88 pages • 2 hours read
Tomás RiveraAnd The Earth Did Not Devour Him
Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 1971A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides that feature detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, quotes, and essay topics.
Chapter 1
Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 1 Summary: “The Lost Year”
An unnamed boy reflects on his “lost” year (75). His memories of that time, which he thinks of as a year though it may have been longer or shorter, are hazy. He says “Hhe was always thinking and thinking and from this there was no way out” (75). He is not sure what really happened and what he dreamedt. He recalls a dream in which someone was calling him, but he could not remember his name. At one point, he realizes “he had called himself,” and that is when “the lost year began” (75).
Vignette 1 Summary
Each night, the boy drinks the glass of water his mother leaves “under the bed for the spirits” (76). The boy tells himself he will admit this to her when he grows up. Because the water disappears every night, his mother continues to fill the glass.
Chapter 1 Analysis
Together with the final chapter, the first chapter provides a frame for the stories and vignettes that make up the book. The narrator is an unnamed boy, introduced in the third person as “he” in “The Lost Year.” In subsequent chapters, he will narrate the “many things” that “he saw and heard” in the first person (75).
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