“From time to time, too, and for the space of two or three paces, an image or an echo would rise up from the recesses of time: in the little streets of the beaters of silver and gold, for instance, there was a clear, unhurried tinkling, as if a djinn with a thousand arms was absent-mindedly practising on a xylophone.”
Tristes Tropiques is a personal account of Claude Lévi-Strauss's travels through the Amazon and Madagascar. The book combines his observations of indigenous cultures with reflections on the nature of culture and society. Lévi-Strauss's work is characterized by its structuralist approach, which seeks to uncover the underlying patterns and structures that underlie human societies. more
“I was no longer able to hear the music that issues from a decent piece of prose.”