The Lost Steps

“Even the room’s walls looked bedraggled, with repeated traces of finger-marks in the same places, and revealed their long association with makeup, withered flowers, and disguise.”

The imagery in Ruth’s dressing room symbolizes the narrator’s disillusionment with art and the superficiality of the world it represents. The repeated finger-marks suggest a sense of stagnation and monotony, mirroring the narrator’s feelings of confinement and the inauthenticity symbolized by Ruth’s makeup.

“Now, with her back turned, Ruth was talking towards me into the mirror while smearing her mobile face with grease-paint.”

The imagery of Ruth speaking into the mirror while applying makeup symbolizes the narrator’s perception of a superficial and disconnected relationship. Ruth’s use of grease paint highlights the narrator’s interpretation of her as inauthentic or artificial, deepening the sense of alienation between them.

“As I turned the corner, I crashed head-on into an open umbrella. The wind snatched it from the hands of its owner, and it was flattened under the wheels of a car. The sight was so funny that I let out a roar of laughter.”

The narrator’s encounter with the flattened umbrella symbolizes a sudden disruption of the ordinary, mirroring the intensity of the Ninth Symphony that he dislikes on this particular day. His unexpected reaction hints at unresolved traumas.

“That which is crooked cannot be made straight; and that which is wanting cannot be numbered.”

The recurring phrase reflects the narrator’s father’s embittered outlook on life and serves as a biblical reference to the limitations of human effort to rectify inherent flaws. It underscores the futility of attempting to change certain aspects of life or human nature. When the narrator references this phrase again in the last chapter, it signifies his growing self-awareness and potential for redemption as he grapples with his own limitations and seeks understanding.

“‘Ha! I scent life.’—Prometheus Unbound”

The literary allusion to Percy Shelley’s play Prometheus Unbound marks a turning point for Prometheus amidst adversity. It is intentionally placed as the first line of the second chapter to mirror Shelley’s work. In The Lost Steps, its inclusion indicates the narrator’s tendency to romanticize his own journey through mythological and literary references.

“The trees, rocked by the morning breeze, showered white fuzz over the statue of one of the fathers of the country whose carelessly tied bronze neckcloth gave him a certain resemblance to Lord Byron, while his manner of presenting a flag to invisible revolutionists recalled Lamartine.”

The allusions to English Romantic poet Lord Byron and French poet and statesman Alphonse de Lamartine imbue the narrator’s journal entries and journey with a sense of cultural and historical significance. By referencing Byron’s Romanticism and Lamartine’s association with revolution, Carpentier hints at themes of idealism, revolution, and the influence of Romantic ideals on the protagonist’s journey.

“‘[I]t will be the time when he takes the road, when he uncovers his face and talks and vomits what he swallowed and lays down his load.’—The Book of Chilam-Balam.”

The Books of Chilam Balam are a set of Mayan texts composed in the 17th and 18th centuries. Written in the Yucatec Maya language but using the Latin alphabet, they represent a fusion of Mayan and Spanish traditions and knowledge. The narrator includes this quote to signify a transformative moment of shedding pretenses and revealing one’s true self. However, the narrator’s selective interpretation overlooks the broader context of the text, which includes references to European colonialism and the spread of Christianity, symbolized by events like blood-vomit pestilence, drought, and locusts. This introduces the element of ersatz authority, as the narrator uses literary allusions largely to confirm his own prejudices, ignoring context that doesn’t fit his narrative.

“In a village of La Mancha, whose name I prefer not to recall, there lived not long ago one of those hidalgos with lance in rack, ancient buckler, lean nag, and fleet hound.”

The narrator’s repetition of the opening line from Miguel de Cervantes’s Don Quixote to practice Spanish subtly foreshadows his impractical idealism, mirroring the character of Don Quixote, an aging knight filled with romantic notions of adventure.

“For her Geneviéve’s history was very probably something real, something that was happening in a real country as she read it. The past eludes the grasp of those ignorant of the trappings, the setting, the props of history. She probably saw the castles of Brabant as the great ranches she knew, which often had crenelated walls.”

The quote reflects irony as the narrator assumes Rosario cannot discern the fiction of Geneviéve’s history, paralleling Don Quixote’s tendency to blur reality and fiction. Just as Don Quixote mistakes ordinary objects for fantastical elements, the narrator’s perception of his journey and of Rosario reflects his inability to distinguish between reality and imagination.

“The Adelantado told me that these swarms of butterflies were nothing new in the region, and that when they took place the sun was almost blotted out for the whole day. The burial of the father would have to be carried out by candle- light in a day that was night, reddened by wings.”

The quote alludes to the Book of Chilam Balam’s creation story, specifically the period of chaos that occurs with the arrival of the Red Ruler. In the myth, the Red Ruler’s reign brings compulsion, force, and misery, leading to natural disasters like the blotting out of the sun and the swarming of butterflies. This imagery reflects the destructive consequences of the Red Ruler’s reign, adding depth to the narrative by drawing parallels between the narrator’s journey and the mythological themes of chaos and cosmic imbalance.

“‘Will there be only silence, repose at the foot of the trees, of the vines? Then it is well that there be guardian.’—Popol Vuh”

The use of this excerpt from the Popol Vuh, a Mayan religious text, suggests the narrator is viewing this chapter through themes of guardianship, protection, and the preservation of order amidst uncertainty. It reflects the narrator’s attempt to cling to his idealistic journey yet also foreshadows impending chaos, as the excerpt originates from the myth of the flood in which selfish humans are destroyed.

“Only the birds met the test of truth by the frank identity of their plumage. The herons were not lying when they invented the question mark with the curves of their necks or when, at the call of the male sentinel, they raised their fright of white feathers. Nor the kingfisher with its red top-knot, so small and fragile in that terrible world, whose mere presence was in the nature of a miracle, like the magic vibration of the hummingbird.”

The narrator’s assertion that only birds are truthful, contrasting with the deceit he perceives elsewhere in nature, displays his lack of awareness and foreshadows his downfall. This is in reference to the Book of Chilam and the Red Ruler, where Ppizlimtec, who assumes the form of a hummingbird, takes honey from a flower. This act symbolizes the introduction of sin and envy into the world, personified by Oxlahun-ti-ku, who becomes consumed by envy and exhibits sinful behavior during his reign, leading to his downfall and the termination of his power.

“[Fray Pedro] began to tell me about people I had never heard of, priests torn limb from limb by the Indians; one Blessed Diego barbarously tortured by the last Inca; Juan de Lizardi, shot through with Paraguayan arrows.”

Fray Pedro uses these stories of martyrdom to justify colonizing and forcibly converting Indigenous people, but the stories are taken out of context. Diego Luis de San Vitores was initially accepted by Indigenous people, who converted willingly. However, conflicts arose when missionaries destroyed cultural artifacts and suppressed traditions, leading to violence. He was ultimately killed by Mata’pang from Guam, not the Incas. Juan de Lizardi invented horrifying torture instruments for self-penance.

“Perhaps it is the year of grace 1540.”

The narrator’s romanticized view of the expedition casts Pedro as a colonial chaplain, anchoring the narrative to 1540, the year when Francisco Vázquez de Coronado’s aggressive expedition across Mexico and America began. Coronado’s use of forceful tactics aimed to oppress and exploit Indigenous communities in search of gold.

“We are in the world of Genesis, at the end of the Fourth Day of Creation.”

The quote juxtaposes the narrator’s sense of conquest over nature with the mythical context of the Book of Chilam, particularly alluding to and foreshadowing the fifth katun, which is characterized by turmoil, conflict, and destruction. It mentions the horrible rains that offer no profit, that bring little relief, or may exacerbate existing challenges faced by the Mayan people.

“‘Thy statutes have been my songs…’—Psalm CXIX, 54”

The biblical quote in Chapter 5 sets the tone by foreshadowing the narrator’s loss of reason and his unwavering commitment to his ideals, emphasizing his belief in divine laws as sources of inspiration.

“It is called Santa Monica de los Venados […] because this is the land of the red deer, and Monica was the name of the founder’s mother, Monica, who bore St. Augustine, herself a saint who had been the wife of one man and herself had brought up her children.”

Fray Pedro mentions St. Monica’s sufferings due to her husband’s adultery to the narrator, but the narrator fails to grasp its significance. St. Monica is remembered through her son Augustine, who emphasized the importance of introspection and self-awareness. However, the narrator lacks these virtues as he engages in infidelity without self-awareness.

“In that sacred book of the Quichés […] with tragic intuition, the myth of the robot is set down. I would even go so far as to say that it is the only cosmogony that has foreseen the threat of the machine and the tragedy Sorcerer’s Apprentice.”

Fray Pedro’s mention of the Popol Vuh signals his familiarity with Indigenous culture, contrasting with the narrator’s ignorance. The allusion to “The Sorcerer’s Apprentice” underscores the narrator’s naivety; like the apprentice, he struggles to control the consequences of his actions. Just as the sorcerer admonishes that only a master should enchant, the narrator must confront his limitations and learn to wield his creative powers responsibly.

“I knew that I should be suspicious of anything brought forth without suffering.”

The narrator recognizes that art created without hardship warrants suspicion, suggesting that his Threnody lacks depth and originality, serving merely as a distraction from reality.

“I knew now that I had seen Nicasio, a gold-hunter in an advanced state of leprosy.”

Nicasio’s leprosy serves as a symbol of the pestilence prophesied during the fifth katun in the Book of Chilam.

“And what you call dying is finally dying, and what you call birth is beginning to die, and what you call living is dying in life.”

The quote is from Francisco de Quevedo’s work The Dreams. In the context of Chapter 6, it foreshadows the narrator’s disillusionment, self-awareness, and the demise of his idealistic aspirations.

“The persistent theme of all the articles was that I was a martyr to scientific research who had been restored to the bosom of his admirable wife.”

The narrator’s embrace of heroism for profit acts as a metaphorical critique, paralleling the complexities inherent in hagiographic narratives where martyred saints, despite their harmful impact on Indigenous cultures, are venerated.

“At that moment Themis became a mother: she clasped her arms about her with a desolate gesture, bending over the life that was coming to being in her womb as though to protect it from my contaminating presence, and began to cry quietly, almost like a child, without looking at me, so hurt that her deep sobs emerged as gentle moans.”

The narrator’s callousness toward Ruth’s pain reflects the cold indifference seen in the Book of Chilam Balam, where individuals suffer consequences due to their cruelty and selfishness. Calling Ruth “Themis” is a tongue-in-cheek allusion to the Greek goddess of justice and fairness.