“For a long time, he leaned against the wall with his eyes closed, trying to control the hurricane of feelings that shook him to his marrow. Then, systematically, he set about destroying everything in his room.”

At the start of the novel, Alex has little ability to control his emotions and gets angry easily. His enraged reaction to his mother’s illness in this scene stands in stark contrast to the calm and self-control he discovers later in the novel.

“He felt as if he were trapped in a sci-fi nightmare, in a terrifying megalopolis of cement, steel, glass, pollution, and loneliness.”

Alex’s experience of New York City as frightening and impersonal sets the stage for his coming travel to the even more foreign setting of the Amazon. While New York is cold and manufactured, the Amazon is hot and bursting with nature, but each holds hidden dangers.

“What the book didn’t say was that this vast area, the last paradise on the planet, was being systematically destroyed by the greed of entrepreneurs and adventurers.”

From the outset, Alex is aware that outsiders come to the Amazon with an array of motives, some less pure than others. This knowledge provides important context for the behavior of the characters he meets on the expedition.