A review by lispectorsexual
The Foreign Legion by Clarice Lispector

challenging emotional reflective tense slow-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? N/A
  • Strong character development? N/A
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? No

4.25

The Misfortunes of Sofia : the surrendering of one’s painful existence to another in the hope that it shall be rendered a love that the owner is incapable of giving. Hoping that by that nature, life becomes durable living for someone else’s cause. But Sofia was frightened by the very thing she had wanted, it scared her so much she was afraid of proceeding further. Remarkable story focusing on the innocence of femininity and seeking identity in the raging storm of human existence.
“it was much too soon for me to see so much. It was much too soon for me to see how life is born. Life being born was much more bloody than dying. Dying is uninterrupted. But to see inert matter slowly trying to raise itself like a great living corpse—to see hope, filled me with fear, to see life filled me with nausea. Too much was being asked of my courage just because I was courageous, too much was being asked of my strength just because I was strong.”
“I could not decide which part of me I wanted, but I could not accept all of me; having been born was to be full of errors that needed correcting.”

The Egg and The Chicken: The egg comes before the chicken, our essence comes before us and will always guide us or forcefully take our hand to destinations we know nothing about. Those of us that are aware of this egg that exists within us, we are agents. We want to protect this egg, we sometimes try not to decipher its origins because to want to know more is to evidently know less. The story possess some terrifying existential musings written beautifully, confronting the confusion that is of existence and its agents, identity and alienation, and there were also matters of suicide involved that were told poetically.
“My mirror no longer reflects a face which can be called mine. Either I am an agent or this is truly betrayal.”
“the day is our salt, and we are the salt of the day, living is quite tolerable, living occupies and distracts, living excites laughter.”
“There was another agent who did not even need to be eliminated: he slowly consumed himself in rebellion, a rebellion which gripped him when he discovered that the handful of instructions he had received included no explanation.”
“We are those who refrain from destroying, only to be destroyed ourselves.”

The Evolution of Myopia: This part mostly centres around perception and validation. The boy wants to be perceived a certain way thus he carries himself in a manner that is to impress others. A pseudo act. Upon meeting his cousin he begins to see that she’s unmoved by his pretence and performative nature, so he’s taken aback, realising that she doesn’t care for his acts that aren’t true to his own self he begins to see things for what they are himself, his near sightedness becomes a thing of the past.
“For the first time, he, who was a creature given to moderation, for the first time, he felt himself attracted to the immoderate: an attraction for the impossible extreme. In a word, for the impossible. And for the first time he experienced passion.”

The second part really does kick off quicker, Clarice opens up to her personal world. Sharing her criticism and appreciation for certain artists and their respective art, her writing methods, observations, and philosophical ideas as well as her experiences. Sometimes written in an aphoristic style.

The Woman Burned At The Stake and The Harmonious Angels: A very much beautiful short story about a woman that is to be burned for committing the sin of infidelity. There at the place of her death is the people, the guards, the priest, her lover and husband, and the invisible angels - all watching, awaiting her death. To be burned for passionately sinning, to be burned for spreading the burning flame that lies within her heart. Throughout the entire procedure only good was spoken of the woman, from her lover and her husband. An abundantly rich prose that does not discard Clarice’s usual fragmented and poetic style. I think this was by far my favourite story, everything about it was beautiful.
“Lord, grant me the grace to sin. The freedom from temptation which you bestowed on me is too onerous a burden. Where is the water and the fire through which I have never passed? Lord, grant me the grace to sin. This candle which I have embodied and lit in Your holy name, has always burned in the light, yet I have seen nothing. But let hope open the gates of Your violent heaven: I now perceive that, if you did not destine me to be a burning torch, at least you have destined me to set the torch alight.”

Wrath: To be consumed by wrath; that which is the polar opposite of passion. The desire to cleanse one’s heart of hatred and to welcome love into their being, to acknowledge one’s crimes before acknowledging those of others. Thus all that man can do is plead towards a source outside of himself for a way, because he also believes that wanting a direct hand from God would be to taint the very pure image of God.
“My clumsy and pitiful efforts have gained me neither heaven nor earth, and I am possessed by rage. Ah, if only for one moment I might understand that this rage is directed at my own crimes and not at those of others, then this rage would be transformed into flowers in my hands; into flowers, into flowers, into delicate things, into love.”

The arrangement of these stories, that of which I cannot decipher as to whether or not it was intentional or random, but the first story being that of a coming of age and the last one being the death of a criminal, I find it quite beautiful. Her nauseating and mesmerising writing style that leaves you almost crying and disoriented is something I’ll never not appreciate. She considers writing as something that resembles an animal or a plant, something that you just have to let be and have it guide you, have it evoke your being and not the other way around. 
I rewatched her 1977 interview that was recorded months before her passing and she spoke about the sort of people that can read her work, and so she said that in order to read her, one doesn’t necessarily need intelligence, but rather the ability to feel.
The Foreign Legion shows her deep concern with the central problems of existence and individual identity. Conflicts abound between human ideals and actions, between imaginings and reality, between faith and logic.

“If I were to give a title to my life it would be: in search of my own thing” - C.L