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Authors: Patrick Wilcken
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Claude Levi-Strauss: The Poet in the Laboratory (34 page)
BOOK: Claude Levi-Strauss: The Poet in the Laboratory
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For once nonfiction had trumped the novel as a vehicle for ideas and contemporary observation.
Tristes Tropiques
was avidly devoured not just by academics, but by artists like the playwright and key figure in the “theater of the absurd” Jacques Audiberti, who wrote congratulating him—the beginning of a long correspondence between the two. Even though, as a work of nonfiction,
Tristes Tropiques
was not eligible for France’s most prestigious award for literary fiction, the Prix Goncourt, members of the academy issued a communiqué saying that they regretted they could not consider
Tristes Tropiques
for the 1955 prize. In an ironic twist, the following year Lévi-Strauss was offered another prize by the jury of the Golden Pen—for travel writing. He turned it down.
Tristes Tropiques
was avidly devoured not just by academics, but by artists like the playwright and key figure in the “theater of the absurd” Jacques Audiberti, who wrote congratulating him—the beginning of a long correspondence between the two. Even though, as a work of nonfiction,
Tristes Tropiques
was not eligible for France’s most prestigious award for literary fiction, the Prix Goncourt, members of the academy issued a communiqué saying that they regretted they could not consider
Tristes Tropiques
for the 1955 prize. In an ironic twist, the following year Lévi-Strauss was offered another prize by the jury of the Golden Pen—for travel writing. He turned it down.
Tristes Tropiques
’s reputation soon spread beyond France. In 1957 the book appeared in Portuguese in Brazil, where the
Estado de São Paulo
gave it a glowing three-part review. As a historical memoir of Brazil in the 1930s, it was “one of the most remarkable studies ever written on contemporary Brazil,” in a field in which impressionistic accounts written by foreigners predominated, although the piece went on to say that Lévi-Strauss was not beyond a form of European condescension in his more critical passages.
27
In the same year, although it had not yet been translated into English, the
Times Literary Supplement
gave the work a long front-page review; this was followed by another positive assessment in 1961 when the first English translation appeared under the title of
A World on the Wane
.
28
While in America, the critic Susan Sontag, writing in 1963 in the then recently launched
New York Review of Books
, hailed
Tristes Tropiques
as “one of the great books of our century.” “It is rigorous, subtle and bold in thought,” she continued. “It is beautifully written. And, like all great books, it bears an absolutely personal stamp ...”
29
’s reputation soon spread beyond France. In 1957 the book appeared in Portuguese in Brazil, where the
Estado de São Paulo
gave it a glowing three-part review. As a historical memoir of Brazil in the 1930s, it was “one of the most remarkable studies ever written on contemporary Brazil,” in a field in which impressionistic accounts written by foreigners predominated, although the piece went on to say that Lévi-Strauss was not beyond a form of European condescension in his more critical passages.
27
In the same year, although it had not yet been translated into English, the
Times Literary Supplement
gave the work a long front-page review; this was followed by another positive assessment in 1961 when the first English translation appeared under the title of
A World on the Wane
.
28
While in America, the critic Susan Sontag, writing in 1963 in the then recently launched
New York Review of Books
, hailed
Tristes Tropiques
as “one of the great books of our century.” “It is rigorous, subtle and bold in thought,” she continued. “It is beautifully written. And, like all great books, it bears an absolutely personal stamp ...”
29
Tristes Tropiques
was certainly original in many respects, but Lévi-Strauss also drew heavily on his contemporaries. His memoir fit into a long tradition of French intellectuals leaving the metropolis behind for enlightenment on the road. It was the South American counterpart to André Gide’s
Voyage au Congo
(1927), and owes much to Leiris’s
L’Afrique fantôme
(1934). The tone of Paul Nizan’s diatribe against French academia in
Aden Arabie
pervades Lévi-Strauss’s much-cited early chapter “Comment on devient ethnographe” (rendered as “The Making of an Anthropologist” in the English edition). There are hints of Conrad and Proust, both of whom Lévi-Strauss greatly admired. His long passages on the geological impact of human settlement followed the writings of his friend and colleague the tropicalist geographer Pierre Gourou.
was certainly original in many respects, but Lévi-Strauss also drew heavily on his contemporaries. His memoir fit into a long tradition of French intellectuals leaving the metropolis behind for enlightenment on the road. It was the South American counterpart to André Gide’s
Voyage au Congo
(1927), and owes much to Leiris’s
L’Afrique fantôme
(1934). The tone of Paul Nizan’s diatribe against French academia in
Aden Arabie
pervades Lévi-Strauss’s much-cited early chapter “Comment on devient ethnographe” (rendered as “The Making of an Anthropologist” in the English edition). There are hints of Conrad and Proust, both of whom Lévi-Strauss greatly admired. His long passages on the geological impact of human settlement followed the writings of his friend and colleague the tropicalist geographer Pierre Gourou.
The French travel writer, novelist and professional flâneur Pierre Mac Orlan, whose books Lévi-Strauss had read and loved in his youth, provided another strand. Lévi-Strauss’s explosive opening echoes Mac Orlan’s
Petit manuel du parfait aventurier
—a long essay published in 1920, which took a philosophical look at the whole notion of travel. True exploration was at an end, Mac Orlan argued, dividing modern-day travelers into those driven by the need for conquest, fame or fortune and the more cerebral, contemplative type whose aim was to evoke a place, a people, a culture, rather than reach a destination. More generally, Mac Orlan’s style of writing, his familiar, cosmopolitan tone, his combination of erudition and intimacy, his penchant for ports, backstreets and colorful lowlifes served as an unconscious template for Lévi-Strauss. After the publication of
Tristes Tropiques
, Lévi-Strauss was thrilled to receive a “particularly moving” letter of congratulation from Mac Orlan. “I knew I had written
Tristes Tropiques
with Mac Orlan in mind,” Lévi-Strauss recalled after his retirement. “He probably liked my book because without realising it he found things in there that came from him.”
30
Petit manuel du parfait aventurier
—a long essay published in 1920, which took a philosophical look at the whole notion of travel. True exploration was at an end, Mac Orlan argued, dividing modern-day travelers into those driven by the need for conquest, fame or fortune and the more cerebral, contemplative type whose aim was to evoke a place, a people, a culture, rather than reach a destination. More generally, Mac Orlan’s style of writing, his familiar, cosmopolitan tone, his combination of erudition and intimacy, his penchant for ports, backstreets and colorful lowlifes served as an unconscious template for Lévi-Strauss. After the publication of
Tristes Tropiques
, Lévi-Strauss was thrilled to receive a “particularly moving” letter of congratulation from Mac Orlan. “I knew I had written
Tristes Tropiques
with Mac Orlan in mind,” Lévi-Strauss recalled after his retirement. “He probably liked my book because without realising it he found things in there that came from him.”
30
FOR MANY,
TRISTES TROPIQUES
was more than simply a mesmerizing read—it was life-changing. After reading it, Pierre Clastres switched from philosophy to anthropology and headed for South America. “I remember that Pierre Clastres was crazy about
Tristes Tropiques
, and had read it four or five times,” recalled his friend and fellow convert Alfred Adler. The Belgian anthropologist Luc de Heusch, a student of Griaule’s, had a similar revelatory experience. He had skimmed
Structures élémentaires
before setting off for fieldwork in Africa in the early 1950s. There he had set off on a Griaule-style quest, deep into the forests of the Belgian Congo. “In the utopian hope of gaining esoteric knowledge, I had myself initiated into a secret society, ‘the masters of the forest.’ But all the mysteries led to dead ends.” He returned to France disillusioned. But he then read
Tristes Tropiques
and met Lévi-Strauss in his UNESCO office. “It was the beginning of a long dialogue,” he recalled. “I might have given up ethnology, having been disappointed by fieldwork if, at this critical juncture, Lévi-Strauss had not revealed the possibility of a comparative study of ‘archaic’ societies.” When he returned to Africa, de Heusch embarked on a structural analysis of Bantu myth.
31
TRISTES TROPIQUES
was more than simply a mesmerizing read—it was life-changing. After reading it, Pierre Clastres switched from philosophy to anthropology and headed for South America. “I remember that Pierre Clastres was crazy about
Tristes Tropiques
, and had read it four or five times,” recalled his friend and fellow convert Alfred Adler. The Belgian anthropologist Luc de Heusch, a student of Griaule’s, had a similar revelatory experience. He had skimmed
Structures élémentaires
before setting off for fieldwork in Africa in the early 1950s. There he had set off on a Griaule-style quest, deep into the forests of the Belgian Congo. “In the utopian hope of gaining esoteric knowledge, I had myself initiated into a secret society, ‘the masters of the forest.’ But all the mysteries led to dead ends.” He returned to France disillusioned. But he then read
Tristes Tropiques
and met Lévi-Strauss in his UNESCO office. “It was the beginning of a long dialogue,” he recalled. “I might have given up ethnology, having been disappointed by fieldwork if, at this critical juncture, Lévi-Strauss had not revealed the possibility of a comparative study of ‘archaic’ societies.” When he returned to Africa, de Heusch embarked on a structural analysis of Bantu myth.
31
Jean Pouillon, the philosopher and close friend of Jean-Paul Sartre, was another of the many thinkers inspired by the book. After reading
Tristes Tropiques
he went back over all of Lévi-Strauss’s published work, writing a laudatory summary—“L’Oeuvre de Claude Lévi-Strauss”—in
Les Temps modernes
.
32
(Intriguingly, in his review Pouillon referred to a forthcoming book by Lévi-Strauss entitled
Ethnologie et marxisme
, which never in fact appeared.) During this period Pouillon began attending Lévi-Strauss’s seminars, before moving over to anthropology. By 1958 he was in Chad, savoring his own bittersweet experiences of ethnographic fieldwork.
Tristes Tropiques
he went back over all of Lévi-Strauss’s published work, writing a laudatory summary—“L’Oeuvre de Claude Lévi-Strauss”—in
Les Temps modernes
.
32
(Intriguingly, in his review Pouillon referred to a forthcoming book by Lévi-Strauss entitled
Ethnologie et marxisme
, which never in fact appeared.) During this period Pouillon began attending Lévi-Strauss’s seminars, before moving over to anthropology. By 1958 he was in Chad, savoring his own bittersweet experiences of ethnographic fieldwork.
The book had a crystallizing effect, drawing the disaffected into a new intellectual paradigm, as it evoked the brewing melancholy of a soon-to-be postcolonial France. Lévi-Strauss clothed new ideas with a world-weariness, giving them a gravitas that appealed to a certain type of intellectual. “I was sensitive to the pessimism, to this end-of-the-road aspect,” remembered another of his future long-term collaborators, Michel Izard, about first coming across
Tristes Tropiques
.
33
Tristes Tropiques
.
33
Through
Tristes Tropiques
, Lévi-Strauss was gathering acolytes, the foot soldiers of the coming structuralist revolution. But as his reputation grew, the critics circled. Caillois had attacked from the right; the historian Maxime Rodinson took him on from the left. Rodinson, a Jewish Marxist historian specializing in the Middle East, had been radicalized early. As lower-middle-class tailors, his Russian émigré parents had joined the French Communist Party soon after its formation. They later perished in Auschwitz in 1943 while Rodinson was serving in Syria and Lebanon. In two articles for
La Nouvelle critique
, Rodinson picked up on what he felt to be Lévi-Strauss’s ultimate political agnosticism. How could political progress be possible in a world of disparate cultural invention—each creation apparently as valid as the next? Coming from a Marxist perspective, Rodinson argued that anthropologists fetishized the trivial, putting games, material culture or rituals on an equal footing with core socioeconomic realities such as the division of property or labor.
Tristes Tropiques
’s relativist outlook, he concluded, denied the possibility of revolutionary change, a stance that would “bring desperation to Billancourt”—Paris’s industrial hub, where the highly unionized Renault workers were fighting for better pay and conditions.
Tristes Tropiques
, Lévi-Strauss was gathering acolytes, the foot soldiers of the coming structuralist revolution. But as his reputation grew, the critics circled. Caillois had attacked from the right; the historian Maxime Rodinson took him on from the left. Rodinson, a Jewish Marxist historian specializing in the Middle East, had been radicalized early. As lower-middle-class tailors, his Russian émigré parents had joined the French Communist Party soon after its formation. They later perished in Auschwitz in 1943 while Rodinson was serving in Syria and Lebanon. In two articles for
La Nouvelle critique
, Rodinson picked up on what he felt to be Lévi-Strauss’s ultimate political agnosticism. How could political progress be possible in a world of disparate cultural invention—each creation apparently as valid as the next? Coming from a Marxist perspective, Rodinson argued that anthropologists fetishized the trivial, putting games, material culture or rituals on an equal footing with core socioeconomic realities such as the division of property or labor.
Tristes Tropiques
’s relativist outlook, he concluded, denied the possibility of revolutionary change, a stance that would “bring desperation to Billancourt”—Paris’s industrial hub, where the highly unionized Renault workers were fighting for better pay and conditions.
While parallels between French factory workers and Nambikwara nomads might seem far-fetched, many would share Rodinson’s critique with more pointed examples from colonial conflict zones. In spite of Lévi-Strauss’s diatribes against the West, his lofty philosophical tone refused political engagement. “Lévi-Strauss led us to this peaceful place,” the anthropologist Alban Bensa told me. “It was a kind of escapism from the realities of twentieth-century indigenous life.” Bensa, who has written classic ethnographies of the Kanak of New Caledonia, was one of the many anthropologists of the following generation who, like Rodinson, would come to question structuralism from a political perspective. He found its stillness and symmetry out of step with the violent late-twentieth-century world he was witnessing in New Caledonia. “Lévi-Strauss painted a perfect picture, of everything fitting into an overarching scheme. But when I started going into the field and seeing the effects of colonialism, I began to have my doubts.”
In the 1950s, this strand of thought was typified by Georges Balandier, a key figure in the formation of anthropology in France. Like Lévi-Strauss, Balandier had started out as a militant socialist; unlike Lévi-Strauss, his fieldwork in Africa on the eve of decolonization had radicalized him even further. Between 1946 and 1951, he worked in Senegal, Mauritania, Guinea, Gabon and Congo and became actively involved in the brewing emancipation movements. What he found there was not the wistful remnants of once great indigenous cultures, but grinding poverty and the political backlash against centuries of exploitation. Interviewed by historian François Dosse, he drew diametrically opposite conclusions to Lévi-Strauss’s brand of hopeless pessimism:
I can in no way accept the idea that in these societies myth shapes everything and history is absent, in the name of a notion in which everything is a system of relations and codes, with a logic of possible permutations that enables the society to maintain an equilibrium . . . societies are not produced, they produce themselves; none escapes history even if history is made differently and even if there are multiple histories.
34
As colleagues and friends at UNESCO, Lévi-Strauss and Balandier were still on good terms in the 1950s, but would diverge thereafter. The more radical students—such as the left-wing writer and intellectual Régis Debray and anthropologists Marc Augé and Emmanuel Terray—attended Balandier’s courses, forming a rift at the heart of the humanities in France. Decolonization, after all, was then being hotly debated as the struggle in Algeria intensified. While Balandier and his students protested against France’s role in the war, Lévi-Strauss’s interest in politics was declining—a radical position in itself, in an era in which political engagement was the sine qua non of the Parisian intellectual.
In France, colonialism—particularly in relation to the deteriorating situation in Algeria—had become the subject of passionate debate. Perhaps it was no coincidence that the year that
Tristes Tropiques
appeared Lévi-Strauss engaged in what would be his final high-profile political act.
35
He joined Jean-Paul Sartre, André Breton and Georges Bataille, among others, in signing a letter, published in November in
L’ Express
, supporting the creation of a
comité d’action
(action committee) for peace in Algeria. But thereafter he shied away from political involvement. By the late 1950s he described political thinking as “an essentially emotional attitude,” which had nothing to do with his role as a leading intellectual.
36
In 1960 he declined to participate in the high-profile “Manifeste des 121,” a petition supporting Algerian independence, signed by a roll call of the era’s leading lights.
37
Years later he would even forget that he had signed the 1955 letter.
38
Tristes Tropiques
appeared Lévi-Strauss engaged in what would be his final high-profile political act.
35
He joined Jean-Paul Sartre, André Breton and Georges Bataille, among others, in signing a letter, published in November in
L’ Express
, supporting the creation of a
comité d’action
(action committee) for peace in Algeria. But thereafter he shied away from political involvement. By the late 1950s he described political thinking as “an essentially emotional attitude,” which had nothing to do with his role as a leading intellectual.
36
In 1960 he declined to participate in the high-profile “Manifeste des 121,” a petition supporting Algerian independence, signed by a roll call of the era’s leading lights.
37
Years later he would even forget that he had signed the 1955 letter.
38
Even his rhetorical opposition to colonialism could have a conservative undertow. In 1956, he appeared to support the thinking behind Britain’s catastrophic withdrawal from India, the aftermath of which he had witnessed firsthand, with this comment:
Fifty years of modest, unprestigious research carried out by a sufficient number of ethnologists would have prepared Vietnam and North Africa for the solutions of the type that England managed in India—in a matter of months—thanks to the scientific effort that she had pursued for a century: maybe there is still time in black Africa and Madagascar.
39
Politically,
Tristes Tropiques
may have pointed in the conservative direction in which Lévi-Strauss was drifting, but as a work of nonfiction, it was ahead of its time. Blurring the boundaries between serious academic literature, memoir and travel writing, he had created a hybrid that, although commonplace today, was rare in the 1950s, when the bulwarks between academic and popular writing were still fortified. This brought resentment from insiders, such as Paul Rivet, for whom the book was akin to a betrayal. He broke off contact with Lévi-Strauss, making peace only on his deathbed.
40
The disaffected, though, were far outnumbered by new readers, eager for a glimpse into the world of the professional anthropologist.
Tristes Tropiques
may have pointed in the conservative direction in which Lévi-Strauss was drifting, but as a work of nonfiction, it was ahead of its time. Blurring the boundaries between serious academic literature, memoir and travel writing, he had created a hybrid that, although commonplace today, was rare in the 1950s, when the bulwarks between academic and popular writing were still fortified. This brought resentment from insiders, such as Paul Rivet, for whom the book was akin to a betrayal. He broke off contact with Lévi-Strauss, making peace only on his deathbed.
40
The disaffected, though, were far outnumbered by new readers, eager for a glimpse into the world of the professional anthropologist.
After the success of
Tristes Tropiques
, Lévi-Strauss was apparently still toying with the idea of continuing his literary writing career, perhaps as a journalist.
41
But it is difficult to imagine him sheering off at this point. If anything, his commitment to academia was strengthening. At the same time as he was fantasizing about feature writing, he was applying for funds from the Rockefeller Foundation to set up an anthropological institute (he was turned down), while continuing his courses at the École pratique des hautes études. In the winter of 1955-56 he returned to the more technical earlier work on kinship with a course entitled Prohibitions du Mariage.
Tristes Tropiques
, Lévi-Strauss was apparently still toying with the idea of continuing his literary writing career, perhaps as a journalist.
41
But it is difficult to imagine him sheering off at this point. If anything, his commitment to academia was strengthening. At the same time as he was fantasizing about feature writing, he was applying for funds from the Rockefeller Foundation to set up an anthropological institute (he was turned down), while continuing his courses at the École pratique des hautes études. In the winter of 1955-56 he returned to the more technical earlier work on kinship with a course entitled Prohibitions du Mariage.
BOOK: Claude Levi-Strauss: The Poet in the Laboratory
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