#penguin classics

Summers are for reading the oeuvres of (female) literary virtuosi. In the past I have read the works of Elena Ferrante and Annie Ernaux. This year I am having a Clarice Lispector summer - a term I have stolen from Zineb, who has launched a bookclub on her Substack. I suggest you check it out.

Lispector, a Ukrainian born Brazilian writer, published her first novel at age 23. Argued by Benjamin Moser in the introduction of Near to the Wild Heart, the author has had a complex life. As an infant, Lispector and her family fled from their native Ukraine amidst the pogroms committed during the Russian Civil War. The family settled in Brazil, where they faced multiple hurdles. Her mother Marieta died when Lispector was nine years old. Pedro, Lispector's father, decided to move to Rio de Janeiro to provide for a better future for his three daughters. It's in Rio that Lispector discovers the work of Herman Hesse, prompting her to write herself.

A few weeks ago I picked up The Apple in the Dark at the bookstore. The Apple in the Dark is one of Lispector's longer novels, classified by herself as the 'best one'. The novel is definitely not the ideal starting point for a Clarice Lispector deep dive, because of its length and complexity. That being said, the story is full of fascinating metaphorical phrases, such as 'there are moments that can't be narrated, they happen between trains that pass or in the air that awakens our face and gives us our final shape, and then for an instant we are the fourth dimension of whatever exists, they are moments that don't count'.

1965 - The Pilgrim's Progress (John Bunyan)

Format: Book