The TLS has a lovely review of a new collection, published in Gallimard’s Bilbiothèque de la Pléiade, of Lévi-Strauss’s oeuvres (but not, in fact, his ‘oeuvre’).  Apparently a must have for die-hard SM (francophone) bibliophiles, featuring fascinating new material unavailable before:

The Pléiade edition benefits from previously unpublished material from Lévi-Strauss’s recently opened archive at the Bibliothèque nationale, which gives a tantalizing glimpse backstage into his classic work. Tristes Tropiques was written in record time – almost 500 pages in the space of four months – and the original manuscript shows how this extraordinary feat was accomplished. Written on a small German typewriter that Lévi-Strauss had picked up in a bric-a-brac shop in São Paulo, the manuscript was one continuous ream of words, with no breaks for chapters. As if working up a collage, Lévi-Strauss literally cut and pasted sections from old papers and notes onto the page; whole chunks of his “petite thèse”, La Vie familiale et sociale des Indiens Nambikwara, were included verbatim, pasted onto blank pages, modified only by replacing the academic “nous” with the more intimate “je”.

Many of the aphorisms which seem to crop up spontaneously in Tristes Tropiques were actually copied directly from a green notebook that Lévi-Strauss used in Brazil, where he had jotted down ideas as they came to him, such as: “the tropics are less exotic, than out of date”, “Napoleon is the Mohammed of the West” and “le moi est haïssable” (“the self is detestable”) to which he wrote over the top in red “pas de moi = il y a un rien et un nous” (“the absence of self = there is a nothingness and an us”)…

Also published for the first time is a brief extract from his field notes. In contrast to the rich evocations in Tristes Tropiques, written fifteen years after the event, the style is businesslike – “Visites indigènes et distribution de menus cadeaux. Dîner à la nuit. Le soir allons rendre visite aux Indiens. Chants et danse”. (“See indigenous people and distribute small gifts. Dinner at night. In the evening we visit the Indians. Songs and dance”) – with frequent references back to France. Certain escarpments in the Brazilian outback were like those found in the haut Languedoc; a wooded area reminded him of forests in central France.

Wilcken’s review in the TLS suggests that this new edition includes important insights into problems of translation, both conceptual and literary, underpinning the reception of Lévi-Strauss in the English speaking world (but cf.), even mentioning certain iconic turns of phrase that inspire the untamed thought of our little  blog.