Clarice Lispector

[kpjayan]

Majority of the books are translated by Giovanni Pontiero. Interestingly , The Apple in the Dark, I found, was translated by Gregory Rabassa. I never knew Gregory Rabassa has translated from Portuguese as well. Or am I mistaken ?

[Raphael Lambach]

Majority of the books are translated by Giovanni Pontiero. Interestingly , The Apple in the Dark, I found, was translated by Gregory Rabassa. I never knew Gregory Rabassa has translated from Portuguese as well. Or am I mistaken ?

I don't know. I've never read Clarice in English or another language.

[Bjorn]

Thanks to Bookslut, here's a short story by Lispector:

"The Smallest Woman in the World"

[lenz]

Thanks to Bookslut, here's a short story by Lispector:

"The Smallest Woman in the World"

I think this a beautiful story. Let's see how many readings we can have of the symbolism, subject, etc. .
Gender, of course, social satire, theories of evolution . . . . Go for it!

What an interesting scientific question: Why is there only one species of human? It seems there were very small human-like beings not very long ago, in the evolutionary scale:


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homo_floresiensis


What if they were living now? How would they be treated? I think we can imagine the terrible crimes that might be inflicted on them - Lispector certainly could. But, she seems to imagine the little woman as not being "like us;" just as she sees the "Bantu" as different from the explorer and his kind. Yet, she sympathises with the woman's feeling of love that is equally felt for the man's possessions as for the man himself. Love is love, but how do we love? What inspires love or prevents it?
The various characters reading about the woman have different reactions. I have to think more about this.

[JTolle]

Am in the midst of The Hour of the Star (1977) (trans. Giovanni Pontiero) thanks to the praise of Lispector's work I've seen at the WLF recently. And I have to say: thank you all for your excellent taste in literature, I imagine I'll be reading a lot of her work over the coming months

And to remind us why Rabassa thought she was so sexy :

[lenz]

I'm reading the biography by Benjamin Moser - Why This World . It's very, very interesting.

[JTolle]

I'm reading the biography by Benjamin Moser - Why This World . It's very, very interesting.

So, I just came across two passages in The Passion According to G.H. that had me thinking:

(1) "I shall have to frame that monstrous, infinite flesh and cut it into pieces that something the size of my mouth can take in, and the size of my eyes' vision..."

(2) "...I never learned to look without needing more than just to see. I know that I'll terrify myself like someone who was blind and then finally opened her eyes and saw - but saw what? a mute, incomprehensible triangle.... I have seen but am as blind as before because I saw an incomprehensible triangle. Unless I also transform myself into a triangle that will see in the incomprehensible triangle my own source and repetition."

The first passage sounds to me like a description of the Eucharistic host, especially with the relation of the word "monstrous" to the "monstrance" used to show the host during Mass (a connection which I imagine is still retained in the original Portuguese). And the second passage seems to be an encounter with the Trinity.

Now, I know, from what I've read, that Moser refers to Lispector as the heir of Kafka and Jewish mystical thought, and that perceives her to be a mystical writer. But, how does he address the Christianity in her work? Based on the work I've read, I'd have guessed she was a Catholic mystic.

[lenz]

So, I just came across two passages in The Passion According to G.H. that had me thinking:

(1) "I shall have to frame that monstrous, infinite flesh and cut it into pieces that something the size of my mouth can take in, and the size of my eyes' vision..."

(2) "...I never learned to look without needing more than just to see. I know that I'll terrify myself like someone who was blind and then finally opened her eyes and saw - but saw what? a mute, incomprehensible triangle.... I have seen but am as blind as before because I saw an incomprehensible triangle. Unless I also transform myself into a triangle that will see in the incomprehensible triangle my own source and repetition."

The first passage sounds to me like a description of the Eucharistic host, especially with the relation of the word "monstrous" to the "monstrance" used to show the host during Mass (a connection which I imagine is still retained in the original Portuguese). And the second passage seems to be an encounter with the Trinity.

How perspicacious of you! Lispector (or just "Clarice," as she was known in Brazil, where she was idolised, as much for her beauty as her writing) had been referred to by a journalist as a "sacred monster" and she felt that that was what she had become, causing her to withdraw from public life even more than she had wanted to, before.

From her Jewish parents, who grew up in pre-communist Ukraine, she would have learned of the "frenzy" there of Jewish and Christian mysticisms of all kinds. Her paternal grandfather was known as a "saint and wise man." A French critic compared her to St. Teresa of Avila and St. John of the Cross. As a Jew who came to reject a god who did nothing to help her "chosen" people, she sought spirituality in art. Her reading of the Christian Hermann Hesse's Steppenwolf confirmed her decision to be a writer.

Of course, in Catholic Brazil, she was surrounded by god-obsessed writers and readers. The great love of her life was (unfortunately) a Catholic gay man, Lùcio Cardoso. Moser points out a terrible conflict for gay men who did not abandon the church: they stayed because of the presence of gay men in the clergy but were also seeking redemption for their "sin" of homosexuality. Her fellow writers were mostly self-conciously "introspective" and suffered under dictatorial, anti-semitic, reactionary, etc. governments which controlled the press.

Lispector married a Catholic man, a diplomat, with whom she lived in various foreign places. She became very depressed under the restraints and demands of being a diplomat's wife -- a depression that certainly informed The Passion According to G.H. . The eating of the eternal cockroach may, I think, have something to do with her own body and blood being consumed by the world. I haven't read it yet and am a little afraid to!

As for the triangle/trinity: Moser makes no specific mention of it. I think there are several groups of three that might have inspired the image (aside from, or along with, the Christian symbolism). Herself and her parents; herself and her two sisters; herself, Cardoso, and her husband; her two sons and her husband; herself and her sons . . . I could go on about those groups, but of such a complex personality, I think you'd be wise to read Moser's book and deal with the complexities yourself.

Thanks for this chance to talk about Clarice!

[JTolle]

The great love of her life was (unfortunately) a Catholic gay man, Lùcio Cardoso.

I'd been wondering about Cardoso's influence.

I could go on about those groups, but of such a complex personality, I think you'd be wise to read Moser's book and deal with the complexities yourself.

Thanks for this chance to talk about Clarice!

I'll take that tip to heart - it seems as though Moser's done a great job! And thank you for your very revealing and informative response

[lenz]

Why This World: A Biography of Clarice Lispector by Benjamin Moser offers
what seems to be the fullest account possible of the life and thought pro-
cesses of a writer who did not like to be interviewed and whose friends and
relations speak, after her death, of a person whose behaviour and thought
processes were sometimes contradictory and bewildering.
Moser is often gushing in his praise of Lispector, placing her, I think, in a too-
exalted position in the best of 20th c. literature. He seems, at times, to
become caught up in the idolatrous mythology that her Brasilian readership
promulgated, questioning it , to be sure, but retaining some of the feverish
enthusiasm her name evoked .

For those of us who find her work strangely fascinating but, at times,
baffling, Moser goes deeply into the origins of her philosophy and artistic
desire. The history of her parents' and sisters' terrible suffering in Ukraine
and Russia during the civil war is appalling and their stoicism in the fight for
survival humbling. Lispector was born in Russia during the family's migration
from one place to another, as they sought a way out to the west and arrived
with them as an infant in Brazil in 1922. Being the youngest, she felt less the
poverty of the family's first years in their new home, but was burdened with a
sense of having to "save" her ill mother. When Mania (an apt name, unfortu-
nately) Lispector died in 1930, when Lispector was 8 years old, the
child felt burdened then with a sense of failure and guilt that lasted all her life.

"Like Kafka, she despaired; but unlike Kafka she eventually, and
excruciatingly, struck out in search of the God that had abandoned her."
"She recounted her quest" in a way that describes " the soul of a Jewish
mystic who knows that God is dead and, in the kind of paradox that recurs
throughout her work, is determined to find Him anyway."

Moser discovers the many and contradictory ideas of who and what she was
in the eyes of her admirers and detracters: " . . .a woman and a man, a native
and a foreigner, a Jew and a Christian, a child and an adult, an animal and a
person, a lesbian and a housewife, a witch and a saint."

She never liked the fawning adoration and speculation heaped upon her: "My
mystery . . . is that I have no mystery." "I need money . . . The position of a
myth is not very comfortable." "They wouldn't understand a Clarice Lispector
who paints her toenails red."

This biography is well worth reading for anyone interested in Lispector or in
how a person with a troubled soul and a mind often suicidally depressed can
find in art a means to "confess" or to express her most profound thoughts
and feelings, a voice that speaks in symbols but with disturbing clarity to her
readers.

[DouglasM]

I still have to read Moser's biography of Lispector.

Here in Brazil Clarice has a widespread cult of followers and imitators (at least they try to imitate). Also, her stunning beauty and depressive personality both contribute to promote her image as an icon. I personally don't see her as a mysterious writer. Instead, I see her as one of the most intriguing and talented human beings ever to make art. Her book "The Passion According To G.H." (initials to Gênero Humano: Human Genre) has the unique ability to tell a whole story where nothing happens and still be a masterpiece, a vortex of emotions, feelings and inner thoughts that has no equivalent in literature. The story of a woman and a cockroach throughout dozen of pages tells much more about the human being than lots of books reagarding World War II, for example.

Her friend and fellow writer Otto Lara Resende did well defining her work: "It's not literature. It's witchcraft."

As for her short story collections, my favorite is Felicidade Clandestina. I don't know about the English title, but a literal translation would be "Clandestine Happiness".

Here's an interview she gave to Brazil's TV Cultura in 1977, her only apparition on TV, right before her death by cancer: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9ad7b6kqyok
Unfortunately it doesn't have subtitles, but you can at least see her melancholic speech. At some point, the reporters asks: "You look sad. Did anything happen?". Her answer is: "I'm not that sad. I'm just sad."

Too bad she died so young. Her last words while agonizing in bed were: "Doctor, you killed my character" (or personage).

[Liam]

Coming up in June:

[Bubba]

I've tried to read one or another of Clarice's novels several times, and in Lord knows how many different languages, including Portuguese. I've never managed to finish one--or even get very far in. I think even her admirers will admit that her books can be very difficult.

And though I will happily pronounce Juan José Saer, Ricardo Piglia, César Aira, Julio Cortázar, and a lot of other Latin American writers I haven't read a lot of overrated, it's not something I'd dare do with Clarice.

There's a free pdf of the collection Felicidade Clandestina floating around online. I just read the brief title story. It was very good; maybe I'll read some more and finally get the appeal of this really rather formidable woman.

[Stevie B]

I've tried to read one or another of Clarice's novels several times, and in Lord knows how many different languages, including Portuguese. I've never managed to finish one--or even get very far in. I think even her admirers will admit that her books can be very difficult.

I've had a similar experience with Lispector's work, Bubba. Years ago, I started The Hour of the Star and decided fairly early on not to continue. Lispector might well be a good author, but I did not care for her writing style. Perhaps I prefer authors to tell me a story and not their every thought regarding how they're going to tell that story. Since Lispector is so widely praised, I've often considered giving her books another chance. Anyone have any title recommendations?

[DouglasM]

The Hour of the Star is her most traditional book, the one that less corresponds to her writing style. It's her easier book, people tend to begin knowing Lispector by reading it. But if you didn't like it, perhaps you should try the short Agua Viva. My favorite is The Passion According to G.H. She is well known for her short stories, you may want to try Felicidade Clandestina or A Legião Estrangeira (not sure of the English titles), they're easir to get into than her novels.

[Eric]

Looking on the internet today, I noticed that the (English-language) Wikipedia article on Clarice Lispector is an especially thorough one:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clarice_Lispector

Someone has put a lot of effort into that article.

[Eric]

There's also a nice set of photos of Clarice Lispector at:

http://www.claricelispector.com.br/fotos.aspx