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4.23 AVERAGE
4.23 AVERAGE
WHEWWWWWWWW I KNOW THAT MY PATH HAS REACHED ITS END: I MEAN I REACHED THE DOOR OF A BEGINNING
challenging
emotional
reflective
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
Wow just wow-I felt like I was melting in a sunset while learning the secrets of the heart and everything else in the sea of the universe
challenging
emotional
funny
hopeful
reflective
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Complicated
challenging
dark
emotional
reflective
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
This... I don't know how to jumble every words I have for this but the more you read the more you ponder, about what?? about everything, even about the waging tides of the sea, why are those tides shifting, reaching the shore gently—sometimes, with force.
Lori, you are a woman with so much complexity and I #GetYou
Lori, you are a woman with so much complexity and I #GetYou
challenging
emotional
reflective
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
So beautifully written - a woman looking at herself and what she needs to do to be able to feel the joy and pain of life before be able to say she loves someone. Definitely need to reread in one sitting.
reflective
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
The structure and flow made the book a challenging read; but perhaps Lispector used these as a tool to convey the inner struggles of Lori's musings as she tried to answer her 'life questions' - how difficult it is to ask them in the first place, and how difficult it is to even arrive at answers. Finding the book's message was a surprising exercise, that required of me much re-reading of paragraphs at a time, but beautiful passages here and there made it worth while.
Lori's character was painfully complicated and layered but also beautifully human. Although the dialogue between the characters (including the ones Lori would have with herself) felt at times unrealistic (who talks like this in bars?), the questions and the process of going through thought felt very much an accurate picture of the human experience. I found Lori's 'cluelessness' and episodes 'enlightenment' very relatable - the way she'd find answers and get thrown into states of disbelief and despair while doing mundane things, etc.
Although I find that Ulisses being the love of her life is questionable (I disliked him and his mansplaining for many reasons), I did find that her journey of finding herself and her freedom through loving an Other, finding life and knowing joy was profound and mysterious and weirdly comforting. The novel ends with a colon and suggests a lack of conclusion yet feels like a proper ending.
The book honestly feels packed with more meaning than I can begin to decipher and I will probably need to give it a second read to truly grasp Lispector's thoughts, but overall it was a tough but rewarding read.
Lori's character was painfully complicated and layered but also beautifully human. Although the dialogue between the characters (including the ones Lori would have with herself) felt at times unrealistic (who talks like this in bars?), the questions and the process of going through thought felt very much an accurate picture of the human experience. I found Lori's 'cluelessness' and episodes 'enlightenment' very relatable - the way she'd find answers and get thrown into states of disbelief and despair while doing mundane things, etc.
Although I find that Ulisses being the love of her life is questionable (I disliked him and his mansplaining for many reasons), I did find that her journey of finding herself and her freedom through loving an Other, finding life and knowing joy was profound and mysterious and weirdly comforting. The novel ends with a colon and suggests a lack of conclusion yet feels like a proper ending.
The book honestly feels packed with more meaning than I can begin to decipher and I will probably need to give it a second read to truly grasp Lispector's thoughts, but overall it was a tough but rewarding read.
the boundlessness of existence, the vastnesses we inhabit… they define our need to confide in another. a yearn to externalize the otherwise paralyzing existential malaise for which we continuously fill in the gaps. performing love is a necessary vessel for shaping our being, any such love is akin to the divine love that we rely upon to inform our being.
emotional
reflective
February 2023: "Even if she were never again to feel the serious and serene power of existing and loving, as she did now, in the future she would already know what to wait for, waiting her whole life if necessary, and if necessary never again having what she was waiting for" (136).
How incredibly wild to read this novel in two incredibly different states of being, divergent geographies of the head and the heart, and to still be humbled and brought to my knees both times.
I will be a Lispector evangelist forever. Simply miraculous the way in which she speaks to processes of purification and waiting, restlessness and desire. She crafts the most poetic prose possible that isn't weighted down by its own eloquence. Phrases spring and coil. In a brief conversation with a barista who spotted my novel, she said that Lispector has the mind of a modern mystic, and it felt so right.
Can I write like this someday? Please?
"The first fresh heat of spring... but that was love! Happiness gave her a daughter's smile. She'd cut her hair and was out and about looking good. Except the waiting no longer fit inside her" (104).
December 2021: "Joy is a matter of fate."
So, I'm pretty sure the Holy Spirit and/or Clarice Lispector's ghost led me to this novel (on her birthday no less, which I didn't know at the time). Thank you, book Twitter, for recommending this incredible author. I continually thought of Virginia Woolf's stream-of-consciousness prose, combined with the existential nature of Simone Weil's musings about love. This is a strange little book, but it so thoroughly endeared itself to me. While there were some dynamics of the central relationship that made me squirm, it was so incredibly refreshing to see a love affair of the mind and acts of preparation done by both parties in order to be the fullest self and someone worthy of love.
Also, "I love you. Decipher me or I'll devour you." (!!!!) I had to put down the book. What a line.
Lispector writes beautifully about faith and the transition from girlhood to womanhood. I was touched by Lóri's prayers, and the final page's epiphany is fascinating. Did they finally reach Truth?
"Give my soul relief, let me feel that Thy hand is holding mine, let me feel that death doesn't exist because in truth we are already in eternity, let me feel that loving is not dying, that the surrender of yourself doesn't mean death but life, let me feel a modest and daily joy, let me not beg too much of Thee because the answer would be as mysterious as the question" (101).
How incredibly wild to read this novel in two incredibly different states of being, divergent geographies of the head and the heart, and to still be humbled and brought to my knees both times.
I will be a Lispector evangelist forever. Simply miraculous the way in which she speaks to processes of purification and waiting, restlessness and desire. She crafts the most poetic prose possible that isn't weighted down by its own eloquence. Phrases spring and coil. In a brief conversation with a barista who spotted my novel, she said that Lispector has the mind of a modern mystic, and it felt so right.
Can I write like this someday? Please?
"The first fresh heat of spring... but that was love! Happiness gave her a daughter's smile. She'd cut her hair and was out and about looking good. Except the waiting no longer fit inside her" (104).
December 2021: "Joy is a matter of fate."
So, I'm pretty sure the Holy Spirit and/or Clarice Lispector's ghost led me to this novel (on her birthday no less, which I didn't know at the time). Thank you, book Twitter, for recommending this incredible author. I continually thought of Virginia Woolf's stream-of-consciousness prose, combined with the existential nature of Simone Weil's musings about love. This is a strange little book, but it so thoroughly endeared itself to me. While there were some dynamics of the central relationship that made me squirm, it was so incredibly refreshing to see a love affair of the mind and acts of preparation done by both parties in order to be the fullest self and someone worthy of love.
Also, "I love you. Decipher me or I'll devour you." (!!!!) I had to put down the book. What a line.
Lispector writes beautifully about faith and the transition from girlhood to womanhood. I was touched by Lóri's prayers, and the final page's epiphany is fascinating. Did they finally reach Truth?
"Give my soul relief, let me feel that Thy hand is holding mine, let me feel that death doesn't exist because in truth we are already in eternity, let me feel that loving is not dying, that the surrender of yourself doesn't mean death but life, let me feel a modest and daily joy, let me not beg too much of Thee because the answer would be as mysterious as the question" (101).