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4.1 AVERAGE
4.1 AVERAGE
challenging
dark
reflective
tense
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
i need to re-read this actually
reflective
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
challenging
funny
slow-paced
challenging
dark
emotional
reflective
sad
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
No
mysterious
reflective
fast-paced
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
3.75/5. This is philosophy and Literary fiction with a capital L - it’s a difficult, dense, and often unpleasant read filled with equal parts profundity and nonsense. It’s like Plato’s Cave mixed with Kafka’s Metamorphosis - if the protagonists had been experiencing spiritual psychosis and channeling Hegel whilst narrating.
For myself, the beginning and the end were the best parts, the parts where she speaks from the place she is in now, having gone through her ordeal. I've gone through such a spiritual transformation/disillusionment, the "after" is relatable to me and written superbly. I was very excited to read further, but I found that I had little interest in reading the protagonist's own frenetic interior breakdown and detailing of her spiritual crisis as it occurred - partly because the protagonist and I are very different people coming from different places, partly because it's repetitious and simply overdone with the hysterics - I felt like I was being shouted at. I understand why the work is written as it is, the author does a great job of putting the reader into the mind of the woman, but after a while it just becomes simultaneously overwhelming and boring (especially if you've read a lot of philosophy and have encountered, and thought through, these ideas before).
I did enjoy the glimpses into her past as well as the interaction with her literal environment (her apartment, the room, the cockroach), they helped ground the narrative. The problem is that there were not nearly enough of these glimpses to secure that grounding.
I may read some of her other work eventually, but I will likely not revisit this one.
For myself, the beginning and the end were the best parts, the parts where she speaks from the place she is in now, having gone through her ordeal. I've gone through such a spiritual transformation/disillusionment, the "after" is relatable to me and written superbly. I was very excited to read further, but I found that I had little interest in reading the protagonist's own frenetic interior breakdown and detailing of her spiritual crisis as it occurred - partly because the protagonist and I are very different people coming from different places, partly because it's repetitious and simply overdone with the hysterics - I felt like I was being shouted at. I understand why the work is written as it is, the author does a great job of putting the reader into the mind of the woman, but after a while it just becomes simultaneously overwhelming and boring (especially if you've read a lot of philosophy and have encountered, and thought through, these ideas before).
I did enjoy the glimpses into her past as well as the interaction with her literal environment (her apartment, the room, the cockroach), they helped ground the narrative. The problem is that there were not nearly enough of these glimpses to secure that grounding.
I may read some of her other work eventually, but I will likely not revisit this one.
Is Clarice Lispector the prophet of the millennial “can’t even” generation? And could that be the reason she’s so overpraised by a certain cohort of young female critics? I wonder this because a lot of Lispector’s work follows the same general pattern: a woman goes to perform a seemingly mundane task, but in the course of doing it, for reasons that are never quite clear, she becomes overwhelmed, a sort of mental paralysis sets in, and she can’t go through with whatever she was supposed to do. So millennial! In this novel G.H. has decided to spend the day cleaning her apartment -- a manageable task, one would think -- but no! Preparing to clean the maid's room, she closes the door of a wardrobe on a cockroach, not quite killing it. Then (as one does?) she spends the rest of the novel staring at the dying cockroach as the wardrobe door squeezes its whitish insides out and she has, I suppose, some sort of spiritual crisis/mystical experience. I couldn't quite piece it together, but the general tenor seemed to be: we are all just composed of physical matter, inevitably subject to decay and death, and there is no larger meaning to existence. In terms of the writing, maybe this was a translation issue but I repeatedly had the disorienting sensation of understanding all the words in a sentence but still having no clue what the sentence meant. Representative (I swear!) example:
“Contact with supersound of the atonal has an inexpressive joy that only flesh, in love, tolerates.”
If you read that and think, “Genius—I want 190 pages of that!” then this book is for you. If not, I’d recommend reading something else. It is possible, though, that this book is a profound masterpiece, and I just didn't get it. I did finish it, which suggests there's something there.
adventurous
challenging
inspiring
reflective
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
N/A
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
"Was the promise enough for me? A promise was enough for me." Menudo viaje !
Debo decir que me he pasao el libro deseando que se acabase. Se me ha hecho un tanto insoportable de leer, a la vez me ha encantado? no sabría decir y tampoco quiero darle muchas vueltas
"I know I'll need to be careful not to use furtively a new third leg that from me sprouts swiftly as weeds, and to call this protective leg a truth."
Sofía me dijo una vez que la esperanza es un medio, pero que no se puede vivir siempre de ella. "— I want the present without dressing it up with a future that redeems it, not even with a hope — until now what hope wanted in me was just to conjure away the present."
A través de esta lectura insufrible, he recordao sus palabras. No quiero sentir las cosas bajo el filtro de lo que podrán ser!! "I, who called love my hope for love."
"Hope for me was postponement. I had never let my soul free,"
Lispector deja ir la esperanza y acoge la confianza, se ha sentío precioso.
"More powerful than hope, more powerful than love? I was approaching something I think was — trust."
Debo decir que me he pasao el libro deseando que se acabase. Se me ha hecho un tanto insoportable de leer, a la vez me ha encantado? no sabría decir y tampoco quiero darle muchas vueltas
"I know I'll need to be careful not to use furtively a new third leg that from me sprouts swiftly as weeds, and to call this protective leg a truth."
Sofía me dijo una vez que la esperanza es un medio, pero que no se puede vivir siempre de ella. "— I want the present without dressing it up with a future that redeems it, not even with a hope — until now what hope wanted in me was just to conjure away the present."
A través de esta lectura insufrible, he recordao sus palabras. No quiero sentir las cosas bajo el filtro de lo que podrán ser!! "I, who called love my hope for love."
"Hope for me was postponement. I had never let my soul free,"
Lispector deja ir la esperanza y acoge la confianza, se ha sentío precioso.
"More powerful than hope, more powerful than love? I was approaching something I think was — trust."
