Carpentier, Alejo | Lindsay Townsend (essay date 1980)
Lindsay Townsend (essay date 1980)
SOURCE: "The Image of Art in Carpentier's Los pasos perdidos and El acoso," in Romance Notes, Vol. XX, No. 3, Spring, 1980, pp. 304-09.
[In the following essay, Townsend discusses the thematic similarities between Manhunt and the novel The Lost Steps, concentrating on the role of music in the texts.]
The themes of the role of art in society and the responsibilities of the artist are of tremendous importance in Alejo Carpentier's novel of 1953, Los pasos perdidos. These concerns are developed through the persona of a composer who seeks the roots of his art among the primitive peoples of the Latin American jungle. His encounter with a group of Indians mourning the death of a comrade destroys his previous theories as to the origin of music. The primitives' rhythmic howls are seen as "intento primordial de lucha contra las potencias de aniquilamiento que se atraviesan en...
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