Title: Alejo Carpentier
1Alejo Carpentier
- Lil Ryan Charlotte Skeffington
2Carpentier
- 1902 Born in Cuba
- -French and Russian heritage
- -Interest in music, history, architecture and
painting - 1920s avant-garde artist
- 1928 Self initiated exile in Paris
- Lived in Venezuela during Castros armed
insurrection - Writing Achievements
- -1949 The Kingdom of This World
- -1953 The Lost Steps
- -1974 Concierto Borraco
- -1979 The Harp and The Shadow
- Died in Paris in 1980
3- Classification
- The marvelous real (el real maravilloso)
- Specifically Latin American what it has to
offer in terms of myth, dreams, and the
subconscious as a result of its hybrid history - Latin America itself is marvelous (ontological)
- Criticized surrealism, but was influenced by it
- He rejected the magic realist label
- Elements of primitivism in his work
- Primitivism extraordinary explained as
manifestations of the primitive mentality - Archival writer
- Archival narrative concerned with the act of
writing - The Lost Steps archival, The Kingdom of This
World non-archival
4- Defocalized narrative
- Focalization perspective from which events are
presented (Faris) - Defocalization(term coined by Faris)
simultaneous presentation of two perspectives - Baroque descriptiveness
- In Carpentiers opinion, inherent in Latin
American literature - Classification in terms of comparison with Borges
- Borgesquestions meaning, Carpentier restores
meaning with marvelous real
5Does Classification Matter?
- Classification is secondary
- Latin America is like the literature it produces
- The inability to classify is one of its best
qualities
6Viaje a la semillaJourney Back to The Source
- 1944
- The War of Time
- (1958)
7Musicology Influence
- Musical Form canon cancrizans
(recurring canon, crab canon) - First voice enunciates a given theme
- Second voice states a copy of it in reverse
-
Theme fa la do mi sol si re Copy re si sol
mi do la fa
8VI
- And a splendid evening party was given in the
music room on the day he achieved his minority.
He was delighted to know that his signature was
no longer legally valid, and that worm-eaten
registers and documents would now vanish from his
world. He had reached the point at which courts
of justice were no longer to be feared, because
his bodily existence was ignored by the law.
After getting tipsy on noble wines, the young
people took down from the walls a guitar inlaid
with mother-of-pearl, a psaltery and a serpent.
Someone wound up the clock that played the
Ranz-des-vaches and the Ballad of the Scottish
Lakes, Someone else blew on a hunting horn that
had been lying curled in a copper sleep on the
crimson felt suitcase, beside a transverse flute
brought from Aranjuez. Marcial, who was boldly
making love to Señora de Campolorido, joined in
the cacophony, and tried to pick out the tune of
Trípili-Trapala on the Piano, to a discordant
accompaniment in the bass. Then they all trooped
upstairs to the attic, remembering that the
liveries and clothes of the Capellanías family
had been stored away under it beams which were
recovering their plaster.
9Historical Influences
- Caribbean Syncretism
-
- Indigenous, European Imperialist, African Slaves
- Santeria, Voodoo
10References to syncretism found in Journey Back to
the Source
- I II
- -The old Negro reciting the monologue of
incomprehensible remarks (222) - -Orisha Elugua from Yorubu and Ewe-Fon West
African Cultures - -Keeper of doors, keys, locks, and houses often
takes shape of an old Negro with a cane - - In Cuba, Eshu, a devil who at times speaks
backwards
IV - The Old Negress who keeps pigeons under her
bediyalocha -Warning of Never trust rivers, my
girl never trust anything green and
flowing! -Serpent river, the snake river of
African and Caribbean myths -Mother of Waters,
lives in the rivers of Cuba, Brazil, Guyana and
Haiti. mermaid who demands sacrifices
11Bibliography
- Angulo, Marâia-Elena. Magic Realism Social
Context and Discourse. New York Garland Pub.,
1995. - Benitez-Rojo, Antonio. The Repeating Island The
Caribbean and the Postmodern Perspective. 2nd ed.
London Duke UP, 1996. 221-238. - Faris, Wendy B. Ordinary Enchantments Magical
Realism and the Remystification of Narrative. 1st
Ed. ed. Nashville Vanderbilt UP, 2004. - Gonzalez Echevarria, Roberto. Alejo Carpentier
The Pilgrim At Home. Ithaca Cornell UP, 1977. - Kristal, Efrain, ed. The Cambridge Companion to
the Latin American Novel. Cambridge Cambridge
UP, 2005. 129-131. - Sanchez-Boudy, Jose. La Tematica Novelistica De
Alejo Carpentier. Miami Ediciones Universal,
1969.