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Near to the Wild Heart (Penguin Modern Classics)

£9.9£99Clearance
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Thank you for this Stefanie – I knew that it was a mistake not to read the bio along with the fiction. It was a pleasant surprise, so (of course) I put a hold on it, and it arrived in a fairly short time – which is why I have the pleasure of introducing today, for the first time on the blog, the woman the Brazilian press named Hurricane Clarice. The originality of Near to the Wild Heart lies in its technique and language: self-conscious, bleakly humorous, but poetic – "The sun burst through the clouds and the little sparkles scintillating on the waters were tiny fires flaring up and dying out. Published when she was just 23, Lispector's debut novel created a sensation in her home country of Brazil. An immediate success, it became an acknowledged watershed in Brazilian literature, catapulting it into the literary arena of European modernism.

While I was reading this book, I wondered what title Lispector would have picked for the work she described as a groping in the darkness - if the choice had been hers - and I figured that the words 'night' and 'sleep' might have been involved.

By using the Web site, you confirm that you have read, understood, and agreed to be bound by the Terms and Conditions. Joana bambina accanto al padre, momento felice cui tenderà a tornare per tutta la vita, inseguendo, già adolescente e poi donna, una libertà che le impedisce di legarsi e di amare fino in fondo. Thoughts ran down these polished ropes until they quivered there, in her ankles, where the flesh was as soft as a chicken's. Leaning her forehead against the cold and shiny windowpane she gazed at the neighbor’s yard, at the big world of the hens-that-didn’t-know-they-were-going-to-die. Soon, in my own home, where I raised my daughter, I’ll have to apologize to that girl for goodness-knows-what… She’s a viper.

Still in bed, she had thought about sand, sea, drinking seawater at her dead aunt’s house, about feeling, above all feeling. Despite the fact that Joana enjoys her solitude and likes to feel free and untethered, she marries a man named Octavio anyway. I like that notion of a deity - the first one I have come across which doesn’t fill me with anger, guilt and nauseating frustration at the injustice of it all. In this scene, she enters a bathtub in one location and then, when she comes out of the tub she has changed location, changed time period, gone from being a child at home to being a teenager away at school. I’ve tried to be fair and honest here as I don’t think this book (and possibly Lispector in general) will be to everyone’s taste.Instead of obtaining myself by fleeing, I find myself forsaken, alone, tossed into a dimensionless cubicle, where light and shadows are quiet ghosts. The book’s title and epigraph come from James Joyce’s novel, Portrait of an Artist as a Young Man, but Lispector only discovered Joyce once she had finished writing Near. This one is also quite a difficult read - the translation reflects the unusual linguistic style of the original, it is poetic and largely about emotions rather than actions (there is a plot of sorts, as it follows episodes in the life of Juana from early childhood through to the decision to leave her unfaithful husband Otávio).

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