This is a really difficult book to review, but I think you did a great job! I'm glad to hear you enjoyed it! I think her voice is incomparable and, despite the complexity, I love that the narrative has this amazing, elegant rhythm that almost makes it seem as if those deeply philosophical sentences just came to her effortlessly. My first introduction to Lispector was Near to The Wild Heart, which was her debut (at age 23!) and I thought it was remarkable--like nothing I've read before! The narrative feels more youthful and uninhibited, but it's equally introspective and philosophical. It also contains some truly bewildering paragraphs, but it's worth the effort for the stunning moments of beautiful writing.
My first thought upon finishing the book was: "What in the world am I suppose to say about this?!" I'm fully convinced to read the rest of her bibliography. In cases like Lispector and, say, Ducornet, even when I don't understand what is going on the beauty of the sentences, as you say, is worth it all. More and more I'm becoming an aesthete, I believe.
Leaf by Leaf I can imagine it was quite a challenge! 😄 I believe it’s one of those books that reveals something new on every re-read. Ducornet is new to me, but I’m definitely curious to give her a try. I’m usually drawn to weird fiction that has beautiful sentences. I also want to check out Silvina Ocampo, who I’ve seen compared to Lispector and Angela Carter.
@@beyondtheepilogueagnes Excellent! You will love that series based on what I know, especially the last two. (Fountains of Neptune and The Jade Cabinet are sublime!)
Lispector has been in my radar for a while, love unique authors and she seems pretty sui generis, this books sounds like a good place to start, great vid
immersing myself in Clarice's "near to the wild heart" these days. with her economy of words and simplicity (being philosophical without any philosophical term), she reaches depth and nuances at the same time. I'll get this one right afterward ;)
Yeah, the abortion scene was pivotal to understanding the meaning of the novel. Further down in that paragraph, when speaking of her womb, she says: “a child’s pores devoured the food like a waiting fish mouth.” To me, this passage is about the essential inhumanity of being alive, the horror of blood and guts beneath the veneer of civilization. The passion is about entering into the realms of perceptual horror.
I am so glad you discovered Clarice Lispector. I read the Besieged City last year and raved about her in my video! I will have to pick this book up at some point. She is on point. I could be wrong but the reason I remember her making it to Brazil is that she married a Brazilian Diplomat. Anyway thanks for an in-depth video of a work of my recently discovered author. Good Job!
According to my Norton Anthology her parents moved to Brazil when she was two months old. I am so thankful to have discovered her work. I’m going to check out your Lispector video!
@@LeafbyLeaf yes. She was created in Recife, northeast Brazil, since she was one year old. She says she is completely Brazilian, and that she never had to put her feet in the Ucrânia land. When she was a teenager her family moves to Rio de Janeiro, where she studies law. Her first novel (Perto do Coração Selvagem), written when she was 20 years old, received an important Brazilian prize, and she became to make money as a chronicler to “Jornal do Brasil”. The marriage with the Brazilian diplomat happens after all that.
So good you have honored this remarkable author. Her stories are exceptional as well. The Chandelier (New Directions 2019), her second novel, partakes of the glittering interior world of Woolf, the existentialists, even Cocteau, eliding time, though she resisted comparisons to Woolf, saying it is "the terrible duty to go to the end." Benjamin Moser and Magdalena Edwards' translation from the Portuguese is gorgeous, pitched at near-unbearable intensity, "undoing the reflexive patterns of grammar, inventing a tradition." Clarice Lispector went all the way to the end.
Quite simply my favourite book by one of my favourite authors. Can't recall ever having such an intense reading experience as with this book. I buddy read it with another booktuber and we had the serendipity of setting a daily limit of 25 pages which was about the right pace.
25pp/day sounds right at the threshold of average tolerance to me, too! I read this one white-knuckled and veiny-eyed. Can't believe I hadn't discovered this gem before--such is the joy of this BookTube community!
I love clarice lispector! I read "agua viva", "near to the wild heart" and the book with all her works(and among them the passion according to G H). I started reading near to the wild heart and then I read everything written by this amazing writer. Today I've received the letter killers club by krzhizhanovsky. I think he's awesome and I'm going to buy all his books(4 in total).
Now that I've read her, I agree--she is great! I will now be reading all of her books. Thanks for putting a new (to me) writer (krzhizhanovsky) on my radar.
I first learned about Clarice Lispector from Helene Cixous' Three Steps on the Ladder To Writing -- which is quite a great work of inventive literary theory/criticism.
I’ll have to check that out. I’ve only read Cixous’s work in anthology. And Sorties, I think. I’ve read more Lispector now and need to make another video!
Awesome video, Chris. As it happens, I've read her little book Agua Viva (the title always seems to put me in mind of Aqua Velva). It was an interesting sort of 'anti-novel.' My wife had a copy because she had read it for class and mentioned how it had an excess of cat placenta in it which of course piqued my interest. I enjoyed it but wasn't blow away by it. However, I'll definitely be reading more of her and maybe this one will be the next in line.
Haha-love that excessive cat placenta hooked you! You’ve just solved a mystery for me. I was wondering what that title reminded me of, and it is precisely Aqua Velva. I quite liked this one and I, too, plan to read more of her.
For me this is one of the greatest novels of all times. Although I have read it I learned a lot about it I haven't been aware of thanks to your review.
Emília Amaral, specialist in Clarice Lispector wrote : "Clarice produced a work in which the excluded, lame, alienated, fugitives, social outcasts, maladjusted in general, can teach not from what they have, but from and through the lack, shortage, incompleteness, which is all of us - no matter how much our eyes dare not see".
Currently reading Lispector's A Breath of Life. Was wondering if you've ever had a chance of reading it? I must say, that this book is my favorite out of those I have read so far from Clarice.
The fact that this woman wasn't awarded a nobel prize for literature just goes to show how much the north hemisphere is full of colonialism and colonial bias. Clarice is a perfect Portuguese name, and although Lispector is not a Portuguese word, guess what, tens of millions of Brazilians have surnames of Japanese, Ukranian, German, French, and mostly Italian descent. Anyway, Clarice, together with Guimarães Rosa and Carlos Drummond de Andrade are some geniuses of Brazilian literature, but most people would not consider reading us because well, this is supposed to be viewed as wild jungle, and that's it.
This is a really difficult book to review, but I think you did a great job! I'm glad to hear you enjoyed it! I think her voice is incomparable and, despite the complexity, I love that the narrative has this amazing, elegant rhythm that almost makes it seem as if those deeply philosophical sentences just came to her effortlessly. My first introduction to Lispector was Near to The Wild Heart, which was her debut (at age 23!) and I thought it was remarkable--like nothing I've read before! The narrative feels more youthful and uninhibited, but it's equally introspective and philosophical. It also contains some truly bewildering paragraphs, but it's worth the effort for the stunning moments of beautiful writing.
My first thought upon finishing the book was: "What in the world am I suppose to say about this?!" I'm fully convinced to read the rest of her bibliography. In cases like Lispector and, say, Ducornet, even when I don't understand what is going on the beauty of the sentences, as you say, is worth it all. More and more I'm becoming an aesthete, I believe.
Leaf by Leaf I can imagine it was quite a challenge! 😄 I believe it’s one of those books that reveals something new on every re-read. Ducornet is new to me, but I’m definitely curious to give her a try. I’m usually drawn to weird fiction that has beautiful sentences. I also want to check out Silvina Ocampo, who I’ve seen compared to Lispector and Angela Carter.
@@beyondtheepilogueagnes Weird fiction with beautiful sentences?! Um, yes, go directly to Ducornet's Tetralogy of Elements!
@@LeafbyLeaf I just ordered The Stain. :)
@@beyondtheepilogueagnes Excellent! You will love that series based on what I know, especially the last two. (Fountains of Neptune and The Jade Cabinet are sublime!)
Lispector has been in my radar for a while, love unique authors and she seems pretty sui generis, this books sounds like a good place to start, great vid
Sui generis indeed. Go for it!
Gracias por el video principe hermoso. Muy linda tu biblioteca. ❤
immersing myself in Clarice's "near to the wild heart" these days. with her economy of words and simplicity (being philosophical without any philosophical term), she reaches depth and nuances at the same time. I'll get this one right afterward ;)
Very well put! I need to read more Lispector!
Yeah, the abortion scene was pivotal to understanding the meaning of the novel. Further down in that paragraph, when speaking of her womb, she says: “a child’s pores devoured the food like a waiting fish mouth.” To me, this passage is about the essential inhumanity of being alive, the horror of blood and guts beneath the veneer of civilization. The passion is about entering into the realms of perceptual horror.
A very astute reading of the passage, indeed!
I am so glad you discovered Clarice Lispector. I read the Besieged City last year and raved about her in my video! I will have to pick this book up at some point. She is on point. I could be wrong but the reason I remember her making it to Brazil is that she married a Brazilian Diplomat. Anyway thanks for an in-depth video of a work of my recently discovered author. Good Job!
According to my Norton Anthology her parents moved to Brazil when she was two months old. I am so thankful to have discovered her work. I’m going to check out your Lispector video!
@@LeafbyLeaf yes. She was created in Recife, northeast Brazil, since she was one year old. She says she is completely Brazilian, and that she never had to put her feet in the Ucrânia land.
When she was a teenager her family moves to Rio de Janeiro, where she studies law.
Her first novel (Perto do Coração Selvagem), written when she was 20 years old, received an important Brazilian prize, and she became to make money as a chronicler to “Jornal do Brasil”.
The marriage with the Brazilian diplomat happens after all that.
So good you have honored this remarkable author. Her stories are exceptional as well. The Chandelier (New Directions 2019), her second novel, partakes of the glittering interior world of Woolf, the existentialists, even Cocteau, eliding time, though she resisted comparisons to Woolf, saying it is "the terrible duty to go to the end." Benjamin Moser and Magdalena Edwards' translation from the Portuguese is gorgeous, pitched at near-unbearable intensity, "undoing the reflexive patterns of grammar, inventing a tradition." Clarice Lispector went all the way to the end.
The more of about about Lispector I've read, the more I am captivated.
th-cam.com/video/8Nipf2pMtZY/w-d-xo.html
Quite simply my favourite book by one of my favourite authors. Can't recall ever having such an intense reading experience as with this book. I buddy read it with another booktuber and we had the serendipity of setting a daily limit of 25 pages which was about the right pace.
25pp/day sounds right at the threshold of average tolerance to me, too! I read this one white-knuckled and veiny-eyed. Can't believe I hadn't discovered this gem before--such is the joy of this BookTube community!
I love clarice lispector! I read "agua viva", "near to the wild heart" and the book with all her works(and among them the passion according to G H). I started reading near to the wild heart and then I read everything written by this amazing writer. Today I've received the letter killers club by krzhizhanovsky. I think he's awesome and I'm going to buy all his books(4 in total).
Now that I've read her, I agree--she is great! I will now be reading all of her books. Thanks for putting a new (to me) writer (krzhizhanovsky) on my radar.
Agua Viva is an amazing book!
Hear! Hear! I’ve since read several of her books, include AV.
Beautiful analysis and very sensitive too...
Thank you, Leonardo! Very kind of you to say.
I first learned about Clarice Lispector from Helene Cixous' Three Steps on the Ladder To Writing -- which is quite a great work of inventive literary theory/criticism.
I’ll have to check that out. I’ve only read Cixous’s work in anthology. And Sorties, I think. I’ve read more Lispector now and need to make another video!
Awesome video, Chris. As it happens, I've read her little book Agua Viva (the title always seems to put me in mind of Aqua Velva). It was an interesting sort of 'anti-novel.' My wife had a copy because she had read it for class and mentioned how it had an excess of cat placenta in it which of course piqued my interest. I enjoyed it but wasn't blow away by it. However, I'll definitely be reading more of her and maybe this one will be the next in line.
Haha-love that excessive cat placenta hooked you! You’ve just solved a mystery for me. I was wondering what that title reminded me of, and it is precisely Aqua Velva. I quite liked this one and I, too, plan to read more of her.
For me this is one of the greatest novels of all times. Although I have read it I learned a lot about it I haven't been aware of thanks to your review.
It was indeed superb. Glad to hear you got something out of the video!
Nice video!!!! Clarice work are really amazing.
Thanks! Speaking of, it’s nigh time to read another Lispector!
@@LeafbyLeaf Have a nice read buddy!
👊
Emília Amaral, specialist in Clarice Lispector wrote
: "Clarice produced a work in which the excluded, lame, alienated, fugitives, social outcasts, maladjusted in general, can teach not from what they have, but from and through the lack, shortage, incompleteness, which is all of us - no matter how much our eyes dare not see".
Perfeito! Obrigado!
Clarice’s work is witchcraft
Currently reading Lispector's A Breath of Life. Was wondering if you've ever had a chance of reading it? I must say, that this book is my favorite out of those I have read so far from Clarice.
Yes, I’ve since read it and it’s wonderful. I’ve been particularly taken by The Chandelier and Hour of the Star. 🙌
The fact that this woman wasn't awarded a nobel prize for literature just goes to show how much the north hemisphere is full of colonialism and colonial bias. Clarice is a perfect Portuguese name, and although Lispector is not a Portuguese word, guess what, tens of millions of Brazilians have surnames of Japanese, Ukranian, German, French, and mostly Italian descent. Anyway, Clarice, together with Guimarães Rosa and Carlos Drummond de Andrade are some geniuses of Brazilian literature, but most people would not consider reading us because well, this is supposed to be viewed as wild jungle, and that's it.
😍😍
Her work is great!
I just ordered this one. So, I will watch once I read it. Haha
Excellent! Glad you made the purchase. Do stop back and let me know what you thought.
🌹💕
🙏