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Her writing has been described as magnetic and her devotees compared to a cult, but she is still read less widely than she should be
Published : 08 Jan 2023, 10:09 AM
From her name to her writing - where she gracefully flirted with the principles of syntax and semantics, everything about Clarice Lispector borders on a mystery. Some even go as far as calling her writing witchcraft.
Fate was gracious and, by chance, I stumbled on a book containing 85 of her short stories. I had never heard her name before, but every time I looked at her picture on the cover, a chill ran down my spine. With an authoritative face and siren eyes, Clarice cast an irrevocable spell. And reading her was an experience like no other.
What matters is the magnetic love she inspires in those susceptible to her. For them, reading Clarice Lispector is one of the great emotional experiences of their lives. But her glamour is dangerous. 'Be careful with Clarice,' a friend told a reader decades ago, using the single name by which she is universally known. 'It’s not literature. It’s witchcraft.'Benjamin Moser
Clarice Lispector proudly hauled dejection with her like a medallion. She was born on Dec 10, 1920, to a Jewish family living in Western Ukraine. But her family was swept up in the hands of the pandemonium, war and famine of the pogroms in the Russian Civil War. Her mother was raped and her grandfather was murdered. Left with no other options and without a penny to his name, her father took his family to Brazil in 1922.
At the age of nine, Clarice lost her mother. Due to anti-Semitism in Ukraine, her father was unable to get the education he wanted. With his own dreams stunted, he conceived an even bigger one for his children - “to make the whole world see what kind of daughters he had”. And so, Clarice was enrolled at The National Law Faculty of the University of Brazil. She was the first Jew to set foot in the institution. She eventually entered the world of journalism and published her first story The Triumph on May 25, 1940. But, only three months later, her father died from a botched operation. Clarice then married a diplomat in 1943 and left Brazil.
Her prolific writing really took off once she left.
The book I own is titled Complete Stories (Penguin Publications). Inside are all of Clarice’s stories, ordered chronologically. Reading them in this way allowed me to experience her growth as a writer over the years while donning different roles: daughter, wife, mother, and all-encompassing woman.
Letters to Hermengardo and The Escape are two of my personal favourites from her first batch of stories, serving to showcase Clarice's burgeoning potential. These earlier stories experiment with ideas of femininity, identity, freedom, and in a subtle way, subversion. Preciousness, from the cluster of stories named “Family Ties”, is perhaps one of the strongest pieces of anarchist literature I have come across and completely changed my perspective on the concept of perspective.
However, the peak of Clarice’s literary calibre can be seen in the stories collected under the name The Foreign Legion. All the tales here demand reader discretion - each of these stories has neither any predecessor nor any progeny, they stand alone, exalted. To me, The Burned Sinner and the Harmonious Angels is clearly her magnum opus.
"Leave her be. I fear from this woman who is ours a word that is hers.""The Burned Sinner and the Harmonious Angels" by Clarice Lispector
However, only reading Clarice Lispector does not do her justice. Understanding her personal story, and how she incorporates fragments of herself and her life into her creation, can evoke a vivid awareness in readers. This same thing can be felt when we read writers of Dostoevsky’s stature. Hence, Clarice should not be pulled away from us by the eddies of time and ignorance. She deserves to be read, understood, and cherished.
This article was written for Stripe, bdnews24.com's special publication with a focus on culture and society from a youth perspective.
