Status
Available
Call number
Genres
Publication
Amsterdam De Arbeiderspers 2018
User reviews
LibraryThing member MSarki
Note of laughable interest: My article I had linked here to hubpages was flagged for violations regarding mature adult content. That is ridiculous so I am republishing the review here again, I will also be looking for a new home for all my reviews and articles if you know of anybody needing a
Clarice Lispector's narrator G.H. claims at the end of this book that she does not understand what she is saying and it hits a note that for me was a constantly present thread throughout the bulk of my entire reading of The Passion According to G.H. Oh yes, there were many sentences I did enjoy and I knew exactly what she was saying to me. But for the most part I felt all along that she was simply hearing herself talk and wondering if she could eventually get out of the corner she had painted herself into. For six days I slowly read the pages of this accounting and it seemed I was literally stuck in that room with the bed and the frame, the door, and an oozing cockroach. I am not sure that the roach ever died, and I am really not sure if roaches ever do. I get it that I was dealing in essence here with something primordial even if it felt crepuscular instead.
Giorgio Agamben once said, "God wants gods." I used that brave quote back in 2000 to introduce my first book of poetry Zimble Zamble Zumble. It was my feeling throughout the reading of this Passion of G.H. that she herself was playing God, and I liked it, and for that reason kept myself engaged. Of course, it always helps to string good sentences along with your reader. And Clarice Lispector was very adept at doing this. She certainly wasn't a stupid girl as the proof present in her big ideas about the world we live in as well as the ones we don't. Somebody dumb would have lost too many of us with this type of thinking too much out loud. In fact, I kept swimming in her sea of doubts, lies, and wonder, thinking I might drown in her pool at some time but willing to take the exercise anyway. Again, it was similar to the indulging of my medicine every morning in order to help me keep alive. But her words a bit more pleasurable to me in a perverted sort of way.
There were many moments in my duration when I questioned what I was reading and why. Is it enough to accept a work as brilliant just because some suit or crazy professor says it is? I think not, and for that very reason I question what I read in this light even more intensely than when reading a book that has been, for the most part, unrecognized and still buried beneath the growing pile of paper refuse and cloth boards now thankfully these days being electrolyzed.
But do note there is plenty in my life I have somehow eaten and already imbibed. And there is not much I haven't tried and nothing I am in need of tasting for the very first time. Even though the cockroach and its pus was something real and an actual noun we could get our heads around, I would have preferred additional hard nouns to be present in this book. Yes, G.H. tasted of her mother's milk and found it unsalted and dead. I did not. I suckled the bulging plump tit of my youngest son's mother in order to know for my true self what a mother's milk should taste like, seeing as though my own mother kept me on a strict diet of baby formula and powdered milk products from the fifties. My own desire to taste my wife's milk, now as her husband and a new father, I am proof-positive that there was something more than a sexual impulse although that was my intended purpose for this brief and awful drink. Her breast milk had more taste than I was accustomed to. Her milk rich beyond any prior experience, and nothing I would want another taste of, ever.
Even as a young child of seven I remember all too vividly admiring my baby brother Timothy after a bath and naked on his back in the bassinet when he spontaneously let loose a stream of urine that bulls-eyed straight into my mouth. That swift-flowing stream was extremely salty and something G.H. should have considered trying if she were looking for something with a bit more bang. I continue on these present days to salt my food, but not without the constant reminder of that fateful day as a kid in a room with my mother's baby. Too add more to the palate brought on here by Lispector herself, my friend and poetry editor, Gordon Lish, wrote a brilliant short piece of his own regarding his eating of a piece of shit, a story that I could not recommend more to anyone wanting even more pizazz or have the virtual, and thus safe, experience of doing something we all probably thought of and rejected at one time or another. It is certainly something not yet evolved of our natural world out there, as I have seen pet dogs devour stray turds from time to time. Lish's story is called Wouldn't A Title Just Make It Worse? and can be found in at least three of his books.
It is documented already in many reviews regarding this book that Lispector's work was stream of consciousness. When I think of this popular handle that too many readers want to connect writers to I see Jack Kerouac feverishly typing away at his machine with that constant roll of paper piling up on the floor. Apologies perhaps may come to order here, but my personal perception of Jack Kerouac is one of a blabbering misogynist, a woeful drunk, and an extremely confused sexual being living alone with his mother. And because of my very limited exposure to Clarice Lispector I visualize a woman of beauty like Marlene Dietrich writing like Virginia Woolf, and that is just plain sexy as hell to me. Rather than terming her work as stream of consciousness I see it more as digression, but a digression vacant of the necessary nouns to make it more real and moving and something I can get my teeth around. The book was entirely too cerebral for my tastes and the few instances of actual things present in it were not enough, and made the book for me lacking. That is not to say she doesn't have a brilliant mind or that she was not beautiful in every way described by her many admirers. This being the first book of Lispector's I have been subjected to I am looking forward to reading more by this gifted writer as well as the biography so praised as the definitive work we all must read. The fact that Lispector got me to read to the bottom of the very last page is testament to her skill as a writer. I wanted to finish the book even though my head was spinning much of the time and I was curious where she might be going with it. Seems even she didn't know where the end might be, but she certainly wasn't going to stop in that room, but instead, be taken outside to dance with the band and have a welcome spin with her friends beyond that door.
I recall a section in the book towards the end about the importance of giving up. I immediately thought of my wife's entire body now suffering for eighteen months due to an injury to her hand that has affected all her nerves coming from her neck as a result of her hard fall. She suffers in ways beyond my understanding, and for her it seems often enough so pointless for her to go on living in the state she finds herself in most days. But this morning I noticed on the CBS morning news program that the spire was permanently installed on the new World Trade Center. It struck me immediately at how pointless it is for terrorists to think they can affect a change in the human condition and our need to thrive and go on. Even Samuel Beckett has written extensively of how, I Can't Go On, I'll Go On. Even in the face of these terrible hurricanes of late and all their destruction, the human will is to rebuild and pick up the pieces and go on. Of course, the many deaths counted in and by these horrendous catastrophes are so painful and unnecessary, but death being a finality we all must face in one way or another ourselves eventually. So I found myself delightfully coming full circle in my understanding of this book I had just finished a few short hours before and realized it is pointless, really, to do much of anything. But still we do. And sometimes manage to have a good time.
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somewhat irreverent, but consistent, point of view:Clarice Lispector's narrator G.H. claims at the end of this book that she does not understand what she is saying and it hits a note that for me was a constantly present thread throughout the bulk of my entire reading of The Passion According to G.H. Oh yes, there were many sentences I did enjoy and I knew exactly what she was saying to me. But for the most part I felt all along that she was simply hearing herself talk and wondering if she could eventually get out of the corner she had painted herself into. For six days I slowly read the pages of this accounting and it seemed I was literally stuck in that room with the bed and the frame, the door, and an oozing cockroach. I am not sure that the roach ever died, and I am really not sure if roaches ever do. I get it that I was dealing in essence here with something primordial even if it felt crepuscular instead.
Giorgio Agamben once said, "God wants gods." I used that brave quote back in 2000 to introduce my first book of poetry Zimble Zamble Zumble. It was my feeling throughout the reading of this Passion of G.H. that she herself was playing God, and I liked it, and for that reason kept myself engaged. Of course, it always helps to string good sentences along with your reader. And Clarice Lispector was very adept at doing this. She certainly wasn't a stupid girl as the proof present in her big ideas about the world we live in as well as the ones we don't. Somebody dumb would have lost too many of us with this type of thinking too much out loud. In fact, I kept swimming in her sea of doubts, lies, and wonder, thinking I might drown in her pool at some time but willing to take the exercise anyway. Again, it was similar to the indulging of my medicine every morning in order to help me keep alive. But her words a bit more pleasurable to me in a perverted sort of way.
There were many moments in my duration when I questioned what I was reading and why. Is it enough to accept a work as brilliant just because some suit or crazy professor says it is? I think not, and for that very reason I question what I read in this light even more intensely than when reading a book that has been, for the most part, unrecognized and still buried beneath the growing pile of paper refuse and cloth boards now thankfully these days being electrolyzed.
But do note there is plenty in my life I have somehow eaten and already imbibed. And there is not much I haven't tried and nothing I am in need of tasting for the very first time. Even though the cockroach and its pus was something real and an actual noun we could get our heads around, I would have preferred additional hard nouns to be present in this book. Yes, G.H. tasted of her mother's milk and found it unsalted and dead. I did not. I suckled the bulging plump tit of my youngest son's mother in order to know for my true self what a mother's milk should taste like, seeing as though my own mother kept me on a strict diet of baby formula and powdered milk products from the fifties. My own desire to taste my wife's milk, now as her husband and a new father, I am proof-positive that there was something more than a sexual impulse although that was my intended purpose for this brief and awful drink. Her breast milk had more taste than I was accustomed to. Her milk rich beyond any prior experience, and nothing I would want another taste of, ever.
Even as a young child of seven I remember all too vividly admiring my baby brother Timothy after a bath and naked on his back in the bassinet when he spontaneously let loose a stream of urine that bulls-eyed straight into my mouth. That swift-flowing stream was extremely salty and something G.H. should have considered trying if she were looking for something with a bit more bang. I continue on these present days to salt my food, but not without the constant reminder of that fateful day as a kid in a room with my mother's baby. Too add more to the palate brought on here by Lispector herself, my friend and poetry editor, Gordon Lish, wrote a brilliant short piece of his own regarding his eating of a piece of shit, a story that I could not recommend more to anyone wanting even more pizazz or have the virtual, and thus safe, experience of doing something we all probably thought of and rejected at one time or another. It is certainly something not yet evolved of our natural world out there, as I have seen pet dogs devour stray turds from time to time. Lish's story is called Wouldn't A Title Just Make It Worse? and can be found in at least three of his books.
It is documented already in many reviews regarding this book that Lispector's work was stream of consciousness. When I think of this popular handle that too many readers want to connect writers to I see Jack Kerouac feverishly typing away at his machine with that constant roll of paper piling up on the floor. Apologies perhaps may come to order here, but my personal perception of Jack Kerouac is one of a blabbering misogynist, a woeful drunk, and an extremely confused sexual being living alone with his mother. And because of my very limited exposure to Clarice Lispector I visualize a woman of beauty like Marlene Dietrich writing like Virginia Woolf, and that is just plain sexy as hell to me. Rather than terming her work as stream of consciousness I see it more as digression, but a digression vacant of the necessary nouns to make it more real and moving and something I can get my teeth around. The book was entirely too cerebral for my tastes and the few instances of actual things present in it were not enough, and made the book for me lacking. That is not to say she doesn't have a brilliant mind or that she was not beautiful in every way described by her many admirers. This being the first book of Lispector's I have been subjected to I am looking forward to reading more by this gifted writer as well as the biography so praised as the definitive work we all must read. The fact that Lispector got me to read to the bottom of the very last page is testament to her skill as a writer. I wanted to finish the book even though my head was spinning much of the time and I was curious where she might be going with it. Seems even she didn't know where the end might be, but she certainly wasn't going to stop in that room, but instead, be taken outside to dance with the band and have a welcome spin with her friends beyond that door.
I recall a section in the book towards the end about the importance of giving up. I immediately thought of my wife's entire body now suffering for eighteen months due to an injury to her hand that has affected all her nerves coming from her neck as a result of her hard fall. She suffers in ways beyond my understanding, and for her it seems often enough so pointless for her to go on living in the state she finds herself in most days. But this morning I noticed on the CBS morning news program that the spire was permanently installed on the new World Trade Center. It struck me immediately at how pointless it is for terrorists to think they can affect a change in the human condition and our need to thrive and go on. Even Samuel Beckett has written extensively of how, I Can't Go On, I'll Go On. Even in the face of these terrible hurricanes of late and all their destruction, the human will is to rebuild and pick up the pieces and go on. Of course, the many deaths counted in and by these horrendous catastrophes are so painful and unnecessary, but death being a finality we all must face in one way or another ourselves eventually. So I found myself delightfully coming full circle in my understanding of this book I had just finished a few short hours before and realized it is pointless, really, to do much of anything. But still we do. And sometimes manage to have a good time.
Show Less
LibraryThing member DavidCLDriedger
Literally flowed into my dreams the next night. How do you make the tautology of truth both passionate and beautiful? Here you go.
LibraryThing member b.masonjudy
I do not expect ontological questions to creep up on me. However, I think this is an unspoken request, which is why I keep returning to the work of Clarice Lispector. What force! What vexing prose! What life!
LibraryThing member jeterat
Another great read by Lispector. It's not something I would recommend to everyone, but certainly worthwhile for those interested in alternative novel structure or an introspective character.
LibraryThing member stillatim
The Passion is a strange mix of the thrilling and timeless (the central crisis is a *squashed cockroach*, which will probably be comprehensible and original when the fabled cockroaches rule the planet; the mysticism isn't original, but this nearly atheistic version of it is an interesting tweak,
Occasionally it's astonishing, and I'm sure different readers will be struck by different scenes. My memory of the book will probably be the scene itself, which I see as one of those highly schematic, brightly lit Florentine annunciations, only the angel is a half-dead roach.
Rather too often, it's also borderline unreadable. This might be a problem with the translation, but the introduction suggests that the novel is one of those "redrafting and fixing sentences would just get in the way of the authentic emotion" deals, which are close to my least favorite deals. The form is also uncomfortably close to *actual* mysticism textbooks, e.g., Margeurite Porete, which guide the reader through a series of fairly obviously artificial 'stages', breaking down one's self and getting closer to god (or, in this case, something else). No novel should aim to produce the sensations you get from reading those textbooks.
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and history suggests people will be having mystical experiences for some time) with what seems, today at least, cliche (this book could almost be a chapter from a dissertation on Deleuze and Guattari's concept of becoming-animal; there's altogether too much odor of '60s philosophy for me). Occasionally it's astonishing, and I'm sure different readers will be struck by different scenes. My memory of the book will probably be the scene itself, which I see as one of those highly schematic, brightly lit Florentine annunciations, only the angel is a half-dead roach.
Rather too often, it's also borderline unreadable. This might be a problem with the translation, but the introduction suggests that the novel is one of those "redrafting and fixing sentences would just get in the way of the authentic emotion" deals, which are close to my least favorite deals. The form is also uncomfortably close to *actual* mysticism textbooks, e.g., Margeurite Porete, which guide the reader through a series of fairly obviously artificial 'stages', breaking down one's self and getting closer to god (or, in this case, something else). No novel should aim to produce the sensations you get from reading those textbooks.
Show Less
LibraryThing member adaorhell
Exceptional. I originally tried to read at the beginning of quarantine and could not handle it. On the face -- it is the story of a woman who walks into her maids room and kills a cockroach. But it was so much more than that, and the horror goes all the way down. I got so close to where she wanted
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me to go. I have never read prose like this in my life. Show Less
LibraryThing member curious_squid
For me this is a 3.5 - 3.7 star book. I think there was a time in my 20s where it would have blown me away with its philosophical and existential themes. A thinking persons book written in an unique and effective style.
But now sometimes I just want a good story, with less descriptions of a roach.
I
But now sometimes I just want a good story, with less descriptions of a roach.
I
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can really be a philistine. Show Less
LibraryThing member bookomaniac
Don't expect a systematic review of this book from me, however brief it may be. Also a synthesis is not possible, because there is hardly a story line in it. It was clearly an overwhelming reading experience for me, as is apparent from the exceptionally high rating to my standards. The Brazilian
These few reviewing lines really don’t do justice to this book, I know, so I’ll throw in some references that were perhaps not consciously intended by Lispector (in her autobiographical book 'The Discovery of the World' she indicates that she hardly read other 'great' books): Fyodor Dostoevsky, Samuel Beckett, Virigina Woolf, Frans Kafka, etc., all these great ones come to mind as you read this intriguing text. For me – but every reader will probably see something different in it – I experienced this book essentially as a process of purification, of a (Brazilian) woman in a midlife crisis, exposing fundamental existential truths. I'm sure I'll return to this book to deepen the mind-blowing reading experience it offers.
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writer Lispector (1920-1977) offers a disjointed internal monologue of a woman who is apparently undergoing a deep existential experience; I can't put it more concisely than that. The sentences follow each other in an almost opaque manner, with constant contradictions and paradoxes, and references to situations and persons that cannot always be placed. Deep philosophical and existential musings about the universe, God, death, love, and so on, alternate with horrific acts and surrealistic performances, which are mainly triggered by the discovery of a cockroach. I was especially touched by the apt description of the universe (and therefore also God) as indifferent/neutral, a process of dehumanization that is seen by the story telling protagonist as a liberating experience, culminating in a vitalistic confession. These few reviewing lines really don’t do justice to this book, I know, so I’ll throw in some references that were perhaps not consciously intended by Lispector (in her autobiographical book 'The Discovery of the World' she indicates that she hardly read other 'great' books): Fyodor Dostoevsky, Samuel Beckett, Virigina Woolf, Frans Kafka, etc., all these great ones come to mind as you read this intriguing text. For me – but every reader will probably see something different in it – I experienced this book essentially as a process of purification, of a (Brazilian) woman in a midlife crisis, exposing fundamental existential truths. I'm sure I'll return to this book to deepen the mind-blowing reading experience it offers.
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Awards
Language
Original language
Portuguese
Original publication date
1964
ISBN
9789029514194