A review by joannaautumn
Água Viva by Clarice Lispector

4.0

“It suddenly occurred to me that you don't need order to live. There is no pattern to follow and the pattern itself doesn't even exist: I am born.”

***

“I don’t want to have the terrible limitation of those who live merely from what can make sense. Not I: I want an invented truth.”

• The word novel loosely defines this piece of art. It has no traditional plot, the narration doesn’t follow any logical path, and there are no characters. It is living, flowing pieces of life captured on paper. It is read in a breath, in one afternoon, in under an hour, and thought about fifty times that interval afterward. It’s a monologue intended for the reader, intimate and poetical; there are certain repetitions that create a musical effect, probably sounding even better in the original Portuguese language.

The work demands to be felt rather than analyzed however, that doesn’t mean that it lacks direction or a purpose. Questions of identity, motherhood, religion, self-expression, and artistic freedom lay in the center. One of the qualities that stands out is the joyous tone underlining every written word, the consumer of this work much like the author herself is thrilled to live and just be: for a moment we cease being Seekers and we just exist, nameless, undefined, scattered in time.