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4.31 AVERAGE
4.31 AVERAGE
challenging
mysterious
Plot or Character Driven:
N/A
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
N/A
Diverse cast of characters:
N/A
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
ive read clarice lispector since i was like ten but i don’t think i ever payed enough attention to the intricacies of her stories… she leaves so much out for interpretation that the work you have to do as a reader to piece the story together completely immerses you in her world. love her forever and will be reading one of her full novels now
challenging
dark
reflective
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
What a find! I was so lucky to come across this. Lispector is such an original writer and the stories are so thought provoking. It is one big book with over eighty stories, and they are mostly stories that cannot be read one after the other. The Complete Stories has become my readers equivalent of a morning dip in the pool, and there are many such mornings to come.
I wrote that four years ago, but have since realized how difficult it is to do justice to a book of short stories, so thought I would just take one , 'The Fifth Story' and say something about it.
It tells five stories within two pages! The stories center around a narrator who prepares a recipe of sugar, flour, and plaster to kill cockroaches and an eerie significance grows with each story. There is something completely intriguing about Clarice Lispector. She is so difficult to follow at times and her writings are impossible to skim, but this very short story is a great introduction to her work. It’s one to love or hate, and it only takes five minutes to find out how you feel about it. I think it shows how important she is as a writer. It is pretty easy to find on the internet for free.
I wrote that four years ago, but have since realized how difficult it is to do justice to a book of short stories, so thought I would just take one , 'The Fifth Story' and say something about it.
It tells five stories within two pages! The stories center around a narrator who prepares a recipe of sugar, flour, and plaster to kill cockroaches and an eerie significance grows with each story. There is something completely intriguing about Clarice Lispector. She is so difficult to follow at times and her writings are impossible to skim, but this very short story is a great introduction to her work. It’s one to love or hate, and it only takes five minutes to find out how you feel about it. I think it shows how important she is as a writer. It is pretty easy to find on the internet for free.
EXTREMELY unimpressed with the introduction. This man just rambling on about how Lispector's writing is like witchcraft would be less irritating if there weren't such a long and shitty history of men associating women with witchcraft to trivialize/criminalize their work. Sometimes a woman is just weirdgood at writing and you don't have to use mysticism analogies to explain it to people. Like why are you pushing this so hard. She's not a fucking witch, dude. She's just a person who wrote things that people connected with.
Re: the stories themselves, I think short stories are like etudes and more fun to write/play than to read/listen to. Lispector's were often beautiful and bewildering but also depressing and outdated (e.g. "dusky like a Hindu", the story with "the He-she", every fat female character having intense self-loathing and/or moral deficiency, etc). Recommended for fans of Sylvia Plath.
Re: the stories themselves, I think short stories are like etudes and more fun to write/play than to read/listen to. Lispector's were often beautiful and bewildering but also depressing and outdated (e.g. "dusky like a Hindu", the story with "the He-she", every fat female character having intense self-loathing and/or moral deficiency, etc). Recommended for fans of Sylvia Plath.
challenging
emotional
mysterious
reflective
"Words precede and surpass me, they tempt and alter me, and if I am not careful it will be too late: things will be said without my having said them... My entanglement comes from how a carpet is made of so many threads that I can’t resign myself to following just one; my ensnarement comes from how one story is made of many stories."
dark
emotional
mysterious
reflective
tense
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes