Clarice Lispector

[Stewart]

Clarice Lispector (December 10, 1920 - December 9, 1977) was a Brazilian writer. Acclaimed internationally for her innovative novels, she was also an accomplished writer of short stories and a journalist with a regular national column.

Considered one of the greatest Brazilian prose writers of the twentieth century, Clarice Lispector was born in Chechelnyk, a shtetl in Ukraine, while her family was in transit to Brazil. By the time of their arrival in Brazil, she was two months old. Her family first settled in Macei?, Alagoas, where her mother had family relations, and later moved to Recife, Pernambuco, where she went to elementary and high school, and wrote her first essays. After her mother's death, the family moved again, to Rio de Janeiro, when Clarice was already 14 years old. There, she studied law and married her classmate Maury Gurgel Valente. After he entered the diplomatic corps she moved to Europe, living in Naples, Berne, Torquay (England), and Washington. She returned to Brazil in 1959.

Lispector was fluent in Yiddish, English, French and also had various levels of ability and knowledge in other languages, particularly Italian and German. In later life, she supported herself by translating books from English and French. She never said that she spoke Yiddish at home, but always said that her native Portuguese was the language of her heart. She never wrote in any other language.

Her family was Jewish and spoke Yiddish at home. In 1944 she published her first novel Perto do Cora??o Selvagem, translated into English as "Near the Wild Heart." When the novel was published, many claimed that her stream-of-consciousness writing style was heavily influenced by Virginia Woolf or James Joyce, but she had read neither of these authors. This novel, like all of her subsequent works, was marked by an intense focus on interior emotional states.

Lispector died of cancer in 1977, just one day before her 57th birthday, and was buried in the Jewish Cemetery of Caju, in Rio de Janeiro.

Her last novel is A Hora da Estrela, translated as The Hour of The Star, where the life of Macab?a, a poor woman living in Rio de Janeiro, is described by a narrator called Rodrigo S.M., a fictional writer. Written near the end of her life, A Hora da Estrela diverged from the themes and style of most of her work, instead directly and explicitly focusing on poverty and marginality in Brazil.





BIBLIOGRAPHY

• Perto do Cora??o Selvagem (1944) [Eng: Near To The Wild Heart]
• O Lustre (1946) [Eng: The Chandelier]
• A Cidade Sitiada (1949) [Eng: The Besieged City]
• Alguns Contos (1952) [Eng: Some Stories]
• La?os de Fam?lia (1960) [Eng: Family Ties]
• A Ma?? no Escuro (1961) [Eng: The Apple in the Dark]
• A Legi?o Estrangeira (1964) [Eng: The Foreign Legion]
• A Paix?o segundo G.H. (1964) - [Eng: The Passion According to G.H.]
• O Mist?rio do Coelho Pensante (1967) [Eng: The Mystery of the Thinking Rabbit]*
• A mulher que matou os peixes (1968) [Eng: The woman who killed the fishes]*
• Uma Aprendizagem ou O Livro dos Prazeres (1969) [Eng: An Apprenticeship or the Book of Pleasures]
• Felicidade Clandestina (1971) [Eng: Clandestine Happiness]
• A imita??o da rosa (1973) [Eng: The imitation of the rose]
• ?gua Viva (1973) [Eng: The Stream of Life]
• A Vida ?ntima de Laura (1974) [Eng: The Intimate Life of Laura]*
• A Via-crucis do Corpo (1974) [Eng: The Stations of the Body]
• Onde estivestes de Noite (1974) [Eng: Where Were You at Night]
• A hora da Estrela (1977) [Eng: The Hour of the Star]
• Para n?o Esquecer (1978) [Eng: Not to Forget]
• Quase de Verdade (1978) [Eng: Almost True] *
• Um Sopro de Vida (1978) [Eng: A Breath of Life]
• A Bela e a Fera (1979) [Eng: Beauty and the Beast]
• A Descoberta do Mundo (1984) [Eng: The Discovery of the World]
• Como Nasceram as Estrelas (1987) [Eng: How the Stars were Born]*
• Cartas perto do Cora??o (2001) [Eng: Letters near the Heart]
• Correspond?ncias (2002) [Eng: Correspondence]

* Children's book.

RELATED THREADS

• Family Ties
• The Stream Of Life
• The Hour Of The Star

RELATED LINKS

• Clarice Lispector on Wikipedia
• When It All Happened

(All text in this post is available under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License.)

[Eric]

Looking at the various links, it seems that Lispector wrote nine novels and quite a few stories. Do you know exactly how many novels and stories, have appeared in English? And which ones?

[john h]

I can give you a partial answer, Eric, but this is just based on the books of hers I've read in English. "The Apple in the Dark", "The Passion According to G.H." and "The Hour of the Star" are three novels that have come out in the states. As far as her short stories go, I know of two books--"Family Ties" and "Soulstorm".

Of these books, the ones I can most heartily recommend are "The Apple in the Dark" and "Family Ties". The other books certainly have their moments, but these two are very, very good.

[Stewart]

(via Three Percent)

Coming out later this year is Why This World, Benjamin Moser’s biography of Clarice Lispector which, according to the back jacket, is “based on previously unknown manuscripts, numerous interviews, and years of research on three continents.”

[obooki]

I'm glad JohnH recommends Family Ties and The Apple in the Dark, because those are precisely the two books I've got.

[DouglasM]

I strongly recommend "The Passion According To G.H.". It's my favorite book by Lispector. I think the narrative on this one is amazing, but it's a hard one to digest.

Clarice was clearly a sad person. There are some interviews on youtube (in portuguese) in which she speaks like there's no point in keep living at all. Too bad she died so young, guess she would give us more of her wonderful work in the next years, since her last works were somewhat of a 'crescendo', getting better and better.

[Raphael Lambach]

I strongly recommend "The Passion According To G.H.". It's my favorite book by Lispector. I think the narrative on this one is amazing, but it's a hard one to digest.

Clarice was clearly a sad person. There are some interviews on youtube (in portuguese) in which she speaks like there's no point in keep living at all. Too bad she died so young, guess she would give us more of her wonderful work in the next years, since her last works were somewhat of a 'crescendo', getting better and better.

I agree with each word you've said.
"The Passion According To G.H." has strange - however, sstrong and wonderful - way of telling and running the story.
Everything really begins when GH (a woman) kills a crockroach.

[nnyhav]

Coming out later this year is Why This World, Benjamin Moser?s biography of Clarice Lispector which, according to the back jacket, is ?based on previously unknown manuscripts, numerous interviews, and years of research on three continents.?

NYTimes review

[promtbr]

I just picked up her book Family Ties , its thin short story collection...

I randomly chose a story and read The Smallest Woman in the World... wowser. (lit crit term meaning 'wow', impresive talent)

I have been meaning to pick up that Bio.. I think I just may have to. Interesting life story from what I gather.


---

[nnyhav]

TQC offers up a consideration of Lispector by Leora Skolkin-Smith:
Words Are Living Tissue: The Hour of the Star by Clarice Lispector Quarterly Conversation

(I see I neglected to link my take on it from a few years back: Public Transport)

[Eric]

I am perhaps not as masochistic as you are Nnyhav, but I would not have directed readers to a website where someone says:

Your prose reminds me of like a drunk Liberace doing Rachmaninoff: rich, ornate, while incredibly nauseating and superficial.

For me too, there is too much of the Sch?ngeist in that little text about Lispector. The Public Transport text may be clever in itself, but gives us humbling forelock-tugging groundlings of a lesser intelligence very little information about the actual book reviewed. A critic must always remember his place in the hierarchy of de?fic cultural beings: below writers who have actually created texts out of nothing. Criticism must not become an excuse to use posh words to baffle people.

I enjoyed "Family Ties", but it's so long since I read it that I don't remember why precisely.

[nnyhav]

What, you mean that wasn't you?

(Perhaps it escaped your notice, but the blog's motto is "abstruse unfinished commentary"; neither reviewer nor critic, nor scholar, nor aspiring author, but if it provokes a bit of forelock-tugging, all the better.)

(Funny thing is that The Hour of the Star has been taken by some to be too abstruse; funny too that Lispector was something of a protoblogger, as evident in the Selected Cr?nicas, short newspaper pieces also translated by Pontiero, not listed in the bibliography above.)

(Anyways, somebody's always wrong on the Internet. For example, writers haven't created texts out of nothing since pre-Classical times, while criticism that aims high may sometimes hit the mark:
From the Editors: On the Right Way to Write Criticism Quarterly Conversation
But enough with the parentheses.)

[Eric]

Looking up the word "stochastic", I see it means something like "random" in the world of probability theory, which is not a realm into which the average book reader strays lightly. Maybe the blog should be renamed "Random Rambler" so that those of us who have not learnt mathematics for purposes of one-upmanship can understand the purport of the blog. (Regarding one-upmanship, Stephen Potter is so satisfying to read.)

You suggest that your reviews are permanently unfinished. This is a ploy borrowed from postmodernism where nothing ends or begins, has morality, in fact, exists.

I like reviews which are about the book, tell us about it in a way that doesn't spoil the story, but make it clear whether the book would be worth buying or borrowing. A review should never be a substitute for the thing it sets out to review. Many unskilled newspaper book reviewers fall into that trap, turning their review into an objet d'art. Reviewers and critics should know their place in the hierarchy (under the stairs, not in the palace gardens).

[saliotthomas]

Reviewers and critics should know their place in the hierarchy (under the stairs, not in the palace gardens).

.....and critic of critics and reviewers like your good self where should they stand?

[Mirabell]

Personally, I adore nnyhav's blog, and I recommend a lengthy stay there to you, Eric, browse a bit, it's addictive, you can lose yourself in there for quite a while.

[nnyhav]

Thx. Glad I please somebody, can't please everybody ...

back ontopic: Speak as Little as Possible: On Clarice Lispector

[Eric]

Thank-you Nnyhav, for drawing our attention to a serious, decent and informative article about Lispector that does not originate in Pseuds Corner.

It is the kind of article for the writing of which I would allow the critic-reviewer out from under the stairs for ten minutes or so, and let her stroll a little amongst the splendours of the palace gardens. But critics, reviewers, and other derivative beings must be kept on a short leash.

The style is worth emulating, as Rachel Aviv actually tackles, for instance, her Eastern European and Jewish background in an informative way, plus her psyche. Nonetheless, I suspect that most of Aviv's rather long article is, alas, a rehash of passages from Benjamin Moser's book. This is a genuine dilemma for a critic or reviewer - you've got to examine the book, but borrowing too much makes you look as if you have little to say yourself except how good or bad the book is.

I note the comment by her translator Gregory Rabassa that Lispector looked like Marlene Dietrich and wrote like Virginia Woolf. That is high and amusing praise.

I shall attempt to get hold of the Moser book on Lispector. Sounds interesting. But what is more important - I must start reading her novels, those that have been translated into languages I can read. Because I've only read the stories in "Family Ties" and nothing else. I would like to see how she tackles longer prose.

The online version of the magazine "The Nation" looks to be worth reading on occasions. I have not worked out whether it is red or blue in its political proclivities and take on life. But judging by the red colour of the title, it is likely to be right wing. Does anyone here know?

[Victor Pomp]

Moser's book is a good one. I liked it a lot.

[Raphael Lambach]

Moser has made a good work with Why this world. He's one of few who really got to understand the Lispector's universe with no harms to her work.

Who is the translator of Lispector's books to English?

[Stewart]

Who is the translator of Lispector's books to English?

Giovanni Pontiero was the translator of The Hour Of The Star. No idea on the others.