The Lost Steps (Masterplots II: American Fiction Series, Revised Edition)
At a glance:
- Author: Alejo Carpentier
- First Published: 1953
- Type of Plot: Psychological realism
- Time of Work: The late 1940’s
- Setting: An unnamed metropolis (probably New York City), a South American city, and the South American jungle
- Principal Characters: The narrator, Ruth, Mouche, Rosario, The Adelantado
- Genres: Long fiction, Psychological fiction
- Subjects: Self-discovery, Nature, 1940’s, Jungles or rain forests, Composers, South America or South Americans, Musical instruments
- Locales: United States, South America
The Novel
The Lost Steps narrates a journey, through space and back through time, to the most remote origins of Latin American history. The novel, which is written in the first person, can be read as a diary kept by the unnamed narrator-protagonist as he flees mechanized civilization in search of a more primordial existence. The dated entries which provide the basic structure for the novel are augmented by the narrator’s fragmented recollections of the past and his meditations on art, culture, and history.
As the novel begins, the narrator is surveying the set...
[The entire page is 2555 words long]
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