The South Central Modern Language Association, The Johns Hopkins University Press South Central Review

The South Central Modern Language Association
Creative Questers: Remedios Varo and the Narrator of Carpentier's "Los pasos perdidos"
Author(s): Elizabeth Sànchez
Source: South Central Review, Vol. 23, No. 2 (Summer, 2006), pp. 58-79
Published by: The Johns Hopkins University Press on behalf of The South Central Modern
Language Association
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/40039931
Accessed: 12-02-2017 22:30 UTC
JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted
digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about
JSTOR, please contact support@jstor.org.
Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at
http://about.jstor.org/terms
The South Central Modern Language Association, The Johns Hopkins University Press
are collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to South Central Review
This content downloaded from 148.214.155.142 on Sun, 12 Feb 2017 22:30:13 UTC
All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms
Creative Questers: Remedios Varo and the Narrator of
Carpentier's Los pasos perdidos
Elizabeth Sanchez, University of Dallas
"Orpheus with his lute made trees, / And the mountain tops that freeze, /
Bow themselves when he did sing: / To his music plants and flowers /
Ever sprung; as sun and showers / There had made a lasting spring."
Shakespeare, King Henry the Eighth, Act III, Scene I
As Borges might have put it (though undoubtedly with more elegance), I

owe this unusual comparison to the conjunction of a goblet and a library.
It was the discovery of a painting by Remedios Varo entitled Exploration
de lasfuentes del rio Orinoco {Exploration of the Sources of the Orinoco
River) at about the same time that I was searching for information about
Alejo Carpentier's journey up the Orinoco and pondering its symbolic
uses in his novel Los pasos perdidos (The Lost Steps) that led me to make
the connection.1 Varo's humorous treatment of the ultimate irony of any
quest - the fact that the female quester in her painting seems to be dis-
covering that the sacred source of the river is none other than an ordinary
goblet on a table, something she might have found close at hand in her
own home - called to mind the ironical situation of Carpentier's narra-
tor-protagonist. In Roberto Gonzalez Echeverria's felicitous phrase (from
his introduction to Los pasos perdidos), the narrator is confronted with
the disheartening fact that "la biblioteca de su padre lo persigue hasta
los mas reconditos parajes de la selva americana" ("his father's library
has followed him to the most hidden parts of the American jungle").2
It seemed to me that both protagonists had come to the realization that
in a sense they had never really left home and that there was no going
back to an unmediated source. For Carpentier's narrator, the revelation
was that he could not escape his enormous erudition; he would always
be denied a direct, unmediated experience of the new reality that he
so desperately wanted to capture. Varo's traveler also appeared to be
restricted - by the strings that tie her to the odd vessel in which she is
voyaging; by that vessel itself, which, while womblike in shape, at the
same time looks very much like a vest a man might wear. I felt that she,
too, though apparently close to a breakthrough of sorts, could not make
(or had not yet made) the final move.
© South Central Review 23.2 (Summer 2006): 58-79.
REMEDIOS VARO AND CARPENTER'S LOS PASOS PERDIDOS I SANCHEZ 59
When I learned that Varo had made a journey to the interior of V

ezuela along the flood plains of the Orinoco at about the same time
Carpentier was traveling in the same region, I became intrigued by
possible connections, though there probably aren't any direct ones.
pentier actually made two trips to the jungle, one in 1947 that serve
a basis for his series of articles in a Caracas newspaper, and the othe
1 948. Varo's journey was in 1 948, during her year-long stay in Venezu
These were precisely the years in which geographers and anthrop
gists were devoting a good amount of attention to the exploration
mapping of the sources of the Amazon and Orinoco. Alain Gheerbra
well-known L 'Expedition Orenoque-Amazone (which Gonzalez Ech
varria believes is a source of Los pasos perdidos), was published on
few years later, in 1952, one year before the publication of Carpentier
novel.3 Varo will paint her Exploration in 1959.
But the coincidences don't stop here. As I delved a little deeper,
discovered that Varo's paintings have sometimes been read as repr
sentations of the female quest and that many of them tell stories
spiritual journeys and transformations that correspond to stages in
archetypal hero adventure.4 It has long been recognized that the m
of the hero serves as a central structuring device in Los pasos perdid
Moreover, Varo's move to Mexico in 1941 and her eventual break w
certain aspects of her surrealist past recall Carpentier 's groundbrea
reflections on lo real maravilloso ("the marvelous
real") when he be
to focus on the magical realities of Latin America
and to contrast t
with the stale "surrealities" of European art. The
first mention of
term lo real maravilloso comes in his 1948 essaywhich served as t
prologue to his 1949 novel, El reino de este mundo {Kingdom of T
World). Carpentier 's discovery of an authentic form of surrealism in t
New World is reenacted in Los pasos perdidos when the narrator rej
twentieth-century European artistic fashions (including surrealism)
attempts to extricate himself (albeit without success) from his west
European mind-set. In the case of Remedios Varo, it has been sugge
that the "vital organicism" that characterizes many of her paintings ma
have its roots in her adoptive New World surroundings - the natural an
cultural environment in which she lived for more than two decades, un
the end of her life.6 Her portrayal of nature differs markedly from th
of the European surrealists; it is much more akin to the vision we find
a major part of Latin American narrative since the nineteenth cent
including Los pasos perdidos, where nature is imaged as an enormou
powerful, fecund, and at times terribly invasive presence that is cap
of destroying even the best-laid strongholds of western civilization wh
60 SOUTH CENTRAL REVIEW
one lets down one's guard.

human culture, nature is a
art forms, and Varo was not
It became clear to me, th
between Varo and Carpentie
closer look. The problem I
among Varo's numerous pai
creativity. Which of her pain
pentier while doing justice
andit has been compounded
comparative study involvin
to keep this study simple a
I will begin by offering s
yet another coincidence: Ca
apart - the former in 1904
in asmall town in the prov
Son of European immigran
Carpentier was destined to
ters, and his novel, Los pas
most important work but als
1950's precursor to the Boo
"[una] obra de sintesis de t
("a work that synthesizes the
as well as a work that can b
sibility of creating an autoch
a novel with a strong autob
the author's struggle to de
from the influence of his fa
Old- World conditioning.
Remedios Varo is probably n
her reputation as an artist
the Academia de San Ferna
from her conservative fam
1930. In fact, breaking fre
life-long pursuits for her. A
then returned to Barcelona
Madrid. In 1937, she marrie
That same year she and Pe
War. In Paris she came into close contact with the nucleus of surrealists:
Andre Breton, Paul Eluard, Antonin Artaud, Max Ernst, and others, and
she met Leonora Carrington, the English surrealist painter who later
REMEDIOS VARO AND CARPENTER'S LOS PASOS PERDIDOS I SANCHEZ 6 1
became her close friend, when they both lived in Mexico and shared
deep interest in spirituality as well as certain aesthetic concerns. W
the Nazis invaded France, once again Peret and Varo had to flee, and t
time (in 1941) it was to Mexico City, where they joined other Europ
artist refugees. In 1 947, the marriage between Peret and Varo ended, wi
him returning to Paris and her traveling to Venezuela to visit with fami
In 1949 she returned to Mexico and began to develop her own styl
painting, now that she had extricated herself from the relationship with
Peret. Her third marriage brought a measure of stability and financ
security to her life, and it surely had something to do with her period o
extraordinary creative activity - her "decada mexicancT - between 19
and her death in 1963, when she painted the hundred-plus paintings upo
which her reputation is based.
The narrator of Los pasos perdidos invites the reader to think of h
account as a symbolic journey back in time as well as in space, from
"present time" of the first-person narrator (the second half of the y
1950) and from a modern metropolis (New York City) to the jungl
of Latin America and to a time that predates history (the "Night of
Paleolithic Era," the early days of Genesis, with a vision of primord
chaos). His is therefore a quest for origins, and it can be read both on th
general level of human history - specifically the history of the Wes
viewed from the perspective of a Latin American male intellectual -
on the level of the individual psyche - that of the narrator, whose journ
of self-discovery is closely patterned after the archetypal hero adve
ture. Moreover, the unnamed narrator of Los pasos perdidos represen
"Western man" with an added twist: he is a composer, an artist.
Each one of the five major steps of the hero adventure myth as outlin
by Joseph Campbell in his The Hero with a Thousand Faces is represented
in Los pasos perdidos. The archetypal hero receives a wake-up call t
action that will necessitate his separating from the community; in
case of Carpentier's narrator, the role of messenger from the unknown
played by the museum Curator in the City, an elfish old acquaintance wh
suddenly pops up in his life on the first day of his vacation and wants t
send him to the Latin American jungle in search of some primitive musi
instruments. Benumbed by alcohol and drugs and totally burnt out as
artist who has sold his soul to commercial interests, the narrator at firs
resists the invitation аи voyage. Prompted by his lover, Mouche, howeve
he finally decides to embark with her on the adventure; the original plan
is to have a pleasant vacation at the expense of the museum and to f
and purchase comparable instruments in an unnamed Latin Americ
capital. The second phase of the archetypal adventure involves the cr
ing of a threshold into the

Latin America is to some ex
to correspond to the boat tri
he is rid w of Mouche, who
must now "slough off if h
relationship with Rosario,
when they were crossing th
adventure, the hero is to un
fact, Carpentier's narrator
Successful completion of th
to achieve a transforming u
his ordinary self (a cosmic
with Rosario, an Earth Moth
ment of creative awakening,
he begins to compose a mu
newly created polis of San
the hero adventure involve
to the world of ordinary, ev
tor is rescued from without
him in the jungle. As a my
bringing along a "boon" or
Carpentier's narrator choo
("The Valley Where Time H
and return immediately to
things he will need to cont
end (as already indicated in
and this new failure leads hi
Pero nada de esto se ha d

humana que esta impedid
raza de quienes hacen arte,
un ayer inmediato, represe
que se anticipan al canto у
creando nuevos testimonios
hecho hasta hoy. (329-330)
(But none of this was for m

which it is forbidden to sever the bonds of time is the race of
those who create art, and who not only must move ahead of the
immediate yesterday, represented by tangible witness, but must
anticipate the song and the form of others who will follow them,
creating new tangible witness with full awareness of what has
been done up to the moment.) (278)
He goes on to add that he would have been able to remain in the w

of Rosario and the others if his calling in life had been any other
that of composing music.
If we read Carpentier's novel on the level of the myth of rebirt
the individual hero, we see that the symbolism requires that the na
tor return to the City in order for the quest to be successful, regardle
of vocation. The narrator's explanation of why he must return - tha
as an artist he must be of his own times - is probably a concessio
novelistic realism (or perhaps it is a mid-twentieth-century version
the Romantic cult of the artist). In any case, it is intended to leave
wondering how far the narrator will go in compromising his art to
exigencies of modern life, especially when he concludes his narra
with the suggestion that he may end up being "ensordecido у pri
de vozpor los martillazos del Comitre que en algun lugar me aguar
(330) ("deafened and my voice stilled by the hammer strokes of t
Galley Master who waited for me somewhere") (278). The implicat
is that he may once again succumb to the deadening effects of life
the twentieth century. And yet as an artist he has no other recourse bu
to rejoin his own times. It is precisely at this point - the narrator's
to communicate his findings to his fellow artists - that we may det
major difference between Carpentier's understanding of the creative qu
as indicated by his narrator and that which Remedios Varo intimate
her paintings on the subject.
I have selected six paintings (besides Exploration) to illustrate Var
journey to self-discovery, creativity, and spiritual rebirth, and I wi
lude to others in passing. The fact that I will take them more or les
chronological order should not suggest that the painter was think
specifically in terms of phases in a heroic quest, although, when ta
together, the series does seem to tell that story - albeit with a pecu
feminine twist.8 The quester in most cases is female, and she seem
represent an aspect of the painter that is being examined through
painting, in other words, a symbolic self-portrait.
The first work is Ruptura, from 1955. This would correspond to
quester 's decision to embark on the adventure by separating from
community. We see a hooded woman descending a stairway, foot ext
ed, toe pointing delicately downward to suggest movement and perh
the need for balance and centering. The subject looks rather like a top t
me, though Janet Kaplan in her book on Varo detects similarities betwe
this woman and figures we might see in Catalan Romanesque paintin
She seems to be fleeing a building that is typically Spanish (accordin
Kaplan, it looks very much like the loggia one sees in one of the gar
in the Alcazar de Sevilla). T

and yet they seem to be bu
snails emerging from the wa
stairs. It is wintertime, tho
we see pieces of white pape
the white curtains in the six
the blast of wind that seem
as if her sudden departure h
we might imagine that the
to our fugitive, but when w
are nearly identical, with
asleep, and that they bear a
She shows determination, bu
cupation with what she is l
sort of dream-like trance. Ka
of tradition and of Varo's str
for the oppressive vigilanc
and adolescence and from w
the spying eyes replicate tho
sense of being watched is a
a reality. Like the snails th
(her past) along with her. Sh
Carpentier's narrator does
from the city (his is not a con
His journey of liberation tak
tongue, and happy images
authentic self. As he reaches
stages of human history, and
source of life in nature. The
his immediate past and the
the current decadent state
confining, and this percep
himself from modern times.
a tradition he believes has b
back on track, he must retur
The stage of the threshold
Varo's quester is aptly illustr
Roulotte (in English, "Gys
en marcha). The painting r
driven by a strange-lookin
the backdrop of a fantastic f
trie modes of transportation concocted by Varo to carry her subjects o

their journeys of exploration). Inside the house, at the center, there is
woman playing the piano, concentrating fully on her music. The hou
is cylindrical, with a pointed, thatched roof, and yet, if we look mor
closely at it, we discover that not only do the windows and doors ope
in many different directions at once, but that the interior has endle
depth, as if inviting us to delve ever deeper into its labyrinthian lay
ers. Varo's commentary explains that the "carricoche representa a u
hombre verdadero у armonioso, dentro de el hay todas las perspectiva
yfelizmente se transporta de аса para alia, el hombre dirigiendolo, la
mujer produciendo musica tranquilamente" ("the vehicle represents a true
and harmonious man; inside, all perspectives are allowed, and happily i
moves about from place to place, the man guiding it, the woman tranquill
producing music").10 As Kaplan points out, this statement prompts us
interpret the painting as a metaphor for the peace-of-mind and sense
security that Varo experienced with her marriage to her third husban
Walter Gruen. The house is warm and comfortable and radiates energ
outward through the golden hues of the paint (by contrast, the wood
appears silvery and dark, though not necessarily dangerous). I would ad
that the open and many-windowed structure also suggests openness t
the outside world and to the endless possibilities of inner exploration.
is not a cage or a prison, or a representation of a burdensome past. Lik
Machado's "galenas del alma'' this house can be read as a metaphor fo
the painter's soul, and she is just now beginning her journey. She is ab
to concentrate fully on her art, which is at the center of her quest, as th
piano is at the front and center of the house. The fact that the man h
his mouth covered by some sort of scarf indicates to me that even though
he helps her by moving her along, he does not interfere with what she is
doing.11 His role in this would be somewhat like that of Rosario in L
pasosperdidos. The latter accompanies the narrator during his threshol
crossing, cradling him in her arms during the storm on the boat, making
him a "home" wherever they find themselves, and not interfering wit
his "work" - remaining aloof to that aspect of him that she simply do
not understand.12
Musica solar, which like Ruptura and Roulotte, was painted in 1955,
can be read as the next phase of the quest. Here we have a powerful im
age of creativity in which a female Orpheus figure, a solitary musicia
and another symbolic self-portrait, plays the sun's rays as if they we
a stringed instrument. The effect of her music, which is represented
vibrations that spiral outward, is to awaken birds that have been encased
in pieces of a clear, lace-like fabric, and when they awaken, they turn
rosy-reddish color. The wo

made of the forest floor, and
tion we noted in the walls of
[here] has the power to affec
to the sunlight. . . . The w
instead she liberates one fo
Her unselfconscious consci
most remarkable aspects of
the painting gives of the int
female creator's awareness
the insistence on the sanctity
irrelevant. What a world of
ity made explicit in Musica
There are, nevertheless, si
begins to compose his Tren
when he is in direct contact with nature and with his own source of cre-
ativity. Like Varo's quester, he believes himself to be in tune with this
natural world as well as with himself, and a composition flows from his
creative center. Later, however, when he discovers that he cannot return
to Santa Monica de los Venados, he realizes that he was never really in
touch with Rosario and her world. He was always too self-conscious
and too intellectual to be part of this more primitive environment, and
his constant need to interpret things from the vantage point of Western
culture has interfered with his desire to fit in and to understand fully this
other that is so attractive to him. Moreover, even though he claims that
the need to have his music known is in no way an ego trip - "sin bus-
car la huera vanidad del aplauso" (293) ("without seeking the hollow
vanity of applause") (237), as he reassures himself - it is precisely this
need to share his insights with contemporary musicians, and, more than
that, to set their thinking straight ("de curar la musica de mi tiempo de
muchas torceduras" 1 1 "to cure the music of my time of many errors")
that dooms his ability to reestablish connections, that is, to return to the
Valley Where Time Has Stopped.
Another powerful image of female creativity can be found in La
creacion de las aves (1958) (Creation of the Birds), where Varo goes
farther than she did in Musica solar in suggesting both the collaborative
nature of the creative act and the artist's central role in bringing her own
creations to life. Here she has transformed her self-image into a woman
who is part owl, symbol of wisdom, and who is seated at her work table
painting a series of birds. One by one these birds take flight, apparently
by virtue of the action of a triangular prism which refracts the light from
a heavenly body through an open window onto her drawings. But t

wise and mysterious use of natural forces to animate her bird im
does not stop here; we see that the woman's paintbrush is attached to h
heart and that the chord passes through the hole in the violin that han
from her neck, as if to suggest that her heart participates in the proce
as much as her hand and her head, and that her creative process ag
involves music. At the same time we will observe that the paint on
palette, the three primary colors, is a substance which is being dist
from the stars and stored in an alchemical alembic.14 What a marvelous
image of the creative act as the disciplined balance between science and
art, reason and emotion, personal vision and natural forces, empathy and
control! As in Musica solar, the suggestion is that the artist is bringing
into existence creatures that are living wholes, and there is no sense that
it is necessary for there to be an audience to witness the miracle.15
Varo's female quester, like her male counterpart, must undergo a series
of trials to test her readiness for transformation and rebirth. Hers come in
the form of temptations or distractions from her mission rather than grave
dangers and spectacular battles with chaos monsters. Lauter, in making
her case that Varo, like other woman "mythmakers," departs radically
from the standard version of both the male and female quest story, over-
looks what I believe is a significant feature of the trials that her heroine
must undergo.16 She points out (erroneously, in my view) that Varo's
portrayal of the quest "involves no helpers, no perilous tasks, no union
with the opposite sex, and no reconciliation with the father and mother
figures."17 These, of course, are important components in Carpentier's
representation of the quest, and the dangers faced by the hero in the
jungle are "real" (that is, external to himself, not purely psychological)
even though he does not have to fight any epic battles. As we have seen,
his true enemy turns out to be himself - his old self, his ego. Lauter 's
list of "dangers" for Varo's quester are all psychological in nature and
include: 1) "finding what one already possesses (in a form detached from
the body)" (this would be in her painting Encuentro, 1959, when the
female encounters a image of herself); 2) "becoming so susceptible to
transformation that one loses one's identity altogether" (as in Mimesis,
1960, when the female has started to merge with the chair in which she
is sitting); and 3) the "less serious" problems involving "conflict with a
male figure," (as in Visita inesperada {Unexpected Visit) and Los cami-
nos tortuosos {Twisted Paths), both from 1958, as well as in Presencia
inesperada {Unexpected Presence), from 1959, and Locomocion capilar
{Capillary Locomotion), 1960). In Lauter 's view, when Varo represents
the male in her quest paintings, he comes across as a "nuisance, not as
a helper or a significant adversary."18
While the male figure in V

the crucial exception of Ro
he is presented as a mere "n
some aspect of the female q
to say that he is indeed a "sig
lascivious male as a seducer
suggests to me that Varo w
that was deep-seated. Kapla
like Presencia inesperada a
hay en los materiales inert
inesperadarnente."19 In oth
often release energies that su
keeping with the idea, well
those who choose the inwa
deeper into the self, one en
normally hidden from view
something to do with an ero
mentioned earlier indicate
and it is interesting to note
Earlier I suggested that Var
del rio Orinoco could be read as a humorous treatment of the outcome of
the quest for a sacred source, akin to Carpentier's more serious treatment
of the same theme.20 1 will go further with this interpretation and speculate
that this painting marks a turning point in Varo's representation of her
quest. Just a year later, in 1960, she painted Nacer de nuevo {Rebirth)
which portrays a literal breakthrough, or breaking through (since I believe
we are invited to see it as a process) with a naked female figure emerging
from behind a wall, entering a sort of inner sanctum in the woods where
she is privy to a vision of a vessel that looks very much like the Holy
Grail. In the Exploration the determined female traveler was dressed
in men's clothing and was staring rather gloomily at something beyond
the overflowing goblet on the table. The chalice in this later painting is
sure to remind us of the goblet, but in this case it reflects the crescent
moon, traditionally a symbol of female powers; the woman's gaze is
ecstatic, and she is in the nude and therefore has passed beyond being
concerned with her attire, be it male or female. The vegetative world,
like the woman, is both within and without the sacred space, as if the
whole were teeming with natural forces, of which she is but one, albeit
the central one. This is clearly a moment of awakening to the quester's
own greater self, which includes both her wide-eyed innocence and her
female sexuality as part of her experience. In other words, here the erotic
part of her nature is no longer perceived as a threat or as something that
could be threatened from the outside; it is totally integrated into her bei
In subsequent paintings such as La llamada (The Call) (1961) and
emergente (Emerging Light) (1962), it is evident that the woman que
has found that her source of illumination and the transforming po
she possesses lie not in nature or in anything outside herself, but rathe
solely within, where connection is made with a spiritual reality.
Varo's final painting, Naturaleza muerta resucitando (Still Life Co
ing Back to Life), completed shortly before her death in 1963, is perhap
the most remarkable in the series of portraits of the now inwardl
luminated questers - remarkable for the fact that the human figure
disappeared and, as Lauter points out, "the source of illumination has . .
been drawn into the work of art," allowing us to infer that it embodies
the accumulated wisdom of the quest." Instead of a quester, or a hu
artist at work, we have an image of what that artist sees as the model a
inspiration for her art, and perhaps what she might hope to accomp
vis-a-vis the natural world in her recreation of it. It suggests a resurrect
of cosmic proportions, as fruit which had at one time, apparently,
set on a table with eight plates as part of a scene for a still-life paintin
or for a human banquet, now spins upward and outward, as if prop
by the energy of the central candle, which stands for the mystic still-po
of the turning world. The fact that the seeds released by the smashing
the fruit immediately take root and bear fruit calls to mind the nat
cycle of birth and death which the invisible artist behind the scene
understood and tapped into. This is indeed a compelling image of w
the successful quest has revealed: it has enabled the quester / artist
align herself perfectly with the creative principle of the universe and
disappear into her creation. The dancer becomes the dance.
If by contrast Carpentier's narrator comes across as conventional
one-dimensional and far too cerebral, it may be because Carpentier
deliberately created a protagonist who, though successful on the symbo
level of the quest, nonetheless is severely limited by his historical time
circumstance. Prometheus has become a character in a novel; he retu
to being Sisyphus when he returns to the City. The point is that in
fallen world that he must live in he must continually earn his freed
he will have to continue to struggle in order to stay in contact with
source, and one of his major demons is his own ego. In one sense, V
artist hero is in a more privileged position, since her natural eleme
the timeless realm, not the real-seeming world of the time-bound nove
Her ego does not seem to be a problem. If she does confront a difficult
it would be in the area of her return to community, that is, in her ma
her vision available and understandable to others. Varo's magnific
paintings testify to her own success in bridging that gap.
Figure I . Expioracion de las fuente

permission of Walter Gruen, as are
REMEDIOS VARO AND CARPENTER'S LOS PASOS PERDIDOS I SANCHEZ 7 1
Figure 2. Ruptura. © 1 955 Remedios Varo.
Figure 3. Roulotte. © 1955 Remedio
Figure 4. Musica solar. © 1 955 Remedios Varo.
Figure 5. La creacion de las aves. © 1 958
Figure 6. Nacer de nuevo. © 1 960 Remedios Varo.
Figure 7. Naturaleza muerta resucit
NOTES
1 . I first became aware of the paintings of Remedios Varo many years ago throug
the Octavio Paz / Roger Caillois first edition of Remedios Varo (Mexico: Ediciones ERA
1966). Although they have always intrigued me, I have never known how to approac
them - until now.
2. "Inroduccion," Alejo Carpentier, Los pasos perdidos, ed. Roberto Gonzale
Echevarria (Madrid: Ediciones Catedra, 1985), 45. All quotations from Los pasos pe
didos are from this edition and are cited parenthetically by page numbers. The Englis
translations are from The Lost Steps, trans. Harriet de Onis (New York: Alfred A. Knopf
1971), with the corresponding page numbers also included parenthetically.
3 . Echevarria, "Introduccion," 4 1 .
4. Estella Lauter approaches Varo's paintings from this angle in her excellent
"Remedios Varo: The Creative Woman and the Female Quest," Chapter 4 of her Wom
as Mythmakers: Poetry and Visual Art by Twentieth-Century Women (Bloomington, I
Indiana UP, 1984), 79-97.
5. As near as I can tell, the earliest study of the connection between the stages o
the hero adventure as outlined by Joseph Campbell in his The Hero With a Thousand
Faces (New York: Pantheon, 1949) and the patterning of the story told by Carpentier
narrator can be found in my own Master's thesis, Elizabeth Doremus Sanchez, 'T
Motif of Descent into Inferno in Los pasos perdidos and Pedro Paramo" M.A. Thes
The University of Texas at Austin, 1969.
6. Lois Parkinson Zamora makes this point in her "The Magical Tables of Isabe
Allende and Remedios Varo," Comparative Literature 44.2 (1992): 113-143.
7. Echevarria, "Introduccion," 15-16.
8 . Lauter makes a similar point and carries it farther: "Although I will present Varo '
images of the female quester roughly in order of their composition, we must not delu
ourselves into thinking that they represent fixed stages of her own or any female's ques
In nine years, Varo envisioned a journey that many would not complete in a lifetim
and many of her images must have occurred to her nearly simultaneously." Women
Mythmakers, 88-89.
9. Janet Kaplan, Viajes inesperados: El arte у la vida de Remedios Varo, trans
Amalia Martin-Gamero (Mexico: Ediciones Era, 2001), 23.
10. Kaplan, Viajes inesperados, 120.
1 1 . Kaplan discovers negative aspects to this painting despite what Varo has to sa
about it: the fact that the driver is muffled and nervous-looking; that the protagonis
are totally separate from each other and looking in different directions, that the house
isolated from the rest of the world and the forest, and that it is perpetually on the mov
like a gypsy caravan. She relates these factors to the theme of human isolation, whi
she considers central to Varo's art. Since I think of the painting as a threshold crossi
into the Unknown, I am not troubled by the isolation. In fact, isolation from the human
community and self-concentration are necessary for the inner journey; the result should
put the quester in closer contact with her fellow humans as she comes to identify wi
her true self.
12. For example, when the narrator is feverishly searching for a text upon which
to base the musical composition which is at the boiling point in his brain, Rosario ("7
mujer" "Your wife," as she calls herself) responds with the kind of wisdom that calm
him and gains his respect: "Apenas si respondo a Tu mujer que se alarma de verme ta
nervioso; pero pronto deja de preg

en modo algunoa d estd obligado
se sienta en un rincon, a mis es
se le han llenado de garrapatas.
perdidos, 278 ("I hardly answered
to see me so nervous. But she fin
man can have 'bad days' and is un
brow. To keep out of my way, she
ticks off Gavilan's ears
he refers to her as "mujer de tierra" ("earth woman"), someon

the present moment, at home wherever she is.
13. Lauter, Women as Mythmakers, 83.
1 4. Several of Varo 's paintings represent connections betw
dust. Alan Friedman comments on this aspect of Varo 's paint
lar on her Papilla estelar) (Stellar Pablum) in "The Serenity
understanding of the origins and current source of sunlight,
not as a magical alternative to the most elementary scientific
a charming illustration of one of twentieth-century science's m
powerful explanations. The moon does indeed shine because u
splendor of the stars,'" in Remedios Varo: Catdlogo razonado
Ediciones Era, 2002), 78
15. In a letter to her first husband, Gerardo Lizarraga, Var
at why the latter finds it important for his talent to be reco
comprender la importancia que parece tener para ti el reco
Yo pensaba que para un creador lo importante es el crear у
era cuestion secundaria у quefama, admiracion, curiosidad d
mas bien consecuencias inevitables que cosas deseadas" ("I f
why you seem to think that it's important for your talent to b
that for a creator the important thing is to creacte and that
later is secondary and that fame, admiration, interest in the
consequences rather than things one desires") Cartas, suenosy
у notas de Isabel Castells (Mexico: Ediciones Era, 1997), 69.
16. According to Lauter, although Varo's quest "involves th
initiation, and return that Joseph Campbell has made famous,"
paintings allude to images from the female quest - the Amor
Erich Neumann analyzes in his Amor and Psyche: The Psy
Feminine, trans. Ralph Manheim (New York: Bollingen, 196
quest is radically different" from both male and female version
88. I am indebted to Lauter 's interpretation, but I differ wit
this is one of them.
17. Lauter, Women as Mythmakers, 88.
18. Lauter, Women as Mythmakers, 91-92.
19. Kaplan, Viajes inesperados, 158-59.
20. Friedman offers a very different reading of this painting
paying "affectionate tribute" to Fred Hoyle and his steady state
universe, just as it was losing ground to the big bang theory
explorer is making the discovery that Hoyle wished he could
steady state theory of the universe," that is, the goblet seems t
ing water" as a source of the Orinoco River, just as Hoyle had posited the continu
and spontaneous creation of matter from nothing to support his theory. Friedman
connects the idea of the mysteriously overflowing goblet (the mystery lies in the
that the goblet is not filled to the brim) to another scientific discovery that was popu
in the 1950's, namely that of the odd behavior of helium gas when it is cooled to w
2.2 degrees Kelvin of absolute zero. "The Serenity of Science," 81-82.

The South Central Modern Language Association, The Johns Hopkins University Press South Central Review

Hochgeladen von

Dokumentinformationen

Originaltitel

Copyright

Verfügbare Formate

Dieses Dokument teilen

Dokument teilen oder einbetten

Freigabeoptionen

Stufen Sie dieses Dokument als nützlich ein?

Sind diese Inhalte unangemessen?

Copyright:

Verfügbare Formate

The South Central Modern Language Association, The Johns Hopkins University Press South Central Review

Hochgeladen von

Copyright:

Verfügbare Formate

The South Central Modern Language Association

Carpentier's Los pasos perdidos

Elizabeth Sanchez, University of Dallas

Shakespeare, King Henry the Eighth, Act III, Scene I

As Borges might have put it (though undoubtedly with more elegance), I

© South Central Review 23.2 (Summer 2006): 58-79.

When I learned that Varo had made a journey to the interior of V

one lets down one's guard.

ing of a threshold into the

Pero nada de esto se ha d

(But none of this was for m

He goes on to add that he would have been able to remain in the w

in the Alcazar de Sevilla). T

trie modes of transportation concocted by Varo to carry her subjects o

rosy-reddish color. The wo

a heavenly body through an open window onto her drawings. But t

While the male figure in V

Figure I . Expioracion de las fuente

Figure 2. Ruptura. © 1 955 Remedios Varo.

Figure 3. Roulotte. © 1955 Remedio

Figure 4. Musica solar. © 1 955 Remedios Varo.

Figure 5. La creacion de las aves. © 1 958

Figure 6. Nacer de nuevo. © 1 960 Remedios Varo.

Figure 7. Naturaleza muerta resucit

nervioso; pero pronto deja de preg

he refers to her as "mujer de tierra" ("earth woman"), someon

Das könnte Ihnen auch gefallen