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A review by marc129
Discovering the World by Clarice Lispector
3.0
“I'm so mysterious that I don't understand myself”
A few weeks ago, Clarice Lispector had flabbergasted me with her [b:The Passion According to G.H.|153426|The Passion According to G.H.|Clarice Lispector|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1348638958l/153426._SY75_.jpg|717921]. But after that inimitable existential monologue, this is a completely different book. It collects the articles Lispector wrote for a Brazilian newspaper between 1967 and 1973. Especially in the beginning these are kind of diary entries: the author mainly writes about events and incidents in her daily life or memories from her youth, and muses about the emotions she’s enduring, now and then. But gradually these are replaced by longer reflections and musings, and even full-fledged short stories. What struck me most is how hard Lispector is on herself: she regularly mentions how unsympathetic she feels she is, how flawed her writing is, and how she falls short in many other areas. Her introspection is not as merciless as that of Karl Ove Knausgaard, for example, but it comes close. There were some nice observations from time to time, illustrating the very intuitive way Lispector stood in life, and how she searched to capture reality through language. But overall this collection was a bit too heterogeneous for me to have the same impact as her masterpiece.
A few weeks ago, Clarice Lispector had flabbergasted me with her [b:The Passion According to G.H.|153426|The Passion According to G.H.|Clarice Lispector|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1348638958l/153426._SY75_.jpg|717921]. But after that inimitable existential monologue, this is a completely different book. It collects the articles Lispector wrote for a Brazilian newspaper between 1967 and 1973. Especially in the beginning these are kind of diary entries: the author mainly writes about events and incidents in her daily life or memories from her youth, and muses about the emotions she’s enduring, now and then. But gradually these are replaced by longer reflections and musings, and even full-fledged short stories. What struck me most is how hard Lispector is on herself: she regularly mentions how unsympathetic she feels she is, how flawed her writing is, and how she falls short in many other areas. Her introspection is not as merciless as that of Karl Ove Knausgaard, for example, but it comes close. There were some nice observations from time to time, illustrating the very intuitive way Lispector stood in life, and how she searched to capture reality through language. But overall this collection was a bit too heterogeneous for me to have the same impact as her masterpiece.