The opening sentence, 'I hate traveling and explorers', is notable for its
irony. In general, the narrative is highly
reflexive, often critiquing itself or the author's and reader's assumed pretensions, such as a thirst for the 'exotic'. Though the writing style is fluid, almost conversational at times, the structure of the text is extremely complex, linking together numerous places, times and ideas. For example, Part One: 'An End to Journeying' connects Lévi-Strauss' first trip to Brazil in 1935 with his escape from France to
New York City in 1941 and his later visits to
South America, in a stylistic imitation of
memory. Lévi-Strauss frequently makes connections between ostensibly diverse entities or ideas to underline a point. For example, in Chapter 14, he compares the ancient cities of the Indus valley with those of the US in the mid-20th century, implying that
Mohenjo-Daro and
Harappa could be imagined as foreshadowing contemporary
Chicago or
São Paulo 'after a prolonged period of involution in the European chrysalis'. The work maintains an elegiac and poetic tone, lamenting a 'lost' New World but is tempered by a strong ambivalence, perhaps a product of the paradoxical idealized status of the anthropologist as a
'detached observer' who nevertheless remains engaged as a human participant. Lévi-Strauss provides assessments of the impact of development on the
environment, the 'shrinking' of the world through
travel and
tourism and the consequent emergence of a form of 'monoculture'. == Critical reception and influence==