Reading the World discussion

The Lost Steps by Alejo Carpentier describes the adventures of a young composer fleeing his empty existence in New York City, in search of a more fulfilling life. This search takes him on a journey with his mistress to one of the few remaining parts of the world that remains untouched by civilization. Narrating a journey through space and time, the novel examines the origins of Latin American history.

The novel is written in the first person and reads like a diary written by the unnamed narrator-protagonist as he flees modern civilization in search of a primordial existence. The book is composed of a series of dated diary entries augmented by the narrator’s fragmented recollections of the past, as well as his thoughts on art, culture, and history.

From supersummary.com

Oop I forgot this one was coming up as our botm...def going to squeeze it in this month. It is on scribd as an ebook if that is relevant to anyone else.

I am going to try and read it this month also.

Thank you Amanda

Celia wrote: "Thank you Amanda"

...Except I rechecked today and it seems to have been taken off? My bad yall. Still going to read it though: my library has it through ebook as well.

This major work from one of America's authors was an interesting combination of an intellectual's version of The Lost World and Heart of Darkness. Our primary character, fed up with his life in a major north American city as a composer for commercials and movies, sets out at first to pull a bit of a scam and then to actually search for native instruments that would help define the origins of music. Our primary character is unnamed and unlike in The Lost World or Heart of Darkness, he does not find an ancient highly evolved civilization or the corrupted manifestations of the colonial world. As he travels up the unnamed river, he goes back in time to the Middle Ages and then preMiddle Ages where he finds men like himself fully evolved to live their lives according to the world they are in. This is not a land of noble savages but men with as complete an understanding or misunderstanding of their world with all its mysteries as our narrator could find in Europe.
The descriptive writing is amazing and wonderful. The musicology is rather difficult to get through if you are not as versed in music as our author. The narration, unfortunately, can become tiresome, primarily as our narrator is a reflection of 1950's women demeaning culture. The author's secondary character play roles that are not fully formed but are stand ins. Our narrator leaves his wife because her career takes her away from him physically and emotionally. His mistress is really just sexual play for him and his new love of his live in the native world is "your woman". The female characters appear to reflect Penelope, Circe and Nausicaa from the Odyssey.
I have read other of Carpentier's work in translation and this stands with Explosion in the Cathedral and Kingdom of this World as being exceptional writing.

Gail wrote: "This major work from one of America's authors was an interesting combination of an intellectual's version of The Lost World and Heart of Darkness. Our primary character, fed up with his life in a m..."

Thank you for sharing your thoughts Gail. I wish I had more time to read all of the books on my list. This one sounds very good.

I just finished this one in the last week too. I have nothing to add summary wise, gail did a great job on that front.

I found the descriptions of the societies upriver fascinating, but I also found his descriptions of women and their general characterization in the book iffy, as well the amount of the narrative spent on musicology or other drier less interesting tipics than the actual narrative a bit tiresome.

I ended up giving it 3 stars.