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4.1 AVERAGE
4.1 AVERAGE
reflective
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
****1/2. Think of Kafka's existential crises, Dostoevsky's relentless descent into the human condition, Proust's radical excavation of time and Borges's transformative abilities. Then forget about them, because Lispector's obsessive, rambling, delirious prose has a cadence and spirit of its own (it helps to immerse yourself in it for hours). Often demanding and obscure, switching from the mundane to the divine within the same paragraph, but at the same time filled with such an original, language (one that can feel alienating at first) that it almost becomes nauseating. It must be something to be able to read this in its original language.
challenging
reflective
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
Each verbal prose was a remedy that wholly clung to my unconscious mind. I can never accurately express what it is I have read nor the profound emotional reaction it enticed. All I can divulge is that Clarice Lispector has the articulate virtuosity that one can only ever dream of.
“I’m searching, I’m searching. I’m trying to understand. Trying to give what I’ve lived to somebody else and I don’t know to whom, but I don’t want to keep what I lived. I don’t know what to do with what I lived, I’m afraid of that profound disorder.”
“I’m searching, I’m searching. I’m trying to understand. Trying to give what I’ve lived to somebody else and I don’t know to whom, but I don’t want to keep what I lived. I don’t know what to do with what I lived, I’m afraid of that profound disorder.”
challenging
reflective
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
I couldn’t get into it. Like I get that it’s a book that you need to read without trying to understand it but it feels like reading the diary episode of someone on too much Benadryl. I’m sure it’s deep and world weary to a lot of people but I’m already weary of the world as it is and I can articulate it myself.
challenging
emotional
hopeful
inspiring
mysterious
reflective
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
N/A
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Complicated
challenging
dark
mysterious
reflective
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
Complicated
a woman kills a cockroach and proceeds to not leave the room for the rest of the book.
i read this for the first time on a fairly hefty train journey. lispector is one of the most talented writers i've come across, so as with all of her novellas i barely put it down the whole 4 something hours of the journey. did i understand anything? no! so after scouring the apparently nonexistent explanations of it online and the one singular reddit post discussing it, and getting nothing but 'existentialism' and 'metamorphosis', i decided to read it again.
i think my problem with this book was approaching it as a piece of fiction to solve, and i'd get frustrated trying to piece together its meaning. i think maybe its best enjoyed when you take it at face value and stop trying to decipher it. G. H. quite literally holds your hand throughout it, drifting you from thought to thought as she finds her truth about life from staring excessively long at the dead body of a cockroach. is there any plot? no. do i understand all of it yet? no. but lispector is a one of a kind writer and i highly recommend taking this often absurd journey with G.H.
i read this for the first time on a fairly hefty train journey. lispector is one of the most talented writers i've come across, so as with all of her novellas i barely put it down the whole 4 something hours of the journey. did i understand anything? no! so after scouring the apparently nonexistent explanations of it online and the one singular reddit post discussing it, and getting nothing but 'existentialism' and 'metamorphosis', i decided to read it again.
i think my problem with this book was approaching it as a piece of fiction to solve, and i'd get frustrated trying to piece together its meaning. i think maybe its best enjoyed when you take it at face value and stop trying to decipher it. G. H. quite literally holds your hand throughout it, drifting you from thought to thought as she finds her truth about life from staring excessively long at the dead body of a cockroach. is there any plot? no. do i understand all of it yet? no. but lispector is a one of a kind writer and i highly recommend taking this often absurd journey with G.H.
challenging
reflective
slow-paced