by Clarice Lispector (1973)

2024 reads, 5/22

“This text that I give you is not to be seen close up: it gains its secret previously invisible roundness when seen from a high-flying plane. Then you can divine the play of islands and see the channels and seas. Understand me: I write you an onomatopoeia, convulsion of language. I’m not transmitting to you a story but just words that live from sound.”

Água Viva seems to delicately straddle the line between novella, poetry, meditation, conversation, and monologue. It’s pretty short, but don’t let the page count fool you – I had to reread multiple passages to even attempt an understanding of her words. But if you break through her prose, you are treated with a linguistic tour de force of a novel.

“Every once in a while I’ll give you a light story— melodic and cantabile area to break up this string quartet of mine: a figurative interval to open a clearing in my nourishing jungle.”

As far as I’m aware, Água Viva is the only title of Lispector’s that isn’t translated from Portuguese. There seems to be no good translation; it can literally translate to “jellyfish,” but “stream of life,” “running water,” or even “where all flows” are better approximations. My favorite of these is “running water,” since the narrator seems to bubble up this stream-of-consciousness of never-ending thoughts. It’s filled with metaphors, fourth wall breaks, and beautiful imagery of the human condition – sometimes it’s even a bit discomforting.

Is there a plot? Not really. The most I could surmise about the narrator was that they were an artist, maybe a painter or musician, now attempting writing: the experience of writing itself, its relation to other arts, and life. This writing can be distant and seemingly cryptic. But imagery revolving around the natural world is explored as well, such as the passage where the narrator personifies different types of flowers. It’s these passages that feel like the narrator is Lispector herself – and I believe it’s her way of grounding her cosmic language with us.

“I’m going to make an adagio. Read slowly and with peace. It’s a wide fresco.”

How cool was that? The musical metaphor almost immediately morphed into an artistic metaphor – this type of contorting language is used often. It displaced me at first. But the moments where she seems disconnected from us, where she reaches the depths of the human condition (recalling de profundis, if you’ve read Near to the Wild Heart), are equally balanced by moments of direct language: we are reprieved, for the time being. The oscillation between her shallow and intense prose is yet another representation of this running water, this breathing of language, this água viva.

“For now there’s dialogue with you. Then it will be monologue. Then the silence. I know that there will be an order.”

Lispector has slowly but surely climbed her way among my favorite authors with this one. Infinitely returnable and emotionally unfiltered, there’s always something new to discover in each reread. If you’re looking for something different, give Água Viva a chance. Analyze it in depth, or let the words wash over you: you’ll be rewarded either way.

“Today I finished the canvas I told you about: curves that intersect in fine black lines, and you, with your habit of wanting to know why— I’m not interested in that, the cause is past matter—will ask me why the fine black lines? because of the same secret that now makes me write as if to you, writing something round and rolled up and warm, but sometimes cold as the fresh instants, the water of an ever-trembling stream. Can what I painted on this canvas be put into words? Just as the silent word can be suggested by a musical sound.”

Addendum: A similar experience to reading this would be listening to Tim Hecker’s ambient album Haunt Me, Haunt Me Do It Again in full; it’s a perfect pairing. Both are meditative and thought-provoking, seasoned with a slight lingering discomfort throughout.

#readingyear2024 #favorites #philosophy #wtf #physicallyowned #lispector

by Clarice Lispector (1943)

2023 reads, 11/12:

“One day she split into two, grew restless, started going out to look for herself.”

I was overjoyed to finally get back into the mystic prose of Clarice Lispector after ending last year with her final book, The Hour of the Star. Her first book, Near to the Wild Heart, written at only 23 years old, ‘follows’ the story of the amoral Joanna. From childhood to adulthood, we don't learn about her in a linear fashion, but in fleeting memories throughout her life. We know everything, yet nothing, about her; Lispector writes a minimal plot at best, opting instead for a spiritual and existential journey through the psyche of Joana through these vignettes of her life. As an example, my favorite chapter, ‘The Encounter with Otávio,’ takes place in the few minutes you are awake in the middle of the night, the ones you don’t even remember after you wake up.

“The dense, dark night was cut down the middle, split into two black blocks of sleep. Where was she? Between the two pieces, looking at them (the one she had already slept, and the one she had yet to sleep), isolated in the timeless and the spaceless, in an empty gap. This stretch would be subtracted from her years of life.”

Joana is an extremely complex character, as she is introspective yet wild, reserved yet disturbed, even violent at time; yet her actions and interactions with others (her aunt, her teacher, her husband Otávio, his old friend Lídia, etc.) take a back seat to her thoughts. Lispector even went as far as to include thoughts from the perspective of these other characters, which helped break apart all the material on Joana.

Towards the end, we are inundated with the phrase de profundis (Latin: “from the depths”), encapsulating all of Joana’s thoughts and decisions we’ve read thus far. Things start to make sense now. The remainder of the book then floods with these stream-of-consciousness monologues ‘from the depths’ of Joana, her visions and thoughts constantly bombarding the reader. In these sections, you must let the words flow through you; I even found myself having to reread passages. This style of writing is a hit or miss, but for me, I can’t wait to dive into other works of “Hurricane Clarice.”

“The two of them sank into a solitary, calm silence. Years passed perhaps. Everything was so limpid as an eternal star and they hovered so quietly that they could feel future time rolling lucid inside their bodies with the thickness of the long past which instant by instant they had just lived.”

#readingyear2023 #physicallyowned #lispector

by Clarice Lispector (1977)

2022 reads, 20/20:

“Who was she asking? God? She didn’t think about God, God didn’t think about her. God belongs to those who manage to get him.”

Clarice Lispector’s The Hour of the Star is a short but intense read about Macabéa, a poor girl who grew up living in the slums of Brazil. She is now a typist, living with four other roommates, and the most basic of human needs (including sadness and having a future) are “luxuries” to her. Paradoxically, however, since she has never experienced true happiness, she thus does not know she is unhappy. This novella explores her life, upbringing, and relationships with her aunt, roommates, and boyfriend Olímpico.

But Lispector takes this story to a whole new level of meta by playing with narrative in a groundbreaking way. Another character, Rodrigo S.M. (introducing himself by claiming he is one of the more important characters), constantly breaks from his narration to comment, lament, or flat-out complain about how he feels about the story, about writing in general, or about Macabéa. Flavors of existentialism and identity crises are interspersed, and through the introspective and dream-like writing style, the story shifts focus from Macabéa to the relationship between Rodrigo and Macabéa (could Rodrigo be doing this on purpose?).

This sort of narrative creates multiple layers of story, a third-person tale inside of a first-person novella – and I’d say that we could even extend the layers to include me, the reader of the story, and Lispector, the author of the narrator of the story (this becomes even more complicated when you realize Macabéa was based off Lispector’s childhood).

“…I substitute the act of death for a symbol of it. A symbol that can be summed up in a deep kiss but not on a rough wall but mouth-to-mouth in the agony of pleasure that is death. I, who symbolically die several times just to experience the resurrection.”

It’s short enough such that I’d recommend it to anyone, especially those who want to explore a new writing style, and what it means to narrate a story.

2022 Epilogue: This was a great year for reading. I’ve read so many books that have been on my radar for a while, as well as some unexpected finds. My top three books this year would probably be The Crying of Lot 49, Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, and The Hour of the Star – but by no means does this discount every amazing read I’ve had this year. Excited for 2023 (and to finally finish the Harry Potter series…)!

#readingyear2022 #physicallyowned #lispector