from those of the west.

Over and over again, throughout his journey to the interior of Brazil, Levi-Strauss laments not being able to access “real” culture, but rather one that was already “tainted” by Western influence. The places he visits only carry “vestiges of a vanished reality”. But is this not reality itself? What makes one place more real than another? Sometimes reality isn’t as exotic as you thought it might be. This doesn’t make it any less real, but maybe it makes it less valuable to you according to your expectations. “I wished I had lived in the days of real journeys,” he says, “When it was possible to see the full splendour of a spectacle that had not yet been blighted, polluted, and spoilt.” I mean, I do too. It sucks that these cultures are disappearing so that I can’t enjoy them in all their authentic, different-than-me glory. But is every “other” really just another “spectacle”? Is anthropology just another form of tourism? “When was the best time to see India?” Levi-Strauss asks, as if it is the aurora borealis or the dolphin show at SeaWorld.

He sees travelling to these pristine places as a form of “escapism” (from what? The unreality of the west?). Unfortunately for him, he is disappointed everywhere he goes. Polynesia is covered in concrete, Sao Paolo looks like a movie set, the Taj Mahal is full of British newlyweds on their honeymoons, shanty-towns have spread across Africa..... wah :-( He laments this cultural loss because now nothing is left for him to take (in the form of anthropological study). He never laments the sociopolitical conditions that forced people to live in these ”monocultures” in the first place! Sometimes not even the most basic needs are met, and people are dying from hunger and all sorts of diseases. But hey I guess that’s not his job to be political, he’s supposed to be an ~Objective Observer~.

Here is the crux: anthropologists are trained to be objective towards the cultures that they study, yet it’s perfectly acceptable to be subjective about one’s own culture. They’re trained to look at cannibalism, pestilence, etc. as objective features of a particular society without making any value judgement. But why should we be objective about these things, if people are suffering? I’m not saying that I have a one-size-fits all solution that is applicable to every case, nor should we impose a particular western ideal of wellbeing onto other cultures. But why are some cultures OK to criticize and others no?

Levi-Strauss takes a stand on this question:

“The society we belong to is the only society we are in a position to transform without any risk of destroying it, since the changes, introduced by us, are coming from within the society itself,”

But idk about this at all! First of all, it maintains the assumption that societies are these discrete, immutable units, and furthermore that individuals only ever belong to one society. Finally, it assumes that transforming a culture is destroying it, and that this is a risk which must be avoided. But culture is not a static thing, it is always in a process of change. So what makes one culture better than another? I think this is the Unanswerable Question, because anyone answering it will always already be imbued with a particular social background. Also, is there any inherent value in preserving the traditions, authenticity, or “reality” of a culture in the face of constant change? For the western anthropologist, yes. But for the individuals belonging to the constantly shifting cultures themselves??

This throws Levi-Strauss into an existential hole in the final chapters:

“Why did I come here? Was it a trick on my part, a clever diversion, which would allow me to resume my career with additional advantages for which I would be given credit? Or did my decision express a deep-seated incompatibility with my social setting so that, whatever happened, I would inevitably live in a state of ever greater estrangement from it?... The value that the anthropologist attaches to foreign societies has no independent foundation; it is a function of his disdain for the customs prevailing in his native setting.”

~~~

Anyways, I’m giving this book 5 stars, because:
- Even though there are lots of things I disagree with, that disagreement is productive
- Levi-Strauss writes beautifully. Tristes Tropiques is much more like literary nonfiction than “legit anthropology”, whatever that is. He has a profound appreciation of the sublime, making detailed observations about mountains, jungles, plant ecosystems, etc, some passages reminiscent of the final chapter of Darwin’s Origin of Species. He even has a whole chapter just about sunsets and their characteristics. Levi-Strauss really just makes me want to learn and experience as much as I can before I die.

[Bezimena knjizevna zadruga · Rating 5 out of 5]

Pre nego zađete u brazilsku amazoniju, pre nego otvorite vrata do tada netaknutih preostalih domorodačkih plemena i njihovih poluarhaičnih običaja, umetnosti i svakodnevice, autor će vam postepeno isisavati površnost kojom ste možda pristupili čitanju, bacajući vas širokim pojasom tropskog arhipelaga, iz američkog ka jugoazijskom, iznenadno, usred poglavlja, povezujući društvene i istorijske okolnosti naizgled nedodirljive i nepovezive, stvarajući čitav koncept života u tropima a duž obala Pacifika. Autor će vas naterati da se uključite, bez obzira na predznanja, postepeno vam otvarajući oči nenaviknute na dubine, nenaviknute na smisao van vizuelnih prikaza i slikovitih predela, autor će vam prezreti i na smetlište baciti onu najčešću popularnu putopisnu knjževnost, na kraju ćete shvatiti sa koliko samopouzdanja, razloga i topline će to učiniti. Autor će vam ponuditi viziju sveta iz ugla vrhunskog etnografa, naučnika i pustolova. Autor će vam dati više nego što ste mogli i pomisliti.


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[Tuấn Lalarme]

Không muốn bước chân vào lĩnh vực dân tộc học, nhân chủng học, tôi chỉ tình cờ nhìn thấy quyển sách này trên một hiệu sách ở Nguyễn Xí khi đang đi cùng một cô gái những ngày trước khi tôi đi du học. Cô ấy muốn tặng tôi một quyển sách, và tôi chọn quyển này, có lẽ vì cái tên của nó, gợi đến xứ ở Việt Nam quê hương mình, cũng có thể vì tác giả của nó, một nhà dân tộc học rất nổi tiếng mà trong những năm tháng học tiếng Pháp tôi đã được biết đến tên ông. Đôi khi ta tiệm cận 1 quyển sách cũng chỉ vì duyên mệnh, hơn là vì ta đã lựa chọn và để ý đến từ trước. Tôi mang nó sang Pháp để đọc, để quý trọng một món quà, và để nhớ về đất nước mình. Vậy mà tôi làm mất. Thật tệ, tôi đã vật vã nghĩ về nó trong suốt những ngày tháng tôi không thể tìm thấy nó ở đâu, tôi hỏi người này người kia, lên cả diễn đàn để hỏi xem nó thất lạc đâu đó hay không, nhưng không có một tín hiệu gì khả dĩ giúp tôi tìm lại. Tôi buồn. Ôn đới buồn, chắc vậy. Và rồi, lại vẫn là cái duyên, một cảm mến, yêu hay chưa yêu, có rất nhiều tình cảm với một cô gái. Cô ấy lại hỏi tôi thích gì, tôi lại nói em có thể tìm mua cho anh Nhiệt Đới Buồn không, và tôi kể câu chuyển tôi đã kể với các bạn ở trên. Vậy là cô ấy mua cho tôi, gửi cho tôi, với tất cả sự yêu thương, và cả một nỗi buồn lớn lao vì ngay sau đó chúng tôi chia tay nhau. Như thể số mệnh bắt tôi gắn chặt với quyển sách này bằng những nỗi buồn của kiếp sống vốn không bao giờ có quá nhiều niềm vui đối với tôi. Tôi nhớ cô ấy mỗi khi tôi cầm quyển sách và đọc. Nhưng tôi chẳng bao giờ dám nói gì, tôi chỉ nghĩ, tôi sẽ trân trọng quyển sách này, như trân trọng một cô gái đã yêu tôi hết mực, và tôi, chỉ là kẻ viễn du vào những miền đất của chính tâm trí mình, mà bỏ lại sau lưng những mối tình cảm không thể nào quên.

"Tôi vốn ghét các chuyến viễn du và những nhà thám hiểm" - Levis đã bắt đầu quyển sách như vậy. Một câu nói quá nổi tiếng đến nỗi ai khi bắt đầu đọc đều nhập tâm nó như một định hướng để bám vào khi đi tiếp cùng Levis Strauss trong cuộc hành trình của ông đến Tân Thế Giới, gặp gỡ con ngừoi khác, dân tộc khác, khảo cứu và kể chuyện. Quyển sách là sự giản dị và chân thành, một dạng kể chuyện đưa người ta vào miền viễn du nơi mà ta không có khả năng đến nhưng có thể hình dung như thể chính mắt mình nhìn thấy, và qua đó, ta cũng biết được cách Levis tiếp cận vấn đề để nghiên cứu về dân tộc học, điều mà cả quyển sách này muốn nói đến.

Tôi cũng ghét những thể loại sách du kí, nó hời hợt và nông cạn, nó không đủ khả năng chạm sâu vào cốt lõi của một vùng đất, nó chỉ là hình thức kể chuyện thuần tuý, mà ta đều có thể tìm thấy trên google. Nó không phải kiểu dạng như một anh chàng lang thang và thả hồn mình để hồn mình quyện vào hồn thành phố, và nghe thấy trái tim của nó thở, trái tim của con người, vùng đất và sự sâu kín ẩn giấu bên dưới mà đôi mắt không đủ sức khám phá. Trước khi đi Pháp, một người anh đã nói với tôi rằng, em chịu khó sống cùng người Pháp để sau này có thể viết một tác phẩm gì đó thật sâu sắc về những gì em đã đi qua. Nhưng tôi nghĩ, tôi không cảm nhận như vậy được, tôi vốn ghét sách du kí, tôi cũng không nghĩ tôi nên kể cuộc sống của tôi ở đây thế nào, đôi khi nó tẻ ngắt và nhàm chán. Nhưng Ôn Đới Buồn, buồn thiệt cho những kẻ tha hương. Và như xứ sở Nhiệt Đới buồn bã mà Levis đã trải qua một mình ở đó, tôi muốn và thích viết về nỗi buồn, như một khảo cứu về những tâm trí lạc loài, xa xứ, nông nổi và bất an như tôi.

Mylalarme.

[Andrew]

I can't say I'm a fan of Levi-Strauss' anthropological theory, by and large. I find it to be generalistic and, while it makes broad claims about innate human nature, it provides no scientific data to back these claims up. I do like his idea of bricolage, though, and it's the bricolage that really shines through.

This is because Tristes Tropiques, is, far more than an anthropological work, a memoir, dealing with a flight from the Third Reich takeover of France, the twilight of tribal society in '50s Brazil, and the general feelings of guilt and uncertainty that plague the work of the field anthropologist. It would be a great story regardless, but in addition, Levi-Strauss is a phenomenal storyteller-- self-deprecating, lyrical, passionate, and keenly observant. I daresay it's one of the most moving memoirs I've ever read.

[Nathan · Rating 5 out of 5]

I have been trying to get through this book for probably at least a year now, though I'm not sure. I finally finished it two days ago. I know I'm sometimes prone to fits of enthusiasm and I might change my mind about this, but I think it's one of the greatest things I've ever read. Lévi-Strauss was clearly an extraordinary thinker, extremely well-read, restless, creative, morally sensitive, funny, and painfully self-aware. The final chapter, in which he begins musing over the moral implications of his work and of what he's learned over the course of his career up to then, is staggering. Ultimately Lévi-Strauss understands that he is engaged in a quixotic enterprise, a sort of search for the fundamental meaning of humanness, which he believes is to be found in understanding how people relate to one another and to their world. But the book also has this kind of surreal quality -- he meditates not just on the social interactions of the dying tribes he encounters, but on the shapes of clouds, the taste of food, his own inability to ride a mule, academic politics, ancient Central Asian art, and so forth. He liberally mixes his memories -- even talking from time to time about his own childhood -- with his observations of South America. He never lets the reader forget the material and cultural devastation thoughtlessly wrought on these cultures by the encroachment of the West, and yet he manages somehow to maintain hope that human societies can someday learn to make better choices in a conscious and moral way. It's quite inspiring.

[icaro · Rating 4 out of 5]

Ogni tanto sento il bisogno di rileggerlo... Un viaggio struggente dentro culture e civiltà perdute osservate con amore, partecipazione e grandissima letteratura

[Joana · Rating 4 out of 5]

Este é um daqueles livros que nos engana pela sua complexidade. Apesar de ter colocado este livro na "gaveta da literatura de Viagem" é muito mais que isso.
Lévi-Strauss é um antropólogo francês que nos desconstrói completamente não só o estereótipo do antropólogo, como nos deflaciona a noção de viagem. Existem a meu ver, três questões fundamentais neste livro:
(1) O ódio de viajar;
(2) A ideia de Viajar como um regresso;
(3) E o que é a antropologia para o nosso autor (e por isso, o conhecimento antropológico)

Nunca tive a oportunidade de realizar muitas viagens e, por isso, acho sempre que estou a perder uma fracção importante de conhecimento. Talvez porque cresci num mundo globalizado onde existe a crença que quando se viaja aprende-se algo novo, não só sobre os sítios que se visita, como sobre nós próprios. O engraçado e curioso é que este é o terceiro livro que me parece dizer que estas "fantasias" que tenho não passam disso mesmo. Que compreender um objecto, um local, uma tribo é destruí-los (Perspectiva totalmente Lévi-Straussiana) apenas porque está sempre tudo num processo de queda, de mudança. Que é impossível viajar numa "altura certa", que viajar não nos ensina nada de novo (só confirma aquilo que somos e já sabemos) e que no máximo, aprendemos é sobre o sítio de onde saímos. Então viajar é tão simples como regressarmos ao sítio que nos é fundamental. Que a chegada faz-se a "casa".

Um livro profundamente melancólico que começa da forma mais anti-climática de sempre: "I hate travelling and explorers. Yet here I am proposing to tell the story of my expeditions.". Porém é um livro estupendo, bem estruturado, irónico, reflexivo e interessante (que possui, pelo menos esta edição, umas fotografias lindíssimas).

[arda · Rating 5 out of 5]

Antropoloji çalışması falan değil düpedüz edebi şaheser.

Sen yaban hayatta iktidarın izini sürüyorsun, insanın yeryüzüyle kurduğu en ilkel bağı arıyorsun ama biraz daha uğraşsan Proust olacakmışsın, Rilke olacakmışsın Strauss.

[Amy · Rating 2 out of 5]

I really struggled with this one. I was both completely repulsed by his constant patronizing, colonialist, racist and sexist attitude about everything and utterly fascinated by his ethnographies and experiences. I often felt sick to my stomach reading his commentary littered with condescending commentary and insults. I know, I know, this was written in the 50’s and he did his work in the 30’s onward but wowzie I both can’t and absolutely can believe this guy is the grandfather of anthropology. So grateful for all the work folks (primarily from the Global South) have done over the last 70 years to undue all of the damage done by guys like this. I read a very old edition so have no idea if recent editions give trigger warnings or try to explain how messed up his writing is in a post colonialist/post structural world.

[Martin · Rating 5 out of 5]

Obwohl klar war, dass dieses Buch, da in meiner Bibliothek, irgendwann gelesen werden wird, so war der akute Anlass es jetzt zu tun das Sammeln von Zitaten über Feldforschung für ein Projekt. Und obwohl ich nicht unbedingt an Ethnologie im engeren Sinne (also Begebenheiten von indigenen Völkern) interessiert war, so war das Buch dennoch ein außerordentlich und überraschender Genuss. Man sieht wieder, was für Vorteile es hat, wenn man grundsätzlich ohne Erwartungen durchs Leben geht :-)

Obwohl der Kern des Buches ein ethnologischer Bericht über vier indigene Stämme (von Völkern konnte man bereits in den 1930er Jahren nicht mehr sprechen, als Lévi-Strauss die Reisen unternahm) in Brasilien — den Caduveo, den Bororo, den Namikwara und den Tupi-Kawahib —ist, so ist das Buch doch viel mehr als dass. Neben autobiographischen Details und zahlreichen historischen Anekdoten über die Reise nach Brasilien geht der Autor detailliert auf die Reisestrapazen, die Vorbereitungen, das Reisen im Land und die zahlreichen Veränderungen und Modernisierungen in Brasilien, etwa in Rio de Janeiro, ein. Daneben gibt es auch Erinnerungen an vergleichbare Reisen nach Südostasien — Indien, Kashmir, Burma —, die interessante Vergleiche, aber auch Ähnlichkeiten zu Tage bringen. Immer wieder reflektiert Lévi-Strauss hochinteressant über Gesellschaften nicht nur in Brasilien, sondern in ganz Amerika (inkl. den „alterslosen“ US-amerikanischen Städten), und neben Einblicken in sein Verständnis von der Ethnologie und dem Leben des Ethnologen plädiert er immer wieder für ein Ende des Herabsehen des Westens auf andere Teile der Welt und deren Gesellschaften. In gewisser Weise reiht er sich so in eine Tradition ein, die später mit Edward Said einen gewichtigen Fürsprecher finden wird.

Ich bin wirklich sehr positiv überrascht von der Dichte und den zahlreichen Facetten dieses Buches. Erwartet habe ich mir (für mich) langweilige Beschreibungen indigener Völker (die dann im Buch vorhanden ganz und gar nicht langweilig waren). Bekommen habe ich Einblicke in die französische Gesellschaft, in das Reisen in der ersten Hälfte des 20. Jahrhunderts, in Entbehrungen, denen zahlreiche Menschen damals noch ausgesetzt waren, aber auch in eine teils wunderbar unberührte Natur (die bereits damals stark im Schrumpfen war), in zahlreiche exotische Geschichten über Glücksritter, vor allem aber die Tatsache, dass „Zivilisation“ nicht unbedingt etwas mit westlichem Fortschritt zu tun haben muss. „Zivilisation“ kann auch bedeuten, ohne Schrift und in Stammesform mehrere Jahrtausende als Gemeinschaft in einer sich rasch wandelnden Welt zu überleben.

Und so bleibt man am Ende doppelt traurig zurück. Einerseits traurig darüber, dass dieses Buch heute wie eine Erinnerung an eine vergangene Welt anmutet, in der die beschriebenen Eingeborenen weltweit nahezu komplett vom „weißen Mann“ ihres Lebensraumes beraubt und ausgerottet wurden. Traurig aber vor allem auch mit Lévi-Strauss, der mitansehen musste, wie bereits zu seiner Zeit die Mühlen der Zeit gnadenlos arbeiteten und die Anzahl der Eingeborenen innerhalb kürzester Zeit bereits damals im Schwinden war. Lévi-Strauss selbst berichtet in dem Buch von den zahlreichen Erkrankungen, denen die Einheimischen ausgesetzt waren und die nur mehr in geringer Anzahl am Leben waren.

Abschließend erscheint es wie eine Ironie des Schicksals, dass Lévi-Strauss gegen Ende seiner zweiten Brasilienreise, als er am Verlassen der letzten Überlebenden der im Buch vorgestellten Einheimischen ist, eine vier Monate alte Zeitung in die Hände fällt, die endgültig beweist, dass der „weiße Mann“ nicht zivilisierter ist als die eingeborenen „Wilden“. Inhalt der Zeitung: Das Münchener Abkommen und die Mobilmachung.

[anchi · Rating 4 out of 5]

不懂人類學和李維史托，好像也沒什關係，因為比起一本闡述自己思想的作品，《憂鬱的熱帶》也是一本出色的遊記，裡面記錄了李維史陀在南美洲原始部落及亞洲的所見所聞、以及旅程中他身為旅行者的反思。雖然書裡的字句偶爾帶著點歧視，但對於一本來自於20世紀的旅行文學來說，所達的境界可以說是經典之作。

在書的前半部反思裡，作者引了法國哲學家夏多布里昂的一句話，「每一個人，身上都繫著一個世界，由他所見過、愛過的一切所組成的世界，即使他看來是在另一個不同的世界裡旅行、生活，他仍然不停地回到與他相繫的那個時間去。」這句話就像是一整本書最佳的註解，也是我很同意的一句話。

這本書看下來，讓我記憶深刻的絕對是李維史陀深入部落與他們長期生活的觀察紀錄，也許我們就像作者一樣用著自己的有色眼光去看他們，但這種增廣見聞的途徑也是不無可取。比起單純的紀錄旅行，身為人類學家的李維史陀也適度的反思，字裡行句之間也能看見他引用諸多學界前輩的思想，如果不能了解，試著去探索這龐大的思想也是種樂趣。

其實，把這本書看完可以說是我的一種小成就吧，再加上沒有電子書的關係，常常只能在書桌前細細品嘗，這大概也是看這本書的一大樂趣。最後，想把這本書推薦給喜歡旅行文學，尤其是南美原住民的書寫的讀者，當然，若是你本身對人類學有興趣，這絕對是書架上必備的作品之一。

[Pierre E. Loignon · Rating 5 out of 5]

Écrit magistralement à la jonction de la littérature, de l'autobiographie, de la science et de la philosophie, ce livre compte parmi ceux que j'ai le plus apprécié.

Lévi-Strauss, c’est le type idéal de l’intellectuel écrivain du XXe siècle, dont le discours englobe en virtuose la philosophie, l’art et la science. Ce sera par le biais de l’anthropologie, science encore toute neuve qui demandait à être, et en empruntant de manière heuristique la notion de structure à la linguistique, que ce philosophe de formation exprimera son formidable talent d’expression.

Sont-ils tristes, ces « tropiques » (c’est-à-dire ces tribus encore plus ou moins qualifiables de « sauvages » à l’époque des débuts de l’anthropologie)? Pas vraiment, ou plutôt pas particulièrement plus que n’importe qu’elle autre réalité humaine. Ceci dit, le regard de Lévi-Strauss, à la fois aisément reconnaissable comme agencement de différentes influences de la civilisation occidentale (Rousseau, Marx, Saussure, Céline,…), et absolument unique en son agencement, leur donne une couleur délicatement idéalisée, propice aux reflets d’une fine mélancolie.

[Mark David · Rating 5 out of 5]

Rather an important book. "A seeming gallimaufry" of anthropological excursions (delightfully short of the appallingly academic), memoirs, travel writing, philosophies, lyrical passages, eccentric digressions; all mixed together in a fine and meaty stew -- if sometimes a bit overcooked. The discussion of cultural relativism was intriguing as Levi-Strauss seems to take issue with the most extreme expressions that this has followed. The final chapters are oddly problematic -- they attempt to be simultaneously critical theory and a kind of Buddhist-nihilism that wants to transcend the nothingness of a world without meaning.

[Tosh · Rating 5 out of 5]

A classic work or book by Claude Levi-Strauss, one of the leading guys who studied other guys from other cultures. This book is about guys from Brazil. But really he's a master and a wonderful writer. A travel writer of sorts who is really smart. Dig?

[Duaa Issa · Rating 4 out of 5]

يلي صار معو برحلتو ما بقل أهمية عن المعلومات يلي جمعها..
وقراءتي للكتاب كانت بس بهدف التزكيز على فكرة الجسد.. فما اهتميت كتير للحكي عن الثقافة أو المجتمعات إلا تحت إطار الجسد..

[Gary Bruff · Rating 5 out of 5]

Opening line of the book: “Je hais les voyages et les explorateurs.”

Yet who doesn’t hate traveling and explorers? I mean REALLY. Especially when traveling and exploring, don’t you hate having other travelers and explorers around? They give the lie to the idea that our experiences out there (wherever) are in some sense unique or timeless or sublime. In Tristes Tropiques, arguably Lévi-Strauss’ best book, the author spans oceans, treks through savage scrubland, and ascends Amazonian tributaries that had not yet found their way onto any map. Lévi-Strauss takes us along on these journeys so we can witness how an anthropologist (and his seldom mentioned crew) might survive incredibly treacherous encounters through well-honed powers of perception, through an acumen into the philosophy of nearly everything, and oftentimes simply by raw chance. While definitely a traveler and explorer, Lévi-Strauss is not a tourist, and Tristes Tropiques is not in any way a vulgar travel memoir about savages. His interleaving of narrative and analysis seemingly projects a shrewd realism combined with uncanny discernments of those universal and ideal phenomena hidden away somewhere within each culture/civilization. Lévi-Strauss always had a mastery of language which seemed to transcend the rather porous frontier between English and French. He did not spew jargon; he constructed beautifully articulated arguments. These arguments all appear to justify a feeling that savages are not as bad as the missionaries say they are, and more importantly that we of the West are not as high and mighty as we generally so arrogantly assume ourselves to be.

In my opinion, Tristes Tropiques is all about the practice of responsible anthropology. For an anthropology to be responsible, the practicing anthropologist must seek to protect and extend the progressive enlightenment’s wisdom about how humans have been, are now, and will continue to be. In our current sad age, we must be mindful that challenges to the legitimacy of anthropology serve to upend the liberal traditions of racial tolerance and gendered understanding. Without responsible anthropologists like Franz Boas and Margeret Mead, the civil rights movement and feminism would have looked elsewhere for their scientific credentials, possibly without success. In this age of Trumpism, all sciences are delegitimated whenever deligitimation is convenient or profitable, that is to say whenever it favors the neo-fascist agenda of the small minded, the selfish, and the parochial. So it is important to appreciate how Lévi-Strauss never once abandons or forsakes the scientific ethos of the anthropological tradition. For this reason, Lévi-Strauss ranks to my thinking as a supremely responsible anthropologist. Even when at his most reflexive, that is, even when he is busy observing himself observing others, he still regards his mission among the savages as a voyage of empirical discovery. Lévi-Strauss hopes to move his reading public from the darkness of prejudice into the light of tolerance, acceptance, even love. He tirelessly pursues improvement in his readership’s ethnological understanding. Unlike the USA-based missionaries (who come under heavy criticism in Tristes Tropiques), this anthropologist practices what he preaches: we see Lévi-Strauss respectfully and tactfully bridging the seemingly bottomless void between ourselves and our savage contemporaries. Lévi-Strauss’ literary charms ensure that our sympathies are with this anthropologist and also with these ethnographic subjects. Lévi-Strauss does not trek into the dangerous unknown in order to guarantee his salvation, but rather to validate his very humanity.

This long work unfolds rather slowly, very much in mimicry of the long days aboard ship during Lévi-Strauss’s several transatlantic voyages. While aboard ship, far from the human wilderness he would eventually attempt to dissolve himself into, Lévi-Strauss narrates beautiful sunsets. He narrates desperate Jewish refugees suffering by the hundreds in the hold of a steamship as they flee from France and the Nazis. He narrates the gradual transformations of clouds into… different clouds. He narrates the doldrums, a place of stillness in the places where the trade winds in the Atlantic cancel each other out. He even narrates the relative merits of Debussy and Chopin. There is a thread of sadness in these narratives, for Lévi-Strauss many times uses his vibrant linguistic palate to paint a weird picture of a Western Civilization that was in crucial ways breaking down and coming apart. This body of observations in a strange way prepares the reader for the tribes we are to meet next.

As in Josef Conrad’s Heart of Darkness and also as in the film Apocalypse Now, Lévi-Strauss takes a slow voyage into a savage interior, his reflections becoming more profound as his sense of personal danger and isolation grows. After he had found terra firma in Brazil and had begun his journey into the wilds, Lévi-Strauss meets up with the fairly Westernized Caduveo, who nevertheless paint their faces with intricate geometrical but asymmetric patterns. Deeper into the interior of Brazil, stepping onto the Mato Grosso, we come to a place where dwell the Bororo, a tribe of folks who live in a kind of strucuralist harmony with themselves. The Bororo village is circular, which each moiety occupying one half of the circle. Since the Bororo are a matrilocal and matrilineal society, it is the Bororo men who move from the family of their mother and sisters to the family of their wife on the opposite side of the village circle. Between these domestic worlds lies a mediation, the mens’ house in the center of the village, where women are generally forbidden to go. Lévi-Strauss observes how the men in fact conspire to assert a male dominance in this matrilineal society. During funeral rituals, they disguise themselves as the returning spirits of the dead, thereby frightening the women and children. Although Lévi-Strauss evaluates this fear and false consciousness as lying somewhere between on the one hand a child’s innocent belief in Santa Claus (how could the grown women not know that the spirits were just their men?) and on the other hand an outright hoax meant to reinforce gender inequality. But Lévi-Strauss’s presentation of how the Bororo clan and moiety system relates to the life cycles of both men and women is elegant and dignified.

Deeper into the scrub, Lévi-Strauss meets up with the naked Nambikwara. Unlike the more westernized Caduveos and just as unlike the more numerous, more sedentary, and better organized Bororo, the Nambikwara seemed to fulfill Lévi-Strauss’s expectations of what being primitive is all about. This band of Nambikwara had recently killed missionaries, but Lévi-Strauss somehow made it clear to the natives that in this case he was on the other team, that he had no desire to proselytize and immobilize them, and that he would cast his lot with this band should they help him contact another nomadic group, one previously uncontacted by white people. While fearful of the Nambikwara’s notouriously unpredictable sentiments, whereby a slight faux pas could result in death for him or his team, Lévi-Strauss managed to live with these folks for several months, in which time he learned enough of their language to be able to comprehend many secrets of their private lives. It’s hard for the reader to see how the Nambikwara survive without privacy in our sense: no walls, no clothes, no blankets, no problem. Lévi-Strauss conveys through his narative a real joie de vivre on the part of the natives. A Nambikwara proverb, which Lévi-Strauss translates as ‘making love is nice’ must have been titillating to the typical 1950’s reader, but today sounds like common sense. Although life is by no means easy for the Nambikwara, Lévi-Strauss explicates how this people, with minimal possessions and no permanent homes to retreat to, do much more than merely survive. The Nambikwara live in a seemingly Edenic state: self-reliant, affectionate, democratic, socialist. Here are the savages that Hobbes never saw, whose lives are not solitary, are not brutish, are only a bit nasty, but are certainly expected to be short.

The final tribe we encounter is the Tupi-Kawahib, comprising by the time Lévi-Strauss got there just a small band of refugees. Although as ‘uncivilized’ as the Nambikwara, these people took good care of the members of the band who had been crippled by polio. But is is clear that the Tupi-Kawahib are at the end of their road, having been decimated by foreign diseases and forced out of their native territory by frontier lawlessness and genocidal violence. The truth is, as Lévi-Strauss only lightly touches upon, all four of the tribes encountered had undergone a similar attrition in numbers through germs and guns. But the Tupi-Kawahib were headed for the towns, away from the jungle, and so were en route to their tribe’s extinction as a distinct ethnolinguistic group. And this is the end of the road for Lévi-Strauss as well, who withdraws and retreats into the clothes, blankets, and buildings of modernity.

Tristes Tropiques provides much more than a cursury ethnographic study of four Brazilian tribes. The work also makes substantial contributions both to the art of ethnography and to the theory of culture. As an ethnographic artist, Lévi-Strauss might have been the first to make the explicit comparison between the fieldworker and the Native American brave on a vision quest, out in an unknown and inhospitable wilderness. While still a young man, Lévi-Strauss underwent his vision quest, compiling candid photographs and vivid descriptions of other worlds, betwixt and between his life as a student explorer and his life as a mature, initiated anthropologist. Some of the passages that bring out this liminality include romantic ruminations about being incapable of discerning the present reality while only seeing vestiges of a past which is unattainable. Lévi-Strauss was a sensitive investigator, but he was not above feeling shock or dismay at what he saw. He displayed enough honesty to convey his shortcomings as a cultural relativist. As part of his vision quest, his initiation, Lévi-Strauss felt culture shock, ethnocentrism, even racism, yet in the long run never yielded to the temptation to disrespect or denigrate his hosts in the field.

One of the most famous chapters in this work is The Writing Lesson. The Nambikwara chief, whose people had never seen writing or even drawing before, seized on the purpose of writing without understanding how writing as a system works. The chief drew wavy horizontal lines and then pretended to read these lines as a way of dictating how the anthropologist’s goodies would be distributed to the Nambikwara. Here we see an exciting reversal, where the native takes hold of the cultural capital of the exotic other (Lévi-Strauss) to demonstrate an empowering understanding of that capital, the chief in this way making himself an equal to the white man and his magic. This comprehension of the purpose of writing on the part of the native leads Lévi-Strauss to correlate the advent of writing with some kind of generalized slavery of man by man. It is noted that it was the invention of writing after all which produced the ‘oriental’ despotisms of ancient Egypt and Imperial China. As a predecessor to Derrida, Lévi-Strauss clearly understood the mystifying and magical power of writing.

Along the lines of writing and invention, a chapter of Tristes Tropiques is dedicated to the Apotheosis of Augustus, a play or libretto Lévi-Strauss scratched out in the field that ostensibly had to do with the deification of the Roman emperor Augustus but which would be better understood as an experimental think piece. This think piece is primarily, in my view, an extended allegory on the hubris of traveling and exploring.

Like ethnographies of old, this one shows great aesthetic value in its many small stories, anecdotes, and vignettes. These little stories populate the pages of Tristes Tropiques with epiphanies of our human species-being, yielding narrative gems of wisdom. What the particular little story is about is not entirely relevant: getting lost alone in the jungle; a rifle accident with one of the crew; shopping in Paris for small beads and fishhooks; a tribe’s lore of flora and fauna; historical accounts of earlier explorers; boom and bust towns built on diamonds and gold but peopled with indigent lost souls; an omnipresent danger of sickness and violent death in the scrublands and jungles; natives forcing trades on the anthropologist; the anthropologist’s demonstrations of science that provoke nearly fatal accusations of witchcraft. In fact, Tristes Tropiques breaks down into a mosaic of erudite yet compassionate snapshots of bare life. As a master narrator, Lévi-Strauss rouses emotions by dramatic suspense as well as with dramatic irony. Ultimately, Lévi-Strauss presents a melancholic, almost tragic, view of the impending fate awaiting tropical civilizations, whence the title of the book.

So much for the art of ethnography. Tristes Tropiques makes almost as deep a contribution to the theory of culture. Most of Lévi-Strauss’s culture theory is hidden under layers of practice rather than in any separate theoretical component of the ethnography. While casting mild aspersions on Durkheim and Frazer, Lévi-Strauss was clearly influenced by these armchair anthropologists. From Durkheim, Lévi-Strauss adopted the idea that small scale civilizations can serve as a kind of simplified model of complex modern societies. In Tristes Tropiques, Lévi-Strauss appears to have worked with the assumption of a unified humainty. Savages are just like us, only in a less mediated and more mechanical kind of cultural matrix. From Frazer, Lévi-Strauss took the idea that savages exercise the same faculty of reason as moderns, the only difference being that savages begin from different (non-positivist) premises. Lévi-Strauss takes as his motivation the Americanists’ obsession with salvaging what information they can from vanishing small scale civilizations. Lévi-Strauss is equally motivated by his reading of Rousseau, wherein virtuous savages manage to circumvent the Fall by maintaining a pristine view of communal property and collective endeavor. Also implicit to Lévi-Strauss’ theorizing is the Marxian idea that social collectives and historical trajectories can be understood through a scientific method or through social critique. Finally, Lévi-Strauss mentions briefly how his research was being guided originally by Levy-Bruel, a virtually lost source of culture theory. Levy-Bruel believed that savages remained children in their thoughts and behavior throughout their lives, and while Lévi-Strauss implicitly rejects this idea, there are numerous passages where an endearing child-like innocence seems to be imputed to the savages.

Tristes Tropiques follows Lévi-Strauss around the world. By incorporating his adventures in India and Pakistan, the work develops some insights into humanity in general, as opposed to just life at the Brazilian frontier. Chilling are his portrayals of the poor beggars of Calcutta, in which Lévi-Strauss puzzles on the sanctity of the damned, of those without hope of living a life without hunger. Tristes Tropiques concludes, rather disappointingly, with a tepid analysis of Islamic custom and belief. Although Lévi-Strauss wisely maintains that no society is perfect (he asks, for example, how do you explain the morality of prison to cannibals?), he questionably seems to suggest that some societies are more nearly perfect than others.

I have few criticisms of this book that have not been said before by others more qualified than I. It has been frequently noted that Lévi-Strauss dedicates two sentences to his wife but three pages to his pet monkey. The wife’s name is not given (the monkey’s name is Lucinda). Also, Tristes Tropiques does little to venture beyond the male perspective. When describing the four tribes he encountered in Brazil, he often presents a male point of view, not as a bias per se, but as what Haraway would label a partial, and necessarily incomplete, perspective. Janet Siskind’s To Hunt in the Morning is a much better ethnography in regard to gender. Another criticism of Lévi-Strauss has to do with his time in the field. Clearly, the anthropologist, as protagonist in his own story, manages to frequently elide the presence of a large retinue of people and animals, giving the illusion of Robinson Crusoe in the bush. Lévi-Strauss also has been criticized for producing an at times highly subjectivist literary product, one which apparently compensates for the brevity of his actual time in the field.

One need only to look at the current dismal political situation in Brazil to be convinced that more books like Tristes Tropiques are urgently needed. The government in Brazil is currently planning to completely clear the wild places of their wild people. The people will be resettled and will be permanently under the sovereignty of American-style evangelical Christians. The wild places will then be perpetually tamed, bringing a vast windfall for Brazil's logging and mining interests. The NGO’s which seek to preserve forests and peoples from extinction are also being removed, accused of being meddlers or spies. Brazil’s cynical alibi for all this: Well, the USA did it to their natives, did it to their wild places, so how could it be wrong? Ordem e Progresso. We have today in Brazil another example of savagery being destroyed through an even greater barbarism, all in the name of civilization. Books like Tristes Tropiques help us to understand that no culture is a lost cause, not even our own. The humanity we are salvaging might very well be our own sense of what it means to be (a) human. Good ethnography not only preserves fleeting information. It also holds out the promise for a better world, perhaps even a world in accord with our true species-being.

[Mostafa Shalash · Rating 4 out of 5]

يبدو إنجاز ليفي وكأنه رواية حزينة للمفاهيم بين المجتمعات الحارة والباردة والتقدم والتخلف - فكرة التشويه والعري بين الحضارات من وجهات فكرية مختلفة وبالطبع لا ننسى العلامة الكاملة لمقدمة الدكتور فيصل دراج - لكن وقع ليفي في تناقض خطير بين مقولته كانثربولوجي لا يمكن أن يصل الى حقيقة أخيرة في فهم الظواهر , الا انه سقط في فخ الاستشراق ورسم صورة للإسلام والمسلمين في الهند خصوصًا ملتوية قليلًا حيث اشار الى الاضرحة والقبور وهذه ظاهرة غير اصيلة في مكمن الاسلام في الشرق الا انه فسر الظاهرة العنفية للإسلام بقدر كبير من الحقيقة وللأسف هذه النسخة العربية خشى المترجم والناشر ان يقعوا بين انياب الرقابة والمتدينين بحذفوا كل تحليلات ليفي تجاه الاسلام .
بالنسبة لباقي تحليل ليفي لظواهر اكثر الافراد غرابة والتي استخدم عليها بدائية بحكم تواتر المستخدم من اللغة بتعبير دكتور دراج فحرص على الشكوكية حتى لا يخونه وعيه او افكاره المسبقة بحكم اوربيته , الكتاب لا يحمل الكثير من الملل لما ينطبع عليه من طابع صوفي وتأملي للحياة والوجود في كل مكان .