Tristes Tropiques Summary and Reviews

Tristes Tropiques
by Claude Levi-Strauss

Tristes Tropiques
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Book Summary Information

Author: Claude Levi-Strauss
Translator: John Weightman
Translator: Doreen Weightman
Edition: Paperback
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Original Language); English (Published)
Published: 1992-08-01
ISBN: 0140165622
Number of pages: 432
Publisher: Penguin

Book Reviews of Tristes Tropiques

Book Review: :Levi-Strauss, Armchair Anthropologist
Summary: 5 Stars

The traditional definition of anthropology is the study of man. And the activity immediately associated therewith are the field notes taken on the spot which the anthropologist then transcribes so the immediacy of his findings is preserved.

Then there is Claude Levi-Strauss, often called the 'armchair anthropologist.' This literate personage journeyed through central Brazil in the 30s, only to record his findings some 20 later in his book Tristes Tropiques, an untranslated title because no equivalent can be found in English.

Reminiscent of his forebear, Marcel Proust, Levi-Strauss presents us with memories distilled through time from which a structure emerges. Let me make clear that Tristes Tropiques is not a chronological account of Levi-Strauss' travels through South America.

Recollections, filtered in Tristes Tropiques, are further distilled in subsequent works and become systems or units which can be analyzed structurally, resulting in the fundamental concept of structuralism, that of universal analogies whose 'differences resemble each other.' One social organization, one myth is without value. Compared to a multitude, they acquire meaning.

Proust's universe is that of his personal recollections, whereas Levi-Strauss extends his own and from there goes on to establish cross-cultural analogies. But both are a product of the French intellectual tradition. The supremacy of the mind goes back to Rene Descartes, the 17th century French philosopher who said: "Je pense, donc je suis." "I think, therefore I am."

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