The Lost Steps (1953) by Alejo Carpentier

 Audiobook Review

The Lost Steps (1953)

by Alejo Carpentier

   I read about The Lost Steps in Stranger Than Fiction by Edwin Frank- a book about the life of the 20th century novel.  The Lost Steps struck me as interesting- a pre/proto-magical realism work of Latin American fiction, about a guy living in an American city (New York?) who is dispatched by a museum to the wilds of Brazil to locate the "oldest instruments" in the western hemisphere.  Fortunately, Penguin just published a new translation (2023) done by Adrian Nathan West, who also translated the excellent book by Benjamin Labatut, When We Cease to Understand the World.  AND Penguin also did an Audiobook version, which is what I checked out from the library.

   I thought there were many memorable passages in The Lost Steps, and I enjoyed this book start to finish.  The protagonist is a frustrated composer working in advertising and he has a very existentialist vibe.  His adventures in Brazil are fun and the author and the protagonist stay away from racist proclamations about the indigenous Brazilians they encounter, which is welcome for a book from 1953.  Particularly memorable were his rhapsodic, Proustian passages about his relationship with music- again, unusual for fiction published in the early 1950's.  The Lost Steps maintained a modern feeling from start to finish and fans of Latin American lit from the first Golden Age should give this book a chance.