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4.1 AVERAGE
4.1 AVERAGE
A lot of people love this book and I can see why. It's very lyrical and complex and I thought I would appreciate the challenge of reading this. However, I think I prefer books where I can sort of imagine the story unfolding and I had an incredibly hard time doing that with this. 8 pages in and I felt like the words had me ➿➿➿➿ . Not my cup of tea and I can't imagine reading 180 pages of ➿➿➿➿.
challenging
dark
mysterious
tense
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
reflective
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
Vile and visceral— writing so good I want to bathe in it and breathe it in. Lispector lets the genius go wild in this one, giving almost 200 pages to a single scene. It is spiritual and esoteric and feminine and curdling and divine and I need more.
but also does anyone remember that vine that went “he just swallowed the roach motherfuckaaa”
dark
reflective
tense
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
I need to read this again, and again, and again throughout my life
challenging
reflective
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Complicated
I didn’t understand the book at all and I think that was done on purpose
challenging
reflective
slow-paced
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
A difficult book to rate. I fear that in trying to describe the plot and it's meaning I will end up further from "it", which might actually be a good summary of one of the big throughlines in this book. I enjoyed the unique use of language, the lyricism, the openness to interpretation and personalization, and the attempt at writing the unwritable. TW: drugs Some passages reminded me of how I used to write down various "big ideas" in my notes app whenever I was high. Reading them back, I cannot see the full picture of the idea as it gets lost into translation from thought to word, but I can feel the essence behind it. This was also how I read this book: oftentimes losing grip on the idea being conveyed to me because the language tries but ultimately isn't made for this, but still allowing the words read in partial disconnect to paint me a picture of the essence. I feel like I'm using big words to say that I didn't understand most of this book but still enjoyed it. I am left with a form of admiration for Lispector, as I cannot fully comprehend her words and thus fear and revere them. I don't understand who she had to be as a person to write this, and am therefore all the more intrigued.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Animal cruelty
Moderate: Vomit
My fifth Lispector.
A companion piece to THE APPLE IN THE DARK (which she had written before this novel), this time, with grand existential questions being asked again, from a woman's perspective. And, of course, another murder.
An affluent woman living in a penthouse in Rio enters her maid's room, gawks at its cleanliness and apparent hate the maid had for her, slams the door on a cockroach, and subsequently reels from the insect's oozing, crushed body amid a crisis of life, death, reality, and truth.
Juxtaposes an insect with a person; ostensible soullessness v. the soulful, but casts doubt upon that, collapsing life into simple, ignorant biology. Bitterly hopeful on the meaning of life—ignorance is bliss?
It may also be a riff on Kafka's THE METAMORPHOSIS, albeit metaphorically, as G.H. effectively seems to erase her humanity, situating herself (transforming, like Samsa, so to speak) on the taxonomic level of the dying, ichorous insect breathing its last below her.
A companion piece to THE APPLE IN THE DARK (which she had written before this novel), this time, with grand existential questions being asked again, from a woman's perspective. And, of course, another murder.
An affluent woman living in a penthouse in Rio enters her maid's room, gawks at its cleanliness and apparent hate the maid had for her, slams the door on a cockroach, and subsequently reels from the insect's oozing, crushed body amid a crisis of life, death, reality, and truth.
Juxtaposes an insect with a person; ostensible soullessness v. the soulful, but casts doubt upon that, collapsing life into simple, ignorant biology. Bitterly hopeful on the meaning of life—ignorance is bliss?
It may also be a riff on Kafka's THE METAMORPHOSIS, albeit metaphorically, as G.H. effectively seems to erase her humanity, situating herself (transforming, like Samsa, so to speak) on the taxonomic level of the dying, ichorous insect breathing its last below her.